Mike J

Not a fair list because most of the time you do not have this sort of data to make a decision from .

If the car is bought from a reseller, you will know mileage, hrs and over revs since that is indisputable from the DME, results of a PPI, maintenance records and perhaps some hearsay about how the car was previously driven, usually only one driver back. Unless the track use for instance was substantial enough to leave evidence (like rubber pellets caught in the suspension), you may not really know if the car was tracked, nor will you know if the car was short shifted all its life at 4K rpm or driven close to redline often. I am an empirical guy, and I would need to make a decision based on physical evidence and perhaps some influence from some associated stories. Even if the car was tracked, it is always downplayed since it has negative connotations like higher wear, etc.

Here is an example. In Canada (where I live) we are allowed to import RoW cars when they are 15 years old. I shopped for a GT3 out of Japan, because the pricing is better and there are actually quite few examples, and they are Euro spec left hand drive - and no competition from the US for 10 more years! I had to make my decision based strictly on data - because almost all the GT3's for sale there are from dealers, and the PO's are not known, and the cars are across the Pacific during Covid. So how did I make a decision? I looked at the physical evidence:

- Mileage
- DME dump (over revs and engine hrs to get average speeds)
- PPI (or as best as you can get there) - which is practically nothing
- Paint metering (video)
- Visual inspection in and out (video)

Given this, I chose my car because it had all original paint, unusual color, very low miles, fanatical maintenance records from one owner, and zero over revs - so the chances are likely it will be a good one (but no guarantees). Luckily for me, so far it has turned out to be a pristine example. As far as I know it could have been driven by an 85 year old doctor who never took it past 4K rpms (and the Dionne Warwick CD I found in the car indicates that lol) .... but if the car had showed to be tracked a lot (whatever that means), or lots of over revs I would have moved on. Again, personal choice, we all accept varying levels of risk.

You know this discussion will never end right? :-)

Cheers,

Mike

RAudi Driver

Because everything wears, I'd take the engine with the least stress over the long term. That looks to be #3, in my eyes. The analogy of the overrevved air cooled car suffering from bad bearings should be taken with a grain of salt. I can list several reasons for bearing failure and rod bolt stretch and they aren't all from a one time over revved engine.

Mike J

I never said that was the only reason you can have rod bearing issues, it was just an example to show that it's possible that the impact of a stress event can show up much later.

Sdgg993

Thanks for the input everyone! If the car checks out during the PPI it’s mine. It’s a solid car with good history and maintenance. I bet if anything I have at least 70k before a rebuild is even in the question( if at all).

Robocop305

I agree. Good luck with the purchase. Not many of these babies around, specially for sale.