T4hir

Howde.
Yup, have gone through the newbie section, very informative.
However, I am now actively seeking to get a 928 and have short listed a few. I prefer a dark colour but have seen a post '90 red coloured one which meets my criteria but am worried about the colour fade as the red paintwork tended to fade and dull in those times, was the Porsche colour finish in guards red prone to fade and becoming dull? Photo of car seems ok but shows it in showroom under artificial lighting. Would be grateful for any suggestions.....

FredR

Guard's red is about the worst colour possible for paint fade as are all red shades- it is a pigment thing.

My lat S4 had to be re-painted when it was about 10 years old and I have seen Guard's red 911's with serious paint fade after 5 years of exposure. Contrary to what some may think, the UV exposure over here is not particularly high as there is a lot of dust in the air that seems to filter it but of course it can be rather hot with a black body exposure temperature of 82 degrees max. Maybe the pigment is sensitive to this.

BMW's seem to fare worse than Porsches and invariably shades of red fail more frequently than others. You can often get improvement with tee cutting/polishing etc but once the paint system has failed time to start again. Modern protective barriers do wonders however and are a must for red if you re-paint to that colour spec.

Regards

Fred

T4hir

Thanks Fred.
Will walk away from this red one, need to focus on the other dark coloured ones (blue/black) on the list. Quite difficult to balance year/spec/etc. Any tips? Am trying to go for the post '90 GTS models but some are quite pricey!

FredR

My late S4 was Guard's Red and amazing after it was repainted by the local main delears so anything is possible but of course a repaint in Blightly is probably a very expensive proposition.

A good starting point for 928's for sale in the UK is 928.org.uk and you can expect to pay at least 10k sterling for anything likely to be worth having- onwards and upwards. Look for a full Porsche service history or provenence with a credible 928 expert such as Paul Anderson in Stroud.

The hard core nuts like the 89 GT as it was kitted with a mechanical rear diff and of course the hotter cams. Later GT's have the PSD system which I have on problem with. The S4's are exclusively automatic transmission [pretty robust MB originated boxes with Porsche designed valve body] from about 89 onwards.

Whereas the GTS is generally more desirable and cosmetically more appealing to most, the early GTS models are infamous for oil consumption and the conrods are perceived to be weak. 94/95 models had this issue rectified and are the GTS variants of choice. some folks, myself included, believe the 928 was not as well finished as the earlier S4's/GT's.

Low mileage is no absolute indicator- far from it. If it has been run regularly it may still be fine but if it has stood idle for long periods buyer beware.

The 88 SE is probably the model of choice [a sort of early GT] but they are few and far between and have mag alloy wheels amongst other features.

If I wer ein the market I would prefer a 94 or 95 manual GTS, but again rather difficult to come by but they do come up.

finallly- the auto versus manual debate- I find the auto is great for street type driving but how I wish it had the gearbox of my Cayenne Turbo S. For hard charging/track days I would love to have a manual tranny. Thus you really need one of each!

You will also find a few examples on autotrader but whatever you do, unless you are absolutely sure of its provenance, always get a prepurchase inspection from someone who knows 928 inside out and there are not too many these days.

I did consider purchasing a left hooker GT to bring over here after I lost my late S4. I had Adrian in Cambridge do a PPI inspection on it as i could not be there. It ran well but Adrian discovered a misalignment of the panels on the lower A pillar line suggesting some significant but undocumented accident history- I walked away from it.

Good luck

Fred