Carlo_Carrera

I looked at a 2001 turbo today that I am interested in buying. I will have a PPI done but I wanted to get some opinions before I go that far.

Car is in great shape, only 2 owners, 40k miles, looks great underneath and has a full and complete service history and everything works except for two things.

The car was just serviced and had the oil changed. I saw the receipt from a nearby dealer as proof. But when I went to check the oil level I got an error message of a failure. I searched here and found that this happens and sometimes it is the instrument cluster that is at fault and that is a big $$$ fix.

My question is can I use a GT3 dip stick to check the oil and just not care about sensor or cluster failure? I would prefer a real dipstick anyway.

Second problem with car is that the rear spoiler doesn't come up. I searched here again and found that this is common and sometimes you get lucky and it just needs some lubrication. Is there anything else like a relay or something that could also cause the rear spoiler to not deploy?

Thanks in advance.

Macster

My advice would be if the rest of the car suits you to have the oil level issue problem diagnosed and get an estimated cost to fix and ditto the spoiler and deduct the sum of these amounts from what you have determined the market value of the car is.

Then you buy the car for this amount and have the items taken care of.

If the oil level sensor or spoiler problem is a simple wiggle of some wires or a fuse then too bad for the seller not taking care of these items before putting the car on the market, or at least having a good idea of what was wrong and being able to make a reasonable -- from his point of view -- adjustment to the car's offering price.

The risk is if you take the car as is you may underestimate the cost to fix -- or rely upon someone else's estimate -- and end up paying more for the car than you should when after you buy the car you find the repairs are more expensive that the estimate indicated.

A bit of a concern is anytime something goes amiss in the dash area has there been some attempt at odometer tamper or even replacement of the odometer?

Or has there been some collision or other damage (rain water intrusion, a spilled drink, etc.) that accounts for the instrument cluster's behavior?

By having a qualified shop make the diagnosis you can eliminate these possibiliites. Sometimes a bad instrument cluster is just a bad cluster. But sometimes it is more than that.

Oh, I love my Turbo's in-dash oil level display and the same goes for my 02 Boxster's in-dash oil level display. I don't miss the absence of a dipstick in my Turbo and I seldom if ever use the Boxster's dipstick anymore.

Sincerely,

Macster.

brooklynkid

@ carlo in 2 years of owning a 996 TT Ive never had a "cheap fix".

jimq

the only cheap ones I had were when I was covered by the CPO

brooklynkid

I have and good extended warranty and its still not cheap

adam_

I do my own work, so it's been cheap.

TurboMark

the cluster is an 1800 fix.