EddySpaghetti
New member
Hi All,
Thought you would be interested to hear a little about my trip around Europe in my 'new' Turbo. I had a fantastic time and the car behaved impeccably, but for a couple of little niggles it really was outstanding, and 110 Mph on the autoroute is definitely its natural habitat.
Regulars may remember I bought it about 2/3 months ago; its a white Turbo SE. It needed some essentials doing before I could really stretch its legs, so I took a few weekends to do all the belts, rollers and the waterpump myself, as well as changing the gearbox oil, doing the sunroof seal and a few other bits and pieces. I didn't get everything sorted before the trip, but enough that I felt confident at giving it a go.
The trip map on Google is here:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?d&source=s_d&saddr=London,+UK&daddr=Annecy+to:Laragne-Mont%C3%A9glin,+Hautes-Alpes,+Provence-Alpes-C%C3%B4te+d'Azur,+France+to:Vinca,+france+to:barcelona+to:La+Coruna+to:Biarritz+to:London&geocode=%3B%3BFVIupAIdUdxYAA%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B&hl=en&mra=ls&sll=46.38406,-1.138555&sspn=14.252868,28.168945&ie=UTF8&ll=46.619261,1.845703&spn=14.19022,28.168945&z=5
For those not bothered with the link (!) it was basically, London to the alps, barcelona, la coruna, biarritz and back.
I encountered a few little issues which will need attention now I am back, and one major (but easily fixed) problem when I lost 1st and 2nd gear near Perpignan, at night, on a sunday, in an unknown town, with nowhere yet booked to stay - D'oh...
Fortunately the loss of 1st and 2nd was sorted quickly by re-tightening one of the bellcrank (?) bolts on the gearbox, apparently the bolt in use was non-standard, so that will need some more investigation now I can do so myself. Unfortunately, I had taken the car to a Porsche garage and the cheeky buggers charged me an hour's labour for doing that, which was stretching the space time continuum a little, but hey, it got me back on track for my holiday, and was only about the same a s a tank of petrol in the land of ridiculous prices - (1.38Euros/litre on the autoroute !!!)
They also advised that my front wheel brearings were on the way out along with my brake pads, so will have to get on with those too...
The little things were:
Sunroof and tailgate didn't seem to leak at all, despite epic thunderstorms in the alps, but the tailgate microswitch driven by the key seemed to get damp because it stopped working for a couple of weeks afterwards. Its Ok again now...
One of the motors in the drivers seat has gone, so I lost rear height adjustment and was a bit uncomfortable at times until I changed every other setting to get back to a decent driving position. I took the switch apart one day and wouldn't recommend doing it in a campsite (!) - the switches are full of little ball bearings and pretensioned springs which fly apart with gusto when you loosen things off. the switches are pretty simple though, and there is only one fuse for all the motors, which is what leads me to conclude its the motor itself which has burned out, although could still be dry solder joint somewhere. A seat-out job I have left until getting back.
The exhaust has gone through a couple of different rattling phases, so I'll get it on ramps soon and find out what needs tightening / whacking, and I will need to see if there is any adjustment left in the handbrake shoes too, because some steep hills left it wanting.
The only things which aren't 'bolt on' type issues are reaonably high oil consumption and my surprise that the temp guage never got more than a mm above the lower white line - even going up hill slowly on hot days in Spain. I'd be interested to hear what people think is normal for those things, I reckon I was using a litre of oil every two and a half tanks of petrol (I'm still to work out my eventual MPG - will need to go though credit card receipts for how much I put in !). Does anyone reckon that an old thermostat (didn't change it when I chnaged the pump-stoopid) could keep the enginge running too cool, even on hot hot days, and that that might impact on fuel / oil consumption?
I love my 944 ! - And there's now a long list of stuff to be getting on with over the winter - I'm seroiusly thinking of re-con'ing the struts, or going KWv3 depending on payrise (Ha! - never going to happen!) this autumn... My only complaint about the handling was that it was a little bit vague on bends around 100-120mph, having said that things stiffened up considerably above that speed - nuff said. Would the lack of the undertray be a contributing factor? - I left that at home as it came loose the day before I had to leave!
Cheers for any thoughts - hopefully this is an encouraging proof that you can rely on our cars with a bit of luck to do long trips abroad!
Any paraglider pilots will also be glad to know that you can get up very steep tracks to alpine takeoffs (as long as there is ground clearance) with two paragliders, lots of camping gear and two 6ft plus blokes in the front.
I love my 944!
