MB965

Enjoy living the dream. Whatever you need to do will always be an upgrade opportunity.

Onami

Not judging you in any way, but why didn’t you do a PPI? Would the seller not allow one?

DM

Concerning the PPI, the car appeared on fleabay with a buy it now price that was spot on IMHO for the miles and provenance. It is Polar Silver, one of my top three colors. And unless the pics are altered, interior looks well cared for, especially for the miles.

I did not want to lose it to the next person in line. So I just decided to gamble and fix what needs fixing.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Onami

Makes sense. I’ve done it both ways and neither is perfect! Good luck!

Floyd540

First to "DM", congrats on your new car, it looks like and is a good one. When ever someone has gone to the effort to replace control arms or bushing then they are serious about their car. Contro arm bushings ,both front and rear are always shot on these cars due to age and then milage.
As for me, I always buy from owners.
I always survey or "PPI" the owner. I never PPI the car.
Always works.
Enjoy!

abnorm4l

Congrats! Looks taken care of.

Nurburger

Polar silver is one of the best colors on a 993.

Good move for jumping on it if the price was right in your eyes - as others have mentioned PPI's are hit / miss depending on the true knowledge of the person performing it. If this is a keeper car for you then you'll enjoy taking care of whatever needs doing to make it even better.

Congrats and welcome to the club.

needmoregarage

Congrats and enjoy in the best of health. The interior looks pristine. Sounds like you found a great seller!

jp884

Congrats! The wait is the hardest part. I wouldn’t stress on the PPI. When I bought my 993tt I did a PPi and requested a compression test and a leak down. They didn’t do the leak down because the compression was good is what they told me. Then they wanted to mod a bunch of stuff when I wanted a clean car. Told me vaguely there some oil leaks and the turbos are shot and that will be $1600 for the wonderful PPI. Got the car and it needed new LSD, new turbos and an engine out reseal all things I probably could have gathered on my own. The one thing that I wanted they didn’t do which was the leak down test. When I bought my 965 and 930 I learned from the 993 and bought the cleanest car I could find in a certain price range knowing that I will most likely have to do work anyways, so might as well save the money on some BS PPi, just make sure there’s not rust, car is straight, even gaps and records are a huge bonus.

Watson

Congrats! This 993 looks really good and well documented judging only by pictures. In this specific situation, if you managed to talk to the buyer and "bought the buyer", you should be fine! No risk, no gain!

pp000830

Congrats DM,
I have a '96 also. The key difference with this model year is that it was the first year for OBDCII and the Motronic ECU was somewhat of a prototype compared to later years. The big difference is when the non-continuous emission tests run they must all be run in a single engine-running event. If all the tests are not complete the system reverts all the test results back to a not-ready state and the drive cycle needs to be started over from a dead cold engine. Dead cold so the start-up air injector test is completed in the process. This single running event requirement has led to the experience/perception of it taking longer to complete all the tests on a '96. In later years cars each test is saved as it is completed PASS or FAIL even if the engine is turned off before all the tests are complete. Also, the '96 ECU profiles/maps are hard-burned and can not be modified without modifying the ECU hardware.
Beyond this, it has all the known issues common to the entire run of 993.

Here is a page on inspecting a car for purchase you may want to use it to look at things when you spend quality time with your car in the garage.
https://993servicerepair.blogspot.co...-purchase.html

The 993 is extremely reliable and trouble-free. Once you fix any items up front you will be able to drive it for tens of thousands of miles without intervention other than gas and oil changes.

Andy

needmoregarage

Any update? Did the car arrive? Don’t leave us hanging!!

os993

Haha, bravo and well done! Great to bring this up. I'm also now curious how it went, and hopefully it went well.

FLYT993

congrats!! awesome choice. looks like an honest/fair deal. best of luck!

DM

The 993 arrived, thank you. So the really good news is I did not get scammed and the car was real. The bad news is it was not as described by the posting that it needed nothing (we all know every used car needs something, so no surprise there). Upon my inspection it was clear that the brakes were gone so I took it to the shop that maintains my cars to give it a good once over. Now having them drop the engine to remove acorn nuts from on top of the engine and elsewhere. Stay tuned for a full report once I get it back late this week.

It is an amazing jump going from our '87 Carrera to the 993. The '87 is much more visceral, 993 light years ahead.