chamilka

There is a 1986 944 turbo for sale in my area by a dealer, I inspected it, test drove it. The price is $5000. Following is list of issues with this particular car. I would like your honest opinion: is this a good project or something that I should stay away from. My intention is to be able to breakeven when I sell it after enjoying it for few years. I have had vintage Porsches (928s,928S4) and fairly handy but not to en extent that be able to completely overhaul an engine.
The car: 1986 944 Turbo, white/beige, 58k original miles, two owners, carfax is good, mileage is actual and documented. No previous maintenance record available.
Option Codes:
C02 – Catalytic Converter
348 – Forged wheels – Grand Prix White
395 16″ Forged Alloy Wheels (944/944S) (944 Turbo)
425 – Rear Window Wiper
Q86 - not sure what this is?
Condition: exterior and interior 4 out of 10:
• Paint is pretty bad, some indication of very tiny rust spots in multiple places under the paint.
• The car must have been stored outside at some point- some moisture in the hatch carpets, so hatch is leaking.
• The carpets need to be replaced. The seats, dashboard (no cracks), steering wheel and other plastic stuff look really good and no need for any restoration.
Engine and transmission
• Car starts well but runs little harsh, turbo is really weak and I think it will need to be replaced or rebuild. The clutch will need to be replaced soon.
• Transmission is good
Is $5000 a good price?
Thank you Chamilka

User 52121

Sounds like a money pit to me.

With no service records, you're going to want to do belts (timing and balance) and water pump pretty much ASAP. If you pay a shop to do it, figure ~$1200. Do it yourself, a few hundred bucks in parts and an afternoon.

Low on power and running harsh means you've got some other stuff going on. My '86 has almost 160k on it, and I'm always impressed by how smooth my 951 runs. My daily driver is a 2005 Audi A6 - so that's what I compare the smoothness to.

Rust almost always means someone improperly fixed something previously. Collision or something and not fixed "right." Generally these cars don't rust on their own.

New carpet's a few hundred bucks depending on the online vendor. Depending on how long the carpet has been wet and sitting, you might have rust hiding underneath.

Once you start rooting around in there, you'll probably find more stuff wrong. Considering the exterior of the car, it sounds like this car probably hasn't been maintained all that well. My bet is, the dealer saw "Porsche" and figured he could make a profit.

$5k sounds high to me. Considering you'd have to dump money into it right away, I'd say just tack that money onto your initial budget, spend $6-7k and find a straight car with all the maintenance already done.

refresh951

58k original miles? How is the mileage documented?

gpr8er

you are about to be sucked into the votex. These cars are now 25+ years old and a low mileage car really doesn't mean too much. You can bet just about every piece of rubber under the hood is petrified. A clutch job is about 13 hours book time + parts. Resale?? forget about recouping your "investment". You will be upside down before you wallet hits the floor. These cars have now trickled down to the enthusiast that is willing to drop major dough on a car that when done right can be a reliable fun toy. But if you are not doing virtually all the work yourself it really doesn't make sense imo.

chamilka

Thank you kindly for the information. I think I will take your advice and abandon the idea then.
About the original mileage question: the carfax indicates second owner got it around 15k and kept it for over 16 years, Dealer has the new title which shows the current mileage.

BTW- I have not been able to locate a good 944 Turbo for less than 9k. Almost all of them have extremely high mileage, or TMU (true mileage unknown) or title issues (rebuilt title etc). I had call almost every car in under $8k in cars.com .
Thanks again

black944 turbo

You will end up spending more 9k on this one by the time it is done. I looked for mine for 2 years and had a budget of 8k. I ended up spending a good bit more than that, due to the fact that I found a very nice car that was loved. At the end of the day I don't regret it and it has been a wonderful car for 9 years now.

gpr8er

That's the ticket, buy a car that someone else has spent all the money for proper maintenance. These cars will break you fast if you have to pay to resurrect a car that has been neglected. That's why I said a low mileage car is somewhat irrelevant given the age of the car.

chamilka

Thanks all!!

