Hi all, I am a clueless newbie - now I have got that out of the way you will hopefully be a bit less harsh on the bashing and the car I own.

I own a 1998 996 Carrera 2 Cab, completely stock (apart from a dansk sport exhaust and quad pipes) with fried-egg lights and pumpkins and realise that I will be likely ridiculed for practically every single aspect of my car

Having read a great many articles and posts on self-destructing 996's I thought I would post my own little bit of history on here too.

My old man bought the car in around 99 / 2000 and paid totally over the odds for it - I think it was 85k. I was in my early 20's at the time and he really wanted a 993 in white and I talked him out of it - something I wish I had never done considering how 993's are so revered and white appears to be the new black.

A few weeks after buying the car the garage never sent us our manuals stating they were en route then the garage shut down - very suspicious indeed! A week after that a rather disgruntled man sent a letter to my father stating that we had a stolen car and that the garage had sold it without his consent. To cut a long story short we urged him to take this up with the garage not us and we eventually got all our manuals and books etc off the garage and it might just be that the guy did decide to sell then immediately regretted it.

Anyway, after weeks of hiding the car away and panicking said person was going to come round and nick it seeing as he knew where we lived, he started to really enjoy the car. One day though the engine carked it and needed a complete rebuild - by this point it had only done around 15k (maybe a bit more i cant remember exactly!) and was out of warranty by a year.

Faced with a 15k repair bill and extremely disgruntled he took the car to JCT. Amazingly Porsche then contacted him and offered to provide a completely new engine despite it being out of warranty!

Anyway fast forward to 2009 / 2010 and I am there toying with the idea of a 10k sports car and thinking hmm maybe an elise or an s2000. I eventually managed to get my old man to part with the 996 for 10k on the proviso I sell it back to him one day and cannot get rid of it.

At that point the car had around 50k on it and it is now on 101k. Aside from needing a new clutch, exhaust, water pump (which was destroyed by the drive belt apparently coming off and being dragged into the pump), I have had no other major issues with the car. Even then the issues I had above were my own fault I believe as I erm forgot to get the car serviced after 10k and pushed it to more like 18k then lots of things broke! I was just too busy at the time and doing lots of motorway mileage - Anyway even to fix all that listed above cost me less than 2k - and that is including the 2 service and MOT's.

I would love to upgrade to a 997s Cab one day but I still love my 996 cab despite the bad press. It has actually been (apart from the engine rebuild) a lot cheaper for me to run than my old cars which have included a Civic Type R (the bread van one), Celica GT4 Carlos Sainz and MGF (noddys car I know) all of which caned fuel just as badly and every service cost me at least £1k each year.

Sure it has used slightly more fuel than these other cars but then again after 4 years each of the other cars depreciated terribly. Further to that, I honestly think I see infinitely less unsavoury characters driving 911's compared to hot hatches and souped up japanese cars

Anyway I'm not sure what the point of me posting all the above is apart from to say that sure it has been a pain in the *** a times, had a few costly moments, been ridiculed as being one of the least desirable porsches ever but ya know what....I still love it more than any other car I have ever owned, it has cost about the same to run as a hot hatch, costs very little to tax and every day I drive to work I can't help but grin when the clock says 9:11

 

Oh and just to add - I tried getting the cheapo exhaust mod (Fister D or something?) where they drill a hole in your exhaust and stick a bypass pipe on it....The garage first stuck a 2 inch pipe on it saying anything less than that would be crap and it ended up sounding utterly ridiculous with lots of drone on the motorway.

They then tried to modify it by adding bafflers but then it just sounded like it was farting so I ended up buying a Dansk sport exhaust and cutting my losses.

I used to have what was apparently an exhaust by Demon which the Porsche dealer flogged my old man and fitted for around £3k (ripoff I know) but sounded fabulous whereas the Dansk, whilst better than stock, doesn't sound anything like a PSE and in fact has a slight rattle to it.

I have decided I am very unlucky with cars, everything I own either gets a great review initially then laughed at / depreciates / surpassed / driven by chavs immediately upon owning it and attract strange objects into my path (once hit a canoe on the M1).

 

Interesting history. I cringe when someone says the 996 "gets bad press" or something like that. Most people outside of the Porsche community can't tell a 996 from a 99x and have never heard of IMS, RMS etc. Anyway, glad you have stuck with your 996 and that it is now a proud family heirloom. As for the pumpkins, they look good on some colors (changed mine to clear a while back), and I love my Fister D's. Wishing you much better luck. Enjoy!

