Shorrock

I picked the car up last Friday afternoon and drove it back to Denver covering 1700 miles in 4 days. I must say I was very surprised at the condition of the car, as in near new. Best 20 year old car I have ever seen. Owner still had the factory cigarette lighter plug in battery minder. Service gloves, tool and emergency kits have never been touched along with the spare. I don’t believe it has ever been left out overnight. All the rubber (except at the top of the door handles??) and even the felt edge on the sunroof looks new. Everything works perfectly and smoothly. The Tiptronic is probably the best matching automatic I have driven given the engines wide torque range. The engine temp appeared to drop maybe an 1/8” on the gauge toward the end of the drive and the alternator output seemed to go up about an 1/8”. Once home the oil checked clean, smelled new and right at the mark. Hitting the on ramps I slowly increased the max RPMs over the course of the trip until I was at red line in second and third toward the end of the trip. Smooth!

The service manager told me the balancer shaft belt had snapped and was curled up in the bottom. The water pump did show tell-tale signs of leaking so I did have them replace it. Everything else looked good.

Now for the questions:

The radio worked perfectly the first 4 days and then all of a sudden developed a loud static noise in the passenger side door top front speaker which is constant and independent of volume. I would like to keep the car perfectly stock so ideas on how to diagnose and repair? As I understand it there is an amp under each seat and a cross over in the door. It does have the ten speaker option.

The Blaupunkt head has the CD option but no changer. I assume the harness would not be installed since it did not come with the changer. Can a harness and changer be sourced that would be period correct or close? Anyone have an old complete system (harness, mounting brackets, changer etc.)?

Did a sunroof top bag come with the car? Would it have been grey matching the interior in case I need to start looking for one? It is the only thing I seem to be missing unless it is hiding somewhere I have not looked yet.

Are the eBay Genuine Porsche® 968 Dealer Shop Manual On CD usable/worth getting?

I am sure more questions will come up over the next few months as I get more familiar with her.

Thanks, Howard

odurandina

congrats on the purchase and welcome.....

have you changed the belts ?

Shorrock

Major service
All filters and fluids
Complete front engine service, belts, rollers, water pump etc.
DME control relay
Heater control valve
Evac and recharge A/C
Battery
Wipper blades

tamathumper

Congratulations. On my first two Porsches, I also wanted to keep them stock, but on my 968 the first thing I did was install a double-DIN DVD/NAV unit and all new speakers. The stock stuff is just horrible, IMHO.

odurandina

my bi-amped sub system came in under $3.5 k.... the door (and behind the doors) speakers can be upgraded significantly by stuffing hi-power, oversized drivers from Seas, JL Audio, Infinity, Fosgate, etc with no changes to the stock baffles.... the head units and micro-sized stock amps are old and dated.... they can simply be mothballed in a plastic bag and tossed in the basement for the day you finally sell the car.

Shorrock

The 968 is quite noisy when driving and I honestly don’t see the benefit in putting a higher quality system in unless it is just for listening when sitting which I don’t do much of or just turning it up so loud as to drown everything else out which I also quit doing a long time ago. At this point I can just put my in-ear headphones in and listen to the Ipod. It does not get any better than that.

docmirror

Please remove the drivers seat, and locate the audio amp on the floor board. It will likely be black and silver with some heat sink fins on it. Get the model number and PN and I think I have one for you. It's free just pay shipping.

The vendor part I have is AMP-OU2. Even if it isn't the exact model, it should work. The amp under the drivers seat provides audio to the front speakers and the one under the pax seat serves the rear. Make sure you are correctly identifying the channel.

ernie9468

First congrats & welcome to ours forum.The 968 if maintenain up to date & not abuse should last you a long time.Looking at your post #8 you did the rigth kind of maintenance which is A1.The 968 motor is pretty realable & should be left stock & not tempered with (except maybe for a chip & the air boxe mod which should give you a little more HP)where you want to spend your money is on wheels & good tires (if not already 17") if you I'll think seriously about them + they give you a wider choice of tires than the 16".Suspension is the key word on those car,keep away from the ultra Super Duper expensive mod,a good adjustable front supension match to a M030 sway bar & a good pair of rear sport/HD shocks will do the job with the rigth tires/wheels combo,the oem rotors-calipers combine with the rigth brakes pads are more than adequate for a street/spirit driven car so don't throw your money down the drain for those so call (big brakes kit unless you track the car).One mod that I personally couln't do without is my 968 CS steering wheel but here again it's expensive & also a question of taste.Exterior once again leave it alone except for the euro signals ligth which most of us here have already done.Btw we are addicted to pics on this forum so don't be shy sending some.Have fun

Shorrock

Thank you very much for the offer. I will dig into it this weekend.

mbardeen

I have the factory (it says porsche on it) CD Changer and harness unused in my car. I'm not sure if I'll part with it yet, but if I do, I'll let you know.

Service manuals can be found on the net.
http://www.2010.cannell.co.uk/manual...s_porsche.html

docmirror

No, they can't. They haven't been on that site for a long time. The site doesn't even load anymore, but that could be a temporary issue. I looked there many times, and the 968 manuals are gone, if they were there before.

odurandina

to upgrade the brakes or not....



for those guys like Ernie who got out from under the bondage of that hideous stock steering wheel, i can relate about a funny thing with upgrading the brakes... @ 90 k miles i changed the brakes to the GTS Rotors, big black calipers and hard track pads..... now, it's 75 k miles later and the brakes are barely showing any wear !! now, to be fair, i put on tons of highway miles, but still do my fair share of stop and go and commuting. but 75 k miles ? so, where the hell could the wear be ?

1. obviously, some is in the rear brakes. but i changed out the rear pads and rotors 40 k miles ago, and still i'm showing only about 30% wear on the rear pads !

2. that leaves the front rotors..... but really, this isn't so bad, if i end up with 150 k miles on the pads and 150 k miles out of the rotors and change them both out at the same time.

Reasons why this is a very reasonable upgrade....

1. our calipers are getting old, and require rebuilds or replacement.

2. my oem pads were about done, and my front rotors were about 1/2 done.

3. my oem calipers found a very good home.

4. the rotors, and calipers were purchased from Suncoast Porsche during the Thanksgiving midnight madness sale back in '08, for a huge discount.... i think the entire brake package cost like, $1,200.... but, remember, i needed the Rotors and pads anyway.

5. as we can see from above, big brakes last way, WAY longer.


but the plot thickens..... no midnight madness sale ? no worries;

O'Reilly's Auto parts now has the GTS front brake pads for $46.99

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/de...ds%21s%21shoes


so, let's review.

1. new calipers — (cuz the cars are frigging 20 years old).

2. new rotors — (replacement to larger rotor).

3. new pads — (replacement from $40 dollar pbr pads to $46.99 pads is no big deal).

4. the new brakes take much longer to wear out.... (when i reach the time when the pads and rotors eventually need replacement, i'm wondering if the net cost over the old oem equ. will be zero.... probably, leaving only the cost of the caliper replacement).

5. big brakes look good.

6. it's not as good as one of XSChop's Wilwood kits, but still pretty good.


conclusion;

brake upgrades are worth it if you plan on keeping your cars.


.

tamathumper

Cannell.co.uk is being rebuilt, to get off the old FrontPage platform he was running. He's supposedly working on reloading the manuals.

docmirror

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Porsche-968-...sories&vxp=mtr

Sunroof bag.

Shorrock

According to the owner and the previous owner from new (his brother-in-law) the car did not come with a sun roof bag. Was it just a dealer accessory? I just wanted to make sure I was not missing something that should have been there from the factory with the initial delivery.