944 maintenance costs

[rhysd2]

Hello all

Firstly a big thanks to you all for the wealth of information on here. Been lurking for about a week reading various posts etc. The buying guides etc have been especially helpful. However after a bit of searching the one piece of info I'm looking for I cant seem to find.

Firstly a brief introduction. Ever since I saw the 924's and 944's driving around as a kid in the 80's I've always wanted one and now I have the pressing need to buy a car again Im toying with taking the plunge. I've found lots of brilliant info on what to look for in terms of problems etc however I cant seem to find much info on the various yearly costs of maintaining the car.

One guide I stumbled upon (written by an american chap) said set aside $500-$1500 a year for servicing, parts, etc. I was wondering how accurate that was and how much in services, belt tensioning, etc I should roughly budget each year?

Many thanks

Rhys

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Hi Rhys,

For a well-bought Lux, £1K per year should be plenty. I ran mine for 5 years/20K miles and it cost almost spot-on £1K per year to include tax and classic-car insurance at about £240 per year. Not counting petrol.

Biggest service was belts, rollers, oil seals and a load of other bit at about £800, lowest was a standard annual at about £200. Other big bills are going to be if you need bodywork, and some jobs like clutch or headgasket are not cheap. Still tremendous value though. []

 

[rhysd2]

Hiya Paul

Apologies I should have been far more specific. I'll be doing about 10k miles a year and I wasnt including insurance in that cost but thats brilliant info thanks. A yearly annual one of about £200 isnt that bad, just a case of budgeting ahead for the big stuff I guess.

 

[Alpine]

also, classic car insurance is often limited to 5k miles per year (and it must be a second car and garaged), so if you are doing 10k miles per year you may need a standard policy, which in my case would be £600 ish (I'm 35 years old).

 

[Alpine]

ORIGINAL: sc0tty

At 10k a year you will be spending a fortune on fuel.........

......but this is the case with all performance cars, its not a reason not to buy a 944.

 

[barks944]

You can get 30mpg out of a lux....

 

[Peter Empson]

ORIGINAL: sc0tty

At 10k a year you will be spending a fortune on fuel, let alone wear and tear, servicing and maintenance.  Good luck !!

Sorry, but that's really not true in my experience, I have done a minimum of 10k miles a year for a decade or more without any major headaches and a lot of enjoyment. You'll still have the same yearly service whether you use it or not (and the same belt change interval), you might want to add in an oil change inbetween every 12k service but that's cheap even if you don't do it yourself. Tyres are reasonable too if you stick with original wheels, in fact I'm struggling to think of any major expenses apart from the clutch (once every 100K+ miles). Whatever the extra fuel costs they are more than offset by the lack of depreciation against most newer cars (and the extra enjoyment you'll have), and will depend entirely upon the weight of your right foot.

I'd suggest that not using the car is a far greater waste of money than using it whenever you can and in my experience the car will thank you for it, feeling better the more you drive it.

 

[Copperman05]

ORIGINAL: barks944

You can get 30mpg out of a lux....

I got 31.8mpg out of my S2 doing motorway cruising last week, not bad for a 3000cc performance engine me thinks...

Edd

 

[pauljmcnulty]

ORIGINAL: barks944

You can get 30mpg out of a lux....

Absolutely, if not better on open roads. Tyres are cheap on a Lux, servicing is, as Peter says, an annual thing anyway. Add in a little more for consumables like brakes and tyres if you like, but you've got to have these on whichever car you drive 10K miles per year, haven't you? Even if you went for something like a diesel Golf you'd be losing more in depreciation than you save in fuel costs and parts will be as much, if not more, in most cases.

