This page is dedicated to my old Porsche 944
The Porsche 944 was a 2.5 Lux, and more than a bit of a lemon to be quite honest - I didn't do all the checks I should have done (mainly get it properly inspected) as I was buying it from a dealer who was a personal friend of the Dad of an acquaintance of mine - turns out that meant nothing, and they were quite happy to stitch me up with a car with serious problems and a totally worthless warranty. All I can say is if you're buying one of these cars then either get it professionally inspected by a respected specialist (PCT in Coventry are brilliant if you're in their neck of the woods - couldn't recommend them highly enough) or buy it with the intention of doing a full-on restoration if you plan on using it on the road, and get it cheap enough to reflect that.
It was a brilliant car when it worked - incredibly comfortable, went round corners like it was on rails, stopped frighteningly quickly (and the Lux had the weakest Brakes of the range!) it just really needed a lot of time and a fair bit of money spent on it to get it to an everyday useable state. I'd happily have another though, and probably will - quite fance one of with a Chevy LSx conversion. No idea when that'll ever happen though!
During my ownership I replaced:
Complete Braking system from the master cylinder outwards (all calipers, discs, pipes and hoses)
Head Gasket (Major job, cost a bloody fortune as the head needed a load of repair work, as some muppet had obviously run it with no antifreeze for a while, corroding the head badly - PCT fixed this, did a great job and couldn't have been better to deal with)
Alarm - the old alarm was always a bit tempermental, then one day went sompletely nuts and wouldn't de-immobilise - I ended up just getting Clifford out to replace it with a nice new alarm (Clifford Concept 500, I was very impressed with the alarm and the installer, definitley recommend them!)
New fuel hoses (filter hadn't been changed in so long it had irrevertably siezed onto the flexi hoses either side!
Turbo water feed blanking plug (easy cheap fix, but a bolt sheared and I had to remove with an easy-out!) Large amount of repair work to both sills to fix rust (cowboys I bought it off had fillered & painted over it!)
New Rear offside wheel Bearing (again, done by PCT - it is a bugger to do without the special Porsche tool needed)
Rebuild the leaking power steering pump - just needed a new o-ring, no-one had it listed as a spare part, but a quick trip to a hydraulic supplier near work in Birmingham with some measurements had me a part for a few pence, instead of a couple of hundred quid for a recon pump!
New front nearside ball joint - easy swap, as you have to swap the whole arm! Fortunately you can buy reconditioned arms at about £75 echange, otherwise it's a really pricey new part...
Anti-roll bar front mounts - cheap and easy fix - 2 bolts each side, brackets quite cheap from Solihull OPC (they are very helpful, even to someone who obviously could only dream of a new Porsche - again, recommend them very highly).
Fix the electrically adjusted headlights - some muppet had bodged something into the circuit going to the headlights electric levelling system that meant they couldn't adjust properly - I removed some dodgy bullet connectors, replaced some damaged wire and they worked and levelled off a treat.
Two new Rear tyres - wouldn't normally count this, but they were 255/45/17 and cost £150 each!!!)
All in all, not a car to try and run on the cheap - I would say all of it's problems (with the possible exception of the rusty sills) was due to previous owner(s) skimping on maintenance, sadly what often happens when cars like this drop down to less than the cost of a new Fiesta - some people buy then expecting the running costs to be the same as a new Fiesta, but they are still expensive cars requiring (relatively) expensive maintenance.
Having said that, consumables such as filters, plugs etc are not much more than boggo VW stuff from GSF or Euro Car Parts,, so no excuse for skipping on maintenance!
Once this was all fixed up (and the oil leak sorted out, which I never got round to doing), I reckon it would have gone on costing maybe £1,500 per year in maintenance, while not losing any value, so probably no more costly than running a cheap hatchback - but so much more fun :-)
Here's some gratuitous photos:
The Porsche 944 was a 2.5 Lux, and more than a bit of a lemon to be quite honest - I didn't do all the checks I should have done (mainly get it properly inspected) as I was buying it from a dealer who was a personal friend of the Dad of an acquaintance of mine - turns out that meant nothing, and they were quite happy to stitch me up with a car with serious problems and a totally worthless warranty. All I can say is if you're buying one of these cars then either get it professionally inspected by a respected specialist (PCT in Coventry are brilliant if you're in their neck of the woods - couldn't recommend them highly enough) or buy it with the intention of doing a full-on restoration if you plan on using it on the road, and get it cheap enough to reflect that.
It was a brilliant car when it worked - incredibly comfortable, went round corners like it was on rails, stopped frighteningly quickly (and the Lux had the weakest Brakes of the range!) it just really needed a lot of time and a fair bit of money spent on it to get it to an everyday useable state. I'd happily have another though, and probably will - quite fance one of with a Chevy LSx conversion. No idea when that'll ever happen though!
During my ownership I replaced:
Complete Braking system from the master cylinder outwards (all calipers, discs, pipes and hoses)
Head Gasket (Major job, cost a bloody fortune as the head needed a load of repair work, as some muppet had obviously run it with no antifreeze for a while, corroding the head badly - PCT fixed this, did a great job and couldn't have been better to deal with)
Alarm - the old alarm was always a bit tempermental, then one day went sompletely nuts and wouldn't de-immobilise - I ended up just getting Clifford out to replace it with a nice new alarm (Clifford Concept 500, I was very impressed with the alarm and the installer, definitley recommend them!)
New fuel hoses (filter hadn't been changed in so long it had irrevertably siezed onto the flexi hoses either side!
Turbo water feed blanking plug (easy cheap fix, but a bolt sheared and I had to remove with an easy-out!) Large amount of repair work to both sills to fix rust (cowboys I bought it off had fillered & painted over it!)
New Rear offside wheel Bearing (again, done by PCT - it is a bugger to do without the special Porsche tool needed)
Rebuild the leaking power steering pump - just needed a new o-ring, no-one had it listed as a spare part, but a quick trip to a hydraulic supplier near work in Birmingham with some measurements had me a part for a few pence, instead of a couple of hundred quid for a recon pump!
New front nearside ball joint - easy swap, as you have to swap the whole arm! Fortunately you can buy reconditioned arms at about £75 echange, otherwise it's a really pricey new part...
Anti-roll bar front mounts - cheap and easy fix - 2 bolts each side, brackets quite cheap from Solihull OPC (they are very helpful, even to someone who obviously could only dream of a new Porsche - again, recommend them very highly).
Fix the electrically adjusted headlights - some muppet had bodged something into the circuit going to the headlights electric levelling system that meant they couldn't adjust properly - I removed some dodgy bullet connectors, replaced some damaged wire and they worked and levelled off a treat.
Two new Rear tyres - wouldn't normally count this, but they were 255/45/17 and cost £150 each!!!)
All in all, not a car to try and run on the cheap - I would say all of it's problems (with the possible exception of the rusty sills) was due to previous owner(s) skimping on maintenance, sadly what often happens when cars like this drop down to less than the cost of a new Fiesta - some people buy then expecting the running costs to be the same as a new Fiesta, but they are still expensive cars requiring (relatively) expensive maintenance.
Having said that, consumables such as filters, plugs etc are not much more than boggo VW stuff from GSF or Euro Car Parts,, so no excuse for skipping on maintenance!
Once this was all fixed up (and the oil leak sorted out, which I never got round to doing), I reckon it would have gone on costing maybe £1,500 per year in maintenance, while not losing any value, so probably no more costly than running a cheap hatchback - but so much more fun :-)
Here's some gratuitous photos: