Hello all,

With prices down to the high 30's low 40's for 01-04 turbo coupes I am contemplating getting one as a Friday-Sunday Car. I have never owned a Porsche before. I have owned and '04 Corvette, '70 LT-1 Corvette and a '63 Split Window Corvette. All three are gone and I am down to my commuter truck ('01 Tacoma). That being said here come the questions:

How reliable are these things and what is the cost maintenance? I saw the spark plugs alone are an $800 dollar job. That is something I would do myself. I am fairly mechanically inclined, worked on the LT-1 myself granted I never overhauled an engine or rebuilt a transmission but I can replace parts and turn a nut. I will be doing my own $250 oil changes at the very least.

What maintenance is required on these cars that a typical do it yourself-er can not perform? How much do they cost and how often are they needed?

When purchasing one, what should I look out for? Are high-mileage ones out? What constitutes high mileage?

I am trying to go for an auto as opposed to a stick, just for ease and to get around the clutch replacement issues.

Should I prefer one year over the other? 02vs03?

Anything else that can help?

Sorry for all the question and thank in advance for any help.

 

You can do a search. Plenty of threads that answer your query.

These cars are generally fairly reliable and very well made but like any machine nearing 10 years, require increased maintenance. Don't count on doing all the work yourself, because unless you have access to a workshop or special tools, some jobs will be too difficult to tackle with basic tools. You will also require plenty of research before you tackle a job because the car is complex and not everything is as intuitive as it seems.

Parts are not cheap. Maintenance cost is like any vehicle that costs over $100K. If you are buying a car based on its 'low cost,' walk away. It's like owning a boat - if you are prepared to pay 10% of the car's value in maintenance each year, you should bite. If you're going to only drive it on weekends, you might luck out and end up spending less.

Buy the newest and nicest you can afford, and keep about 10% of the value in the kitty each year for upkeep is my advice.

 

Generally reliable - but if you are looking for a high mileage, low cost entry point - I would set aside a bit more for maintenance, especially for the first year. You can certainly find a gem and have normal or little above/beyond maintenance costs - but I would not plan for this. Do alot of homework before your purchase, get a good PPI done (pre-purchase inspection), then enjoy! High mileage cars are not necessarily an issue, what is more important is the previous owners maintenance and upkeep.
I would suggest that mid 40's is a more realistic entry point.
I would estimate your first year maintenance to be between $1k-$5k (tires, brakes, fluids, plugs, leaks, squeaks...any items the previous owner delayed doing)
Insurance will be a bit more as well.
I don't mean to scare you off, just saying that these are not Hondas - there is typically alot of 'owner passion' behind the vehicles. Very rewarding cars. And for what you get - IMO the maintenance costs are not 'outrageous' as with other $100k+ original cost vehicles.

 

Doing the basic maintenance on these cars is relatively easy. It sounds like you can handle a wrench so doing a thorough 60k services would be easy, time consuming but easy. Being as it will be a weekend driver you won't be under pressure to get the job done so you can take your time and not rush things.

Do a bunch of searching on this and other forums; be sure to get a good PPI; check the DME readout for over revs and take your time to find a good one that is well documented. Have fun with the search.... Good Luck!

 

The car is pretty reliable. The engine especially has a rep as being tough.

Maintenance for you sounds like the cost will be mainly in parts and supplies. The oil, oil filter, o-ring, oil drain plug/turbo drain plug sealing rings, intake air filter, cabin air filter, fuel filter, are not cheap but they are not second mortage on the house or cash in the kids' college saving accounts expensive either.

Since you'll likely put few miles on the car you're probably looking at annual oil/filter services and the other services at their scheduled miles or time.

With a proper alignment and reasonable driving you should get nearly 20K miles (I get this and a bit more) out of the rear tires and even at double those miles the fronts are ok but I replace the fronts every 40K miles or so, every 2nd set of rear tires.

My car (03 Turbo with nearly 95K miles) is on its original brakes and clutch.

I can't recall the scheduled service intervals but there have been several posts that have included this info. Send me a PM and include your email address and I'll reply with a PDF to your email address of a service schedule I got from a Porsche tech.

Or you can swing by a local dealer and tell the service manager you are thinking of buying a used Turbo and will have it serviced at his service department and can he give you a copy of the recommended services? Be careful: He'll probably knock you down as he jumps up to get you the info.

IIRC Porsche works on the assumption (probably backed by years of service history data) these cars cover between 6K and 9K miles per year. Thus a low miles car is one that has covered less than 6K miles per year and a high miles car is one that has covered over 9K miles per year.

But miles is relative. A low miles car might not have had any servicing. Also, a low miles car can still after all these years suffer from 'new car' problems.

'course a high miles car can start to suffer from the effects of the miles.

What to look out for? Everything. The car is just a used car so a thorough used car check out is paramount.

However, start with a test ride/drive. Visit the car cold and be sure the AC is off and when you turn on the key check the CEL comes on (along with the other warning lights) and it (along with the other warning lights) goes off when the engine starts.

The engine should fire up and settle into a high (1K) idle and it can sound a little raw -- 420hp from 3.6l will do that -- as it warms up. But you should hear no scary noises and the idle will smooth and the engine will quiet as it warms up.