 

Ping, Welcome to the Rennlist Community! And as you know, it doesn't exist without Pics! I'm pretty sure you'll get plenty of responses from the guys/gals & your history with the car. And especially about the comment on Fister D's, I think most everybody on here has done this mod to their car (I'm probably one of the remaining few that hasn't) & most likely because of Darin himself (he's pretty well respected on here)! jmo

 

Welcome, Ping!

That was quite a story. Thanks for sharing!

As was mentioned, we love pics, so get your posted. As far as the Fister Ds are concerned, it will be one of the best things you can do. I've had mine for almost three years and I still grin when she fires up.

Loved the clock comment. I always think the same thing!

 

I think he meant the Gundo hack. I was confused for a bit 'cause I thought I knew what a Fister was. Left me feeling like a newb myself.

 

Welcome to Rennlist Mr. Ping I suspect you will find some very nice people here on the 996 board and if you have any questions about your 996, this is the best place for advice I know, my RL brothers has saved me money and more importantly, my sanity

 

Welcome, Mr. Ping! Thanks for posting your story. The fact that you have such a story means that it is unlikely you will ever give up this car for something else. In for a penny, in for a pound, already. It's love, actually.

 

Mr Ping,

Great to hear your story.

Feel your pain about the 993

If I were your dad I wouldhave cancelled your pocket money forever!.

 

+1

 

Hi guys thank you for the warm reception and I am glad my 09:11 am clock comment has resonated with some of you too - for a moment I thought it was just me haha!

Regarding the Fister D's - I spent days poring over various articles and recall there was two methods of achieving the PSE sound, one was Fister and the other I cannot recall - I only named Fister as the name stuck in my head for all the wrong reasons

It might be that I had the other mod, as mine is a 996.1 but ultimately the problem was that I let the garage talk me into fitting a 2" pipe as opposed to the 1" / 1.5" I had specifically set out to have fitted. In turn I believe this is because the garage had done two of these mods already and initially the buyers had tried 1" / 1.5" and then gone for the 2" because the initial setup was too quiet - however I believe they had 996.2's which from what I read need bigger pipes to achieve the same effect and the garage wasn't knowledgeable concerning the difference.

Anyway the total cost of this venture was;

1) Around £450 for a second hand OEM exhaust (my demon exhaust had developed a rattle and the garage said they couldnt cut it open and fix it for me)
2) around £200 ish (i cant remember to be honest!) for the 2" pipe
3) around £30 to fit some baffles to try and remedy the ridiculous cabin roar and to stop little old ladies dying in the street from heart attacks when i trundled past at 10mph
4) £650 + £120 plus i think £150 fitting for my usual porsche specialist to fit a Dansk sport exhaust and new quad tailpipes (the old ones were no longer usable after the previous modification).

I had always wanted quad pipes but the ones that aren't linked together like the turbo i.e. more like a carrera S and was rather annoyed to find that these were the only ones on offer at the time, however, after getting used to the fact they jut out a bit too much and having had the insides darkened have become quite fond of them....eventually!

What I really would have liked is to have that PSE sound but without the expense of the PSE, the margin for error when getting someone to do a welding job or my old demon exhaust back as that was tremendous - funny thing is I cannot find any evidence of Demon having ever produced one!

Another thing I do wonder is what exactly did JCT fit for my dad when he had the £3k exhaust put on in the first place? Surely just a couple of backboxes doesn't warrant that cost? Having said that maybe he just got his leg lifted as I do know they used to charge him £450 for a 4 wheel alignment.

Oh and finally - I would post pics but it appears I need to be a full-timer as opposed to a part-time cheapskate in order to do so....so the only pic so far is my avatar!

 

Welcome to Rennlist, Mr Ping. Do yourself a big favor and join as a member - it will pay huge dividends. You're in the UK - correct?

 

I was going to add - Hello, I'm old and clueless!

Welcome

 

Welcome!

My '99 C2 Cab was one of the best cars I've ever owned and most rewarding to drive. I can relate.

I'm trying to picture your father going to the dealer for a flogging. Did he do that often? Do they have a special room for that?

Also, what's a hot hatch?

 

Those things will burn your tastebuds right off!!!