useridchallenged

How many do you have 997s that have a 100k miles or more?

Curious to hear how they've held up, and the sort of problems you've encountered beyond regular maintenance. I think this can be helpful to other long-term 997 owners who are trying to figure out what their potential maintenance budget might look like.

I'll kick off the thread, except that I haven't hit the 100k mark (83k on the clock), with the following non-maintenance issues:

2005 C2 (Nov 2004 build):

- Nav replaced - stopped working @ 45k miles (warranty)
- B+ battery cable (posted on rennlist) @ 63k miles (warranty)
- new engine @ 68k miles (siezed scavenging pump, search rennlist for "scavenging" - side effect of replacing the RMS. Not a normal event by any means)
- broken pressure plate spring @ 75k miles (posted on rennlist, not warranty, might be considered maintenance considering my driving style)
- cracked coolant overflow tank @ 80k miles (not warranty)

sharmat

The new engine at 63k miles doesnt bode well for long term owners.
Hope yours was an anomaly .

useridchallenged

@sharmat - the new engine is extremely unusual, and not the sort of thing that a typical 997 order will experience. The new engine was the result of a botched RMS replacement by the dealer. To really understand what happened, search for "scavenging" in this forum for details. You'll learn about some risks around RMS replacement (good for any 997 owner to know about), and see photos of the actual damage to the engine. Even though my C2 was out of warranty every which way to Sunday (time and miles), after a 2-month debate about dealer culpability in this mishap, Porsche NA finally agreed to pay for 75% of the new engine and labor cost. That ultimately left me with a pseudo-new car with two years full Porsche warranty on the entire engine - so I was relatively happy, all things considered. I owned a 2001 BMW 740i Sport, and the maintenance on the E38 was easily 2x that of the 997 - even if I include the cost of the new engine in the 997 cost. Reliability wise, the 997 is still a winner in my eyes.

purrybonker

Wow - that's a lengthy list of problems, notwithstanding the dealer error.

I think about the warranty items I've had done already on my '06 C2S; minor stuff, but still, the bills would have been expensive if I'd have been paying...

I am curious - what is the cost of a new engine? I can see an X51 coming my way if it came to that.

rodsky

[QUOTE=purrybonker;8456854]Wow - that's a lengthy list of problems, notwithstanding the dealer error.


QUOTE]

I dont think so - at all. Take away the RMS issue (which was a dealer error) and thats 4-5 items at 83K miles. My wife's Acura MDX exceeds that at 75K miles. We have a Jetta too thats way worse than 5 items at 55K.

useridchallenged

Back of the envelope: net $16k parts and labor for a 3.6L engine (includes the trade-in value of the failed engine). I looked long and hard at upgrading to the 3.8L - not even an X51. It turned out that there are a whole slew of differences - not just the engine - that need to be changed. Things like wiring harnesses and other things that are not easy to change out. I should have kept the long list of non-engine changes around, but I didn't. I think the 3.8L upgrade would have added another $9k. I'm sure the X51 would easily add yet another $10k. I figured if I wanted a 997C2S, it would be easier and cheaper to just replace my 997C2 than to upgrade the 997C2 piecemeal (and if you upgrade the engine, you really should upgrade the brakes to keep the car balanced...). So instead of shelling out $13k for a 3.8L engine (and more for the inevitable brake upgrade), I chose to spend $4k on a 3.6L engine and call it a day.


@rodsky. I absolutely agree. My wife's Audi Allroad is on a par with the 997 (if you leave out the engine on the 997). Only my Japanese cars from the 80s and 90s have been lower cost. For example, I still have my 1986 Toyota 4WD truck (every guy needs a truck) with over 200k miles. It's only needed a new brake master cylinder and clutch slave, one new clutch and it's only on the second set of brake pads. The problem now is that parts are becoming harder to find for a 25-year old vehicle, like oil filters and headlight bulbs. I had a 1992 Mazda Miata - super fun car to drive, but not especially fast - and after 80k miles, the only failure was the catalytic converter (warranty item, long and crazy story).

jwins

Only 92k on a 2007 but, to date, the only non-scheduled items have been a transmission leak (repaired under warranty), a failed radiator fan, and the replacement of all of the plugs when one of the ignition coils failed. The last two issues were in the last 10k miles.