I'd suggest that the only hassle would be the slightly higher risk of problems as the car is over 20 years old, compared with a brand new car. I'd find this a problem as I don't work on it myself so it's a trip to the garage for any little niggle; easy to ignore if it's a weekend toy but I don't like things wrong on my daily driver. I'd take the 944 every time, and we do choose it over the Legacy unless we really need the estate for the dogs and stuff. No point owning it and driving to Tesco in something else. [&:]

 

[zcacogp]

ORIGINAL: Peter Empson

ORIGINAL: sc0tty

At 10k a year you will be spending a fortune on fuel, let alone wear and tear, servicing and maintenance.  Good luck !!

Sorry, but that's really not true in my experience, I have done a minimum of 10k miles a year for a decade or more without any major headaches and a lot of enjoyment. You'll still have the same yearly service whether you use it or not (and the same belt change interval), you might want to add in an oil change inbetween every 12k service but that's cheap even if you don't do it yourself. Tyres are reasonable too if you stick with original wheels, in fact I'm struggling to think of any major expenses apart from the clutch (once every 100K+ miles). Whatever the extra fuel costs they are more than offset by the lack of depreciation against most newer cars (and the extra enjoyment you'll have), and will depend entirely upon the weight of your right foot.

I'd suggest that not using the car is a far greater waste of money than using it whenever you can and in my experience the car will thank you for it, feeling better the more you drive it.

I'm with Peter. They are not expensive cars to run, and compared with a modern car they are very cheap - there is little or no depreciation to factor in, which is the usual killer. And if you have a Porsche are you really going to want to drive a Nissan Micra/Vauxhall Dis-Astra/Other every day, with a 944 peering out of your garage? The ones that are driven hard and often tend to go wrong less and run better than the garage queens ... []

A lot of expense can be avoided further still if you DIY everything. Labour is a large cost in any car maintenance budget, and if you are practical at waving spanners then this disappears. (If not, find a good local indie. Don't go OPC for servicing!)

I keep a car blog up to date here:

http://pistonheads.com/members/showServiceHistory.asp?carId=35695

... it's pretty comprehensive, but doesn't have tax or insurance on there. That's for a half-decent S2 driven 12-15k per year, in a variety of motoring conditions. I know that Paul Smith keeps a similar log on PH as well, which is worth a look.

Oh, and an S2 can return more than 30mpg as well .... []


Oli.

 

[GC8]

ORIGINAL: Peter Empson

ORIGINAL: sc0tty
At 10k a year you will be spending a fortune on fuel, let alone wear and tear, servicing and maintenance.  Good luck !!

...Sorry, but that's really not true in my experience...

+1. Absolute piffle.

 

[Alpine]

The ones that are driven hard and often tend to go wrong less and run better than the garage queens ... []
Oli.

I'd agree with this too. Mine is a lot better now that I have started using it at least a couple of times a week (not quite a daily driver...) For the first fews years when I only used it on sunny weekends (very rare) I had a sticky gear change from 1st to 2nd which made it difficult to drive, but now that I use it more often, that has almost disappeared.

 

[edh]

ORIGINAL: zcacogp

Oh, and an S2 can return more than 30mpg as well .... []

Oli.

You can even get 30mpg out of a turbo on a motorway run []

 

[Copperman05]

TBH, I have spent a fair amount on my S2 over the past year, I had the cam chain and timing belts fitted in the first week of ownership, I have also recently had a clutch fitted and a second hand gearbox fitted as the last one was knackered.

I still dont think these are expensive cars to run, but it does show that you should be a little prudent and try and make sure you buy one thats recently had the belts and clutch done where possible. It wasnt that I purchased a car with poor service history, far from it, it was just that I purchased it when all these thing needed changing at the same time. I was also being cautious having the cam chain replaced.

It does seem that these cars do need a little mechanical 'birthday' due to there age every 100,000 miles or so, but once this has been done, and if you spread the cost of the 'birthday' over a few years and not just the 1 like I had to then the cost is less of an issue.

Was it worth spending the money on this car? Absolutely, I love these 944 cars, a real little drivers car, great German engineering, when looked after well they repay you the money spent in shear driving enjoyment.

My car it at Lepsons at the moment having its wheels refurbished in preparation for the Classic Car Show latter in the year as it will be on the PCGB stand where hopefully it will encourage more into the world of 944 ownership.

Edd

 

[tref]

Just looked up my figures - In 2007 a 1985 Lux was costing 18p/mile, including purchase cost, all repairs, insurance etc, etc, with me doing my own maintenace work, covering 30k miles per year.

On an S2, for the past two years, it has cost 24p/mile, as above. Biggest factors on the increase are purchase cost (£1500) and increase in fuel costs. I expect the cost per mile price to go up significantly soon, as it clicks over 200k miles, I will spend a bit on it for it's birthday[]

 

[GC8]

ORIGINAL: edh

You can even get 30mpg out of a turbo on a motorway run []

You get 30mpg out of a Turbo??? Why dont you just go and put on a dress, you big girl? []



Simon

 

[pauljmcnulty]

the fuel is going to start to become a pain in the arse, it's about £80 to fill my tank (944 S2). And that does not last long either. Obviously, everyone else on here must run their's on chip fat.

I'd go back to my previous point, the fuel has to be put in whatever car you choose. It's the difference in cost over something else that matters. A Bently will cost a lot more, a Polo Bluemotion less.

It's far more relevant to choose the type of car you want, then weigh up all the costs over a year. Include depreciation, repairs, purchase price etc. A lux will easily better 30mpg in everyday use, which is all my Legacy does. Sure, a diesel focus will be better on fuel but lose £000s in depreciation and be boring.

 

[DavidL]

ORIGINAL: GC8

ORIGINAL: Peter Empson

ORIGINAL: sc0tty
At 10k a year you will be spending a fortune on fuel, let alone wear and tear, servicing and maintenance. Good luck !!

...Sorry, but that's really not true in my experience...

+1. Absolute piffle.

+2 - use them daily they prefer it that way. Ok so not the most fuel efficient thing in the world but frankly who cares!
Most of the cars on here get used (with one notable exception it seems) and are all the better for it. Think of the depreciation you aren't having.

 

[ChasR]

I don't run mine on chip fat . I average somewhere between 25-32MPG in my S2. Yes I don't rag it everywhere but on the other hand I don't need to in order to keep up with traffic. What sort of economy are you expecting? It's not quite perfect but it's relatively straight. Over the past 7 years it's done 2,000 miles a year in the hands of the previous owner, whilst I'm doing significantly more than that. Any car can be kept well with a bit of patience and attending to things when needby. I do get some people saying I change things before they go but then the car does run well.

Mine isn't tidy as some (it's dent free, interior is good, but it does have a couple of stone chips) but I wouldn't want it super clean either. I'd be scared to drive the thing, and well it appears that minters still do attract the wrong type of attention. As Tony (944 Turbo) once said, there are some beautiful dailies out there, but also quite a few pups.

As said, a mate of mine has an 05 Diesel Golf. Yes, he messes with the spanners less, but he's also probably spending as much as me by the time depreciation etc. is factored in. I know so far it's cost less than my friend's Golf V6 4Motion (bought 3 years ago for nearly £9k, he'll be lucky to see £4.5k for it now).

 

[tref]

When my 944 Lux was written off, fuel costs in a courtesy Focus were greater than the fuel costs in my 944. The driving experience was, ahem, not comparable!
I'll agree with Scotty that my daily driven 944 is tatty, but the interior is nice (heated leather, Mmmm!), and it drives as well. I would agree that you cannot keep a daily driver in concour condition, but it can be well maintained.

Between driving a 944 every day I have tried others - Audis, Mk II Golf 16v, and personally, I would rather drive a tatty 944 every day, and enjoy the driving experience... Oh, and the 944 Lux was cheaper per mile than the Golf 16v.(19p/mile).

Unlike Scotty, I find it frustrating how few people on here do their own maintenance - maybe the people that don't do things our way stand out more!