Continue to let the engine idle for say 10 minutes or so. One 'reason' is you want to let the engine get hot enough to check the oil level.

Then have the seller take you on a 15 mile test ride during which he can demo the car in a variety of scenarios.

Back at the starting point you take the car out and follow the same route drive the car the same way.

Let's see... oil pressure at hot idle should be (wag) 1 bar to 2 bar (based on my experience with my 03 with now almost 95K miles on it.

I've never seen the idle oil pressure below 1.5 bar or above 2.0 bar once fully up to temp. These engines can take a while to get fully up to temp, too.

With my car these hot idle oil pressures have been with Mobil 1 0w-40 and more recently Mobil 1 5w-50 in the engine. BTW, last Sunday and Monday I spent hours driving around AZ/eastern CA desert areas with temps up to 112F and the oil pressure at idle stayed above (but not by much) 1.5 bar. Now I admit I had the A/C on which means the fans run all the time and this tends to keep the engine cooler which means the oil is cooler as well.

But even driving on days with the A/C off yet the radiator fans come on (coolant temp rises above 212F) the oil pressure at idle never gets below 1.5 bar.

If the oil pressure is quite high at idle the engine may have some heavy oil/additive in it to possibly quiet/mask a noisy and thus this may hint at a sick engine.

At around 2.5 to 3K rpms oil pressure climbs to between 4.0/4.5 bar.

Max oil pressure I've seen is 4.5 to nearly 5.0 bar but the oil pressure gage is I think dampened/limited because oil pressure at higher rpms can approach 5 or 6 bar (approx 90psi).

Under hard (full throttle) acceleration starting around 2.5K rpms in say 3rd or 4th gear you should see 0.7 bar boost around 3K or so and this drops some as rpms climb to 4K and higher. Be careful. These things can gain speed at a horrific rate so keep one eye on the road and the other eye on the boost gage.

Depending upon the altitude you might see higher boost, 0.8 even 0.9 bar. This is for a stock engine. Mod'd I have no idea.

The engine should pull hard and smooth from idle to red line. 'course after all this it should settle down into a smooth and reasonably quiet idle.

After the test ride/drive have the car PPI'd. This looks for fluid leaks among other things.

Have the DME overrev counters read. My info is a Tip can be overreved if the car's driven down a hill. This also provides you with engine run time and you can use this to calc average speed and around 30mph (around) is about average.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

When you get serious about a car, get a pre-purchase inspection done by a reputable shop; since this is your first Porsche you might consider stopping by an independent shop or two before you start looking. Even though you are mechanically inclined, a PPI is well worth the money (because these cars can sometimes have some ridiculously expensive problems- pretty rare but it happens.). Porsche engineering is little different than your average American bucket, for example the reason a spark plug change costs $800 is that you have to remove the rear bumper. It's not that hard to do but the first time is slow.

But the boost, well, the boost will hook you-

Be sure to post pictures-

 

Very reliable for what it is. Good advice on setting aside 4-5k per year for maintenance. Also, buy the newest you can afford and be sure you get a good PPI. You don't want any big surprises the second week you own it. DIY scheduled maintenance is fairly straightforward for someone with average wrench skills. Parts do tend to be on the expensive side though. Everything is pretty high end on these cars.

 

Pretty hard task to ' talk you out of buying one ' . You should've asked us to ' talk you into buying one ' , it would have been a lot easier for us!

 

I refuse to talk you out of it. 996T is a phenomenal car. Perhaps the supercar bargain of the century.

 

my 03 X-50 has 70K miles. In the past 4 or so years since my CPO ran out i have been doing my own maintenance and probably spent at the max $300 a year. I do aout 2K miles a year. The car hasnt needed any repairs since an alternator at 60K miles paid for by Porsche. I need to do the slave one of these days so that will set me back for parts.

 

i will make a feeble attempt. The car can ride rough at times and is weak in first gear, downright fatigued . Like corvette there is a Porsche tax to be paid, unless you are mechanically inclined. But still the cost of parts is not cheap. Don't think these cars are immune from problems , they are not , read through the threads and see the range of issues. Reliable and bulletproof is what you hear but, be warned, when something goes really wrong its 4 digits. The radio head unit is not very good. I would rather listen to the noise the engine makes so it does not matter much for me. On the other hand, the car is aesthetically beautiful and in the higher ranges comes to life. Once the pinnacle of porsche engineering and speed, now eclipsed by father time. My 03 has remnants of a by gone era and has emerged dare i say, as the iconic 996 which, i suppose makes the obstacles tolerable. Ya, your right who would want one.......

 

Weak in first gear? My car is insane in first gear.

 

04 X50 with 49k on another board for 35k or best offer.

 

Hell with all the money you'd save you could get the interior redone in black.

OP wanted a tiptronic for some reason though. I honestly don't get why you'd want a slushbox Porsche Turbo, especially given that it's a weekend car only. To each his own though. If I got an automatic car it would probably be something like a BMW 335d or Audi S8, not a little fun car.

 

Thats extremely low. I would be skeptical.