944 rust

[Robert Edwards]

Good tip; years ago when I bought my first Aston (£400! that is four hundred pounds) I had a puncture and casually installed the jack and started winding it up.. Imagine my dismay when a truly dreadful ripping noise emanated and the car sank back, tearing a jack-shaped gash in the front wing, distorting the bonnet, etc.. To repair it was more than twice the total cost of the car.

Happy days, though...

 

[Diver944]

The Cab is no more susceptible than other models.

It's really the area under the 'bobbly' paint on the cills and front wing that tend to go. The galvanising will have held it off for years but once it takes hold nothing will stop it forever, so get on the floor and have a good look at the cills.

Another tip is to open the door and in the door jam you will find a plastic louvre. Push up the tiny clip on the louvre and it comes right out thereby giving you access behind the rear part of the cill. Get a torch in there and have a look because it's from behind that any corrosion will start. Mine had traces in there about 8 years ago and as only got sligtly worse so I am going to stick my neck out and say that most will have 'something' behind that louvre []. The galvanising (and Waxoyl, Dinitrol etc) slows it down but it will have to be addressed at some point.

 

[sawood12]

Another good check is by removing the plastic vent on the rear door pillar. You can peer downt the hole and see the back of the inside of the sill. Although it is not an absolute indicator of the condition of the sills if you see rust here then you can bet your bottom dollar there is more in the sill. Unfortuntately the sills corrode from the inside out so any sign of rusty sills needs to be investigated seriously and you should fear the worst unless you can establish otherwise. It is generally accepted that sill replacement will cost you £1k a side, although there are the odd one or two people that have claimed they have had it done cheaper, and my own indie reckons it is not that expensive, maybe £1k for both sides. Either way it's not cheap and something to be avoided, unless you fancy using it as leverage for bartering the price down.

Also take a look at the fuel pipes. You can see them by removing the rear offside wheel, they run under the car and up and over the rear axel and you can follow them. They seem to corrode as they run over the rear axel as they are exposed to the crud thrown up from the wheel. Their life span seems to be around the 18 - 20yr mark judging by the number of people having issues with them recently (me included) and they are not cheap - about £400 for the OEM pipes, and because the rear axel needs dropping to replace a substantial amount of labour to fit, so again not necessarily a show stopper if you don't mind getting the work done, but make sure you use it as leverage for bargaining. Again a few others on this forum have replaced the corroded section of pipe with flexi's successfully, so there are much cheaper options if you don't fancy going to OEM route.

 

[Robert Edwards]

This is great advice - thank you!

 

[944turboS]

The cabs are no worse than the coupes, the S2 & turbos are suffering due to moisture trapped between the plastic sill trims & the metal. Another item to check is the fuel lines several cars now have repairs/patches to the metal lines around the rear axle.
If you post a specific request usually a member local to you would help with vieving a potential purchase.

 

[Neil Haughey]

Guys quick tip I have found that has stopped rust from spreading on my car is to larup on fresh paint from a touch up pen as soon as you get an area around the bottom of the arches or cills that has been chipped off and started to corrode. The reason why I know this works is that I got some corrosion at the bottom of one of the rear quarters where the paint had been chipped off (between panel and plastic side skirt). I left it thinking that I would put the car in a body shop sometime. It quickly got worse then I noticed that a tiny piece of exposed metal was feeding the rusting so I wacked the touch up pen on there. Corrosion hasn't got any worse for nearly a year now. Still needs properly sorting but 30 seconds with a touch up pen every now and then can probably stop a small problem from turning into a nightmare.

If waxoyling also don't forget to pull out the chassis bungs on the inner cill next to each seat and wack in the wand through there, if you pull back about 6" of the rear carpet section you should be able to see it. Carpet will stick back down again OK on old glue but may need some fresh glue sprayed down (halfords do trim glue in spay cans). On the drivers side the bung is right next to the pivot end of the hand brake.

Probably most important thing is to get under the car and check that all the underseal is intact. Cills wings and rear quarters can all be repaired or replaced, rust in the major chassis legs like around rear suspension is probably terminal in terms of costs to rectify.

 

[924nutter]

ORIGINAL: knightma

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

What would a cherished example be going for then?

£8k privately, £9k trade. Turbo cabs more.

I'd be wanting a very, very unusually good S2 for that money. Not only body and interior perfect, but a very recent full belts and whistles service and perfect, if not new, cams. Probably a valve job as well. And re-furbed calipers.

Please don't get offended, but white is not the most saleable colour. As such, you should get a better car for your money.

Whatever you buy, keep £1k back for the things you miss that crop up over the first year. There is always something!

I'd look at around the £6500 mark, with the reserve £1k, and you should get a very good S2.

Going by your valuations above, there are a few dreamers out there. Have you seen the £18k Turbo Cab that's been on the autotrader website for the last few weeks/months? Also reminds me of an S2 Cab I looked at a couple of months ago, he wanted £14k. OK it only had 52k miles and had won a few street concours trophies but it had been resprayed (not the best re-spray I've ever seen) and it wasn't original with 968 wheels, mirrors and door handles. It all looked rather molested. The car had been for sale for 18 months, the owner said he'd had many time wasters round offering £8k, no doubt I'm now another one.

After looking at many over priced or poor quality examples, I bought a very good S2 with original paint for £5750. For me the most important aspect is the bodywork, I always look for original paint and no rust. If there are mechanical problems, I can sort those myself but bodywork restoration to be done correctly costs a fortune and even then won't be as good as it came out the factory. I've now spent a further £1k on genuine parts (clutch, belts and service consumables) which I've fitted myself. From my experience and I am very fussy, there was very little out there worth buying for less than £6k in the way of S2's or later Turbos.

Well if it's the grey Turbo Cab, it will be at a premium with only 23,000 miles on the clock and two owners, but £18k is too much when you consider that, back in December 2006, I paid £12.5k for a 27,000 mile Turbo Cab, which if you didn't already know, is on display at club HQ.
Go here http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=256379
and scroll down for the service history