AboEnzo Nsouli

Hi all,
I am looking for a 997.1 Turbo and was wondering if there is such a thing as too many miles on a 997 turbo.

Is 65K a lot of miles?

shadow993

Nope... not as long as no over revs and was maintained. However... maintenance records are the key and a PPI.

Look at the bright side... all of the gremlins have been fixed.

While there are people with well over 100k miles... I would stay below 70k , if it's a weekend toy. It will give you a good 6-7 years before hitting 100k.

AboEnzo Nsouli

In my case it will be my daily driver. I usually put 5-6K a year on my primary. So it will be 70K in a year, but will be a few years before it hits 100K.
This one is a Tiptronic, so I guess that doesn't cause over-revving.

Macster

A rough rule of thumb is an engine has 10K hours of run time. At an average speed of 30mph this works out to 300K miles. But my 2002 Boxster has covered around 315K miles -- I do not know the average speed -- and the engine is fine.

(My 2003 Turbo has covered over 157K miles and the engine is fine.)

Porsche considers 6K to 9K miles per year about "average". So any car with fewer than 6K miles per year is a "low miles" car. Any car with more than 9K miles per year is a "high miles" car. But a low miles car can be junk while a high miles car can still be clearly not junk. (There's a 996 Turbo that covered just over 400K miles and had its engine torn down and no real wear was found during the inspection.)

Best advice I can offer is give the car a thorough used car check out. It is after all just a used car.

Visit the car cold. Turn off the A/C. Start the engine and let it idle. Be sure the warning lights come on then go off as the engine begins to run.

As the engine idles get out and walk around the car. Look at body panel fit and finish. Check tire wear, age. Check brake condition. With iron rotors a 1mm lip is a sign the rotors are close to worn out.

Look inside the radiator ducts. Lots of trash budget to have the bumper cover removed and this trash cleaned out.

Lots of radiator trash suggests the body water drains could be full of trash too. To get at these for the model cars I've familiar with require a Torx tool kit with security bits to remove the Torx screw than holds the panel down on either side of the battery box. The front body water drains are located at the bottom of catch basins on either side of the battery box.

If lots of trash build up the concern is water has overflowed into the cabin and the security module resides on the cabin floor under the driver seat. Any exposure of the security module to moisture is a major cocern.

All the while you are looking at the car though you are listening to the engine for any abnormal sounds or behaviour.

After your extended walk around have the seller take you on a 15 mile test ride. The route should be chosen to give the driver a chance to demo the car as you intend to use it.

Early on with the Tip have the driver do a K-turn to verify the Tip can take changes in direction with no issues.

After the test ride back at the starting place switch seats then drive the car over the same route the same way. Do another K-turn this time with the Tip up to temperature.

Back the second time at the starting place then do a check of all systems to verify all work with no problems. Lights. A/C. Heater. Spoiler, seat adjustment, mirror adustment, etc.

If you still like the car at this point and believe you can buy it for a reasonable sum of money arrange for a PPI. You want the DME engine run time and over rev counters read out. While to overrev a Tip is hard it can be done. However, you want to engine run time to sanity check the odometer. Divide odometer by engine run time to get average speed. 30mph is about "average". Less is a sign of a boulevard cruiser. More is a highway car but at some point a real high average speed can suggest the car was used on the track.

The car also gets lifted in the air so a check can be made for any leak sign. Every gasket, seal, o-ring, hose, hose fitting, hydraulic line, line fitting, dust boot, gets checked for any leak sign.

thxbuff2001

It first came out in 2007 so it can be a 10 year old car. 6k miles per year would be around 60000 miles. So 65k is reasonable. Things break but as long as you can get a car that was taken cared for by the owner, it would look great.

I had a 07 3000 miles ferrari but my 2008 25000 miles BMW looks newer.

The farther it is from 2007, the harder to get clean cars. Thats what I would look for.

cstyles

There are turbo Mezger motors at 500+ miles, without rebuild. The Panorama magazine had a great article on a couple who drove their 996 Turbo to 500k+ miles and then sold it to a Porsche tech, who still has it on the road.

Up here in Toronto, we have a 964 Turbo with over 1,200,000 KM (720k+ miles).

It's all about how well the car has been taken care of, and whether you plan to maximize resale value. If the car has been well looked after, and resale isn't a concern, you can enjoy many hundreds of thousands of miles on any 911 Turbo.

Many people will agree that these cars with miles on them are far better sorted & more reliable than the cars with no miles on them / garage queens.

Terry Adams

Just crossed 105K miles on a cross country round trip, plus ID MT WY twisties detour twice.

Feels about broken in.

upeshdesai

Thank you for this great explanation!

AboEnzo Nsouli

Thank you all for your feedback.

I am hearing that there are levels of PPI?

Should I look for anything more than the standard $200 PPI where they drive, inspect and check for codes?

Please advise,

upeshdesai

I'm in the same boat as you, and from what I know you can take it up a level where they'll drop the engine, do a more thorough inspection of internals (check coolant piping for example), etc. I think the regular check will be enough for me though. I'm sure someone has more insight into this though.

shadow993

As for the PPI, if it was dealer maintained, I'm sure they would comment on any issues on repair receipts.

I guess it would all depend on cost of PPI levels. Spending $70k and another $500 to save a headache is worth it.

I would think they could easily slide a bore scope to look at stuff vs, dropping the engine.

Turboslut

I bought with 64k miles and just crossed 89k. Only IMMEDIATE maintenance I performed on my car was a full fluid swap --> everything from Petosin in clutch/steering system, to driveline (trans/diffs), coolant, brake fluid and of course engine oil. All filters were changed (air, cabin, fuel).

Gave me peace of mind and set "my" baseline to maintenance. It helped that my car was a 1 owner vehicle bought and sold back to the dealer where I got it from. They gave me all of the service history that existed in their system.

Maintenance matters...is all I can say.

strato58

My biggest fears are water leak and cam slip. That as the potential to happen at any mileage. Other then that I dont think mileage is a huge issue. My car just crossed 30K miles so its not a high mileage car. I've had no issues (knock wood). I will need a clutch soon though

turbofever

44k on mine at present..

my 2001 SL500 has 130k miles and runs great.. I feel we will in a society to which we are programmed to think 100k miles is a lot.. it is just not!

yes suspension needs refreshing typically and the 100k interval.. drivetrain is still good!

atcbi5

Anything over 15k miles is old and will cost ton of money.