why avoid a low mileage car?

 

I've owned my 99' for a little over 2 years(27 mos.) and have 44k miles on the odometer(35k miles when I bought it). I have done only routine services with the exception of a front wheel bearing, period. Get a PPI, drive a number of 99's, and buy the best one your budget allows. Yes, there are engine failures, but the forums have a way of compounding that issue. GL

 

have a 2000.
bought it w/12500 miles; now 25k mi.
no issues and don't baby it.
have an aftermarket warranty thru AAA/Prizm.
bought it online for my own piece of mind.
if it blows, will have ins. co. pay for a new bullett.
life is short, take care of the important stuff, and have fun.
happy, healthy, and prosperous ( for a change ) new year to all.

 

if your buying *any* 996 you should have the dealership do a leak-down test and compression test and go from there... if it doesn't pass with flying colors I wouldn't touch it... it will result in failure. These two tests are good indicators of engine health.

 

What have you guys done with the REAL 996 forum? I haven't seen one post berating the OP for asking about engine failures.

 

Yeah, what's that acronym.... DAFS or something?

btw, my ninety-nine is fine.

 

shut up and buy the thing. You'll thank us later.

 

Meister, you can borrow this emoticon.

 

richri929, check your PM.

 

It's a nice change. A little less entertaining, but nice.

 

I realize the prices on the 99's are very tempting, but as a guy who actually got to come out of pocket for an engine replacement, do yourself a favor and minimize risk (in my opionion) and get an 02.

As others have stated, if you can only afford a 99 (which I presume are going for around $20K) then maybe this is not the car for you. If it were me, I would spend a little extra and get an 02. They are not immune, but seem to have fewer engine failures.

I am waiting to get into the 09' 997 - NO intermediate shaft and no RMS issues.

 

Almost exactly one year ago, I purchased a '99C4. I had a PPI done by a Porsche dealer which revealed that the car needed new rear tires, wiper blades, and serpentine belt. Also, the remote lock/unlock key function did not work, and one of the headlight washers was leaking. The only downside was that it was a high milage car with 153,000 km on the odometer. When I had the PPI done, the service manager told me that they knew the car and had serviced it regularly for many years and that it had had a complete brake job at 120,000 km. Finally, the price was very good by Canadian standards, at $28,900, which at the time would have been about $25K US. All other '99 Carreras that I could find in Canada between Toronto and Montreal were listed for $35K Canadian or more. So I proceeded to purchase my 2nd Porsche, about 30 years after selling my 1969 911T back in 1978.

After driving the car for a few weeks, I was impressed with the tight, almost new feeling. The engine had good low speed torque and pulled very strongly up to the red line. Brakes were most impressive. Gear shifting and clutch action was excellent. All my friends who drove the car agreed that I had purchased a great car at a great price.

After a couple of months I was most pleased to find that there was little of no oil consumption, and that the car would deliver excellent fuel consumption when cruising at regular highway speeds. About 8 liters/100 km, which was better than my wife's Subaru Legacy GT (turbo). So I was most pleased with all this. My only concern was that there was a lot of interior noise on the highway. Much of it was tire noise, but there was a humming, growling noise from the transmission when under light load.

So now we come to the bad part. After owning the car for about 9 months and about 10,000 km of trouble free driving, the engine failed. I won't go into details, but some of you will recall my thread about "Looking for a replacement engine". Just do a search with my user name.

So it can happen. I am not bitter or angry about it. Disappointed, yes. I wondered how Porsche can win all the races they do, and have issues with their production engines such as have been described on this forum.

BTW, I was not aware of any engine issues with 996s until a couple of months after buying the car, when I had joined this forum.

Just thought I would share my experience.

....Rickker

 

I have a 2000, with an aftermarket warranty that expires in April. I am betting my engine decides to blow up in May!

Still love the car though.

 

Buy it.
Drive it.
Enjoy it.

 

I had a used 99 C2 and sold it with 102K miles after a few years of daily driving. I had no issues except for cracked plastic coolant tank and failing alternator.

I would weigh the benefit of the lower initial purchase cost and the risk of major repairs. The risk probability can be mitigated with a good PPI and thorough service documentation i.e. any engine changes, etc. I have owned/still own over 10 Porsches, three of which have known "early model" issues: 90 964 C2, 99 996 C2, 04 Cayenne S. The 964 and 996 have both turned out to be great used, daily driver cars (I just picked up the Certified 04 Cayenne S last week so the verdict is still out). I was fortunate enough to take advantage of the bad reputation to have a much lower purchase price. Just make sure you get good service records including updates. I would think that a lot of the 99's have already been sorted by now, especially the ones that are not garage queens.

Do your Due Diligence, buy it, enjoy it, and don't look back...