Cheers all,
Eddy
Thought you would be interested to hear a little about my trip around Europe in my 'new' Turbo. I had a fantastic time and the car behaved impeccably, but for a couple of little niggles it really was outstanding, and 110 Mph on the autoroute is definitely its natural habitat.
Regulars may remember I bought it about 2/3 months ago; its a white Turbo SE. It needed some essentials doing before I could really stretch its legs, so I took a few weekends to do all the belts, rollers and the waterpump myself, as well as changing the gearbox oil, doing the sunroof seal and a few other bits and pieces. I didn't get everything sorted before the trip, but enough that I felt confident at giving it a go.
The trip map on Google is here:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?d&source=s_d&saddr=London,+UK&daddr=Annecy+to:Laragne-Mont%C3%A9glin,+Hautes-Alpes,+Provence-Alpes-C%C3%B4te+d'Azur,+France+to:Vinca,+france+to:barcelona+to:La+Coruna+to:Biarritz+to:London&geocode=%3B%3BFVIupAIdUdxYAA%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B&hl=en&mra=ls&sll=46.38406,-1.138555&sspn=14.252868,28.168945&ie=UTF8&ll=46.619261,1.845703&spn=14.19022,28.168945&z=5
For those not bothered with the link (!) it was basically, London to the alps, barcelona, la coruna, biarritz and back.
I encountered a few little issues which will need attention now I am back, and one major (but easily fixed) problem when I lost 1st and 2nd gear near Perpignan, at night, on a sunday, in an unknown town, with nowhere yet booked to stay - D'oh...
Fortunately the loss of 1st and 2nd was sorted quickly by re-tightening one of the bellcrank (?) bolts on the gearbox, apparently the bolt in use was non-standard, so that will need some more investigation now I can do so myself. Unfortunately, I had taken the car to a Porsche garage and the cheeky buggers charged me an hour's labour for doing that, which was stretching the space time continuum a little, but hey, it got me back on track for my holiday, and was only about the same a s a tank of petrol in the land of ridiculous prices - (1.38Euros/litre on the autoroute !!!)
They also advised that my front wheel brearings were on the way out along with my brake pads, so will have to get on with those too...
The little things were:
Sunroof and tailgate didn't seem to leak at all, despite epic thunderstorms in the alps, but the tailgate microswitch driven by the key seemed to get damp because it stopped working for a couple of weeks afterwards. Its Ok again now...
One of the motors in the drivers seat has gone, so I lost rear height adjustment and was a bit uncomfortable at times until I changed every other setting to get back to a decent driving position. I took the switch apart one day and wouldn't recommend doing it in a campsite (!) - the switches are full of little ball bearings and pretensioned springs which fly apart with gusto when you loosen things off. the switches are pretty simple though, and there is only one fuse for all the motors, which is what leads me to conclude its the motor itself which has burned out, although could still be dry solder joint somewhere. A seat-out job I have left until getting back.
The exhaust has gone through a couple of different rattling phases, so I'll get it on ramps soon and find out what needs tightening / whacking, and I will need to see if there is any adjustment left in the handbrake shoes too, because some steep hills left it wanting.
The only things which aren't 'bolt on' type issues are reaonably high oil consumption and my surprise that the temp guage never got more than a mm above the lower white line - even going up hill slowly on hot days in Spain. I'd be interested to hear what people think is normal for those things, I reckon I was using a litre of oil every two and a half tanks of petrol (I'm still to work out my eventual MPG - will need to go though credit card receipts for how much I put in !). Does anyone reckon that an old thermostat (didn't change it when I chnaged the pump-stoopid) could keep the enginge running too cool, even on hot hot days, and that that might impact on fuel / oil consumption?
I love my 944 ! - And there's now a long list of stuff to be getting on with over the winter - I'm seroiusly thinking of re-con'ing the struts, or going KWv3 depending on payrise (Ha! - never going to happen!) this autumn... My only complaint about the handling was that it was a little bit vague on bends around 100-120mph, having said that things stiffened up considerably above that speed - nuff said. Would the lack of the undertray be a contributing factor? - I left that at home as it came loose the day before I had to leave!
Cheers for any thoughts - hopefully this is an encouraging proof that you can rely on our cars with a bit of luck to do long trips abroad!
Any paraglider pilots will also be glad to know that you can get up very steep tracks to alpine takeoffs (as long as there is ground clearance) with two paragliders, lots of camping gear and two 6ft plus blokes in the front.
I love my 944!
Cheers all,
Eddy