black944 turbo

gp, you hit the nail on the head. Everyone on here always wants a low mileage car (including me when I bought mine), but in actualality a high mileage good condition car is MUCH MUCH better than a low mileage car simply because it has been used and taken care of. I bought mine with 66k miles and it has been great, however the first few years of use where expensive due to normal age items popping up. Now that the car has 107k on it (still looks and drives the same as when I bought it) it is much easier to keep up with as all the old items have been changed.

p5th

Chamika, first of all good luck w/search. 2nd, if you can muster a grand more there is a very nice 951 for sale in cars fs section of site( no connection to owner). I would save some time,$ and heartache and check here first.Most of those sold here are being given away for 1/2 of true value. For about $10,000+/_ you can get a car already set up pretty well.

User 52121

Ditto on the "high mileage vs. low mileage" argument.

I bought my 951 a few months after a friend of mine did. He looked at the one I bought, back when he was still shopping, and passed on it because of the mileage. Wound up buying one with only ~60k on it, and paid ~$9k for it. Car was for sure super clean, beautiful condition. And he's pretty much had to throw the same money at it as I have at mine. RMS failed, reference sensors failed, few other things. At the end of the day he really hasn't saved himself anything. At this point, a 25 year old car is going to have stuff fail because of AGE instead of USAGE. A car that's been used will already have those parts replaced. A car that hasn't been used still has all those "original low mileage parts" left to fail!

My advice? Don't worry so much about mileage when buying one. Unless you're aiming for a concours cream puff (I'm guessing you're not since you're looking at $5k examples) then mileage will not help you any. Find one that comes with a binder full of receipts, that's had all of the "common" stuff taken care of. A 150,000 mile car with all the maintenance up to date will last you longer than a 60,000 mile car with unknown history.

And don't forget - these '80s cars are pretty easy to roll the odo. It's also pretty easy to swap in a used gauge cluster. The odo's on these cars have a tendency to stop working if you hit the trip-meter reset button while the car is rolling... so it's entirely possible that the odo was broken for a while. Based on the condition of the car you describe, I have my doubts about the accuracy of the odo.

mtnman82

+1 and I say that from experience - Well worth the wait/$$ to find a well sorted one. After resealing most of the engine (and the rest needs it...), replacing the clutch, and a multitude of other 'little' things I'm now on to the headgasket (which was suspect shortly after I bought it).

I bought from someone who turned out to be a shady character - If'n I were to do it all over again I'd wait it out on Rennlist for a nice example from someone who's been here for a while and has taken care of the car.

chamilka

You guys are going to kill me , Well I bought the beast, I located the previous owner who had it since 1989, he explained the car and all the things he had done, surprisingly he is a very reputable Porsche owner whom I have heard in the past ( he had won Porsche car shows etc.) Anyway long story short got the car inspected, all it need was a tune up and the car drives like a dream now, interior will need lot of clean up and in the process of detailing outside (compound, polish and wax) now.
Thanks all for your help!!!
I will post pic soon

Ben951S

Ha, moment of weakness... But hey, you're in now! Post pics and things you need help with!

ausgeflippt951

Neeeeoooooooooooooooooooo. What have you done???!!!

In all seriousness, best of luck. We'll be here for you if you need late night help (because your cycling valve and tps died simultaneously, followed shortly by one of your hoses). Welcome to the community -- for all of the headache these cars give us, they're well worth it. Phenomenal cars.

I've owned two 951's, and despite being the same year, color, etc, they are very different cars. The first I owned was near-perfect cosmetically. It had low miles and was beautiful. Unfortunately I wound up replacing damn near every mechanical component on the car. She wound up getting t-boned in a hit and run with some illegals. So, I bought her replacement, a car that was cosmetically not perfect but mechanically had had a ton of work done to it (and upgrades!). It also had higher mileage.

Well, I bought the totaled 951 from insurance, put the interior into the new car, and then finished the mechanical work. She's been an amazing car that has been super reliable, despite the mileage. Just took the car in for an alignment and the guy tells me it's one of the best 951s he's seen.

...crap, now I've surely jinxed myself. Dammit.