944T values - all over the place!

[appletonn]

ORIGINAL: Neil Haughey

ORIGINAL: diabloam

I hope 951 value's go up as in hindsight I seem to have got a good deal on mine, had car 5 months now, no problems, and once I tackle bubbles on sill I reckon it be worth 5k as its done 88k and is imaculate otherwise. There is a little fray/tear on the drivers seat, wonder how hard it would be to get a mint burgandy leather seat, will be keeping an eye on ebay. Does everybody reckon prices will only really ever go up now for clean 944's, reckon that is going to happen to a lot of 80's cult cars.

Nope, not when you can get a nice clean 993 for 20K or so. Boxster S is down to 12 grand now for the oldest models. OK you probably have a 1/4 chance or worse of suffering all kinds of RMS nastiness but the general public wrongly think of the newer pork as being bullet proof because they read all the bs written by journalists who keep saying how wonderful modern cars are and how rubbish older cars are. Sadly the number of ppl who understand how wonderful these cars are is very small and the supply is very high. Porsche made many thousands of S2's and turbos so sadly I can't ever see the prices doing much better. Lastly one needs to factor in that none of the older pork has the desirability of a 911 variant and I don't see that changing because things have always been that way (well last 20 years at least).

You have to get a car that is rare to have much chance of it appreciating. A good example IMHO is the Audi RS2. I have read road tests that say it is a dog but ppl still desire it like mad despite that if you stripped of the Porsche bits you are left with 500 quids worth of Audi. Lack of supply is why.

Ah, but how many nice ones are there left?![]

They only made a few hundred Turbos in 1990 - red ones are especially rare I hear....[][]

 

[sawood12]

I think the days of Porsches holding their money is long gone. The brand is being diluted now that they have moved over into the mass market. You can't blame Porsche for that as it is doing what it needs to survive, but the knock-on effect of the later models depreciation will have an effect on the earlier models. I don't subscribe to the view that the modern Porsches are less reliable than the early ones - i'm often amazed that a selling point of an ealy Porsche seems to be how much the seller has spent on the car! The RMS problem has been blown out of all proportion - I know of at least 12 - 15 people at work who have either Boxsters or 996's and not one of them has had so much of a weep from the RMS. If it was such a rampant problem then out of the 12 - 15 poeple I know of who own these cars then statistically there would surely be a half decent chance that one of them would have suffered the problem. It's more of a case of the noisy disgruntled few vs the silent satisfied majority.

I am probably part of the last generation that remember the 'origianal' Porsches - I remember my next door neighbours dad coming home in a brand new 924 just after it was released. It was a revelation. People much younger than me are seem to be more impressed by a Saxo with bits of plastic superglued to it and UV lights under the sills and half a hundredweight of woofer in the boot. I can't imagine them suddenly waking up one day pining for a classic '80's german mini-supercar. It's just not going to happen. The number of people desiring these cars will dwindle over the next few decades. Hell, most new houses these days don't even have garages - or owners convert the garages to rooms, so they wont even have a place to park and work on their 20+yr old classic cars.

Still doesn't bother me - just means I will get a chance to own other Porsche models. Another 5yrs or so and that 996 turbo or GT3 will just be affordable. In fact 996 turbo prices are dropping below 993TT's.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

The RMS problem has been blown out of all proportion - I know of at least 12 - 15 people at work who have either Boxsters or 996's and not one of them has had so much of a weep from the RMS. If it was such a rampant problem then out of the 12 - 15 poeple I know of who own these cars then statistically there would surely be a half decent chance that one of them would have suffered the problem. It's more of a case of the noisy disgruntled few vs the silent satisfied majority.

The way it was explained at an open day at an indie near me, the problem is more common than that. It was particularly bad at first, but the design has improved. Their attitude was that you should count it as a service item perhaps every 5 years, and at around £500 it's not the deciding factor when choosing a car. Bit like cam chains on an S2, or water pumps whilst the belts are being done. Not something you'd have budgeted for when new, but if you're getting a premium sports car for silly money that costs nothing in depreciation and is generally well built you can't complain.

I'm sure Mark can correct me, but I'd say that out of 12-15 owners there would be the odd RMS. Perhaps they are under warranty and were replaced at services without the owner being made aware? [8|]

 

[Neil Haughey]

ISTR it is more a problem on the rare cars that have had repeated RMS issues, could be a manufacturing fault? One idea is the gearbox can be misaligned causing severe crank wear problems where the symptoms are the RMS but the cause is something else. End result is a dead engine.

Perhaps a car that hasn't had RMS issues is unlikely to? Perhaps then a several year old 996 or boxster is a sounder proposition then a nearly new one? all ideas to think about.

The 12 grand boxster S versus the 12 grand 951 is an interesting question.

 

[appletonn]

ORIGINAL: sawood12

I think the days of Porsches holding their money is long gone. The brand is being diluted now that they have moved over into the mass market. You can't blame Porsche for that as it is doing what it needs to survive, but the knock-on effect of the later models depreciation will have an effect on the earlier models. I don't subscribe to the view that the modern Porsches are less reliable than the early ones - i'm often amazed that a selling point of an ealy Porsche seems to be how much the seller has spent on the car! The RMS problem has been blown out of all proportion - I know of at least 12 - 15 people at work who have either Boxsters or 996's and not one of them has had so much of a weep from the RMS. If it was such a rampant problem then out of the 12 - 15 poeple I know of who own these cars then statistically there would surely be a half decent chance that one of them would have suffered the problem. It's more of a case of the noisy disgruntled few vs the silent satisfied majority.

I am probably part of the last generation that remember the 'origianal' Porsches - I remember my next door neighbours dad coming home in a brand new 924 just after it was released. It was a revelation. People much younger than me are seem to be more impressed by a Saxo with bits of plastic superglued to it and UV lights under the sills and half a hundredweight of woofer in the boot. I can't imagine them suddenly waking up one day pining for a classic '80's german mini-supercar. It's just not going to happen. The number of people desiring these cars will dwindle over the next few decades. Hell, most new houses these days don't even have garages - or owners convert the garages to rooms, so they wont even have a place to park and work on their 20+yr old classic cars.

Still doesn't bother me - just means I will get a chance to own other Porsche models. Another 5yrs or so and that 996 turbo or GT3 will just be affordable. In fact 996 turbo prices are dropping below 993TT's.

Scott it is not just the rms problem with the 996/Boxster engines - there is also an issue with the liners cracking and becoming oval; Hartech and Autofarm have both developed engineered solutions.

In terms of the classics, I think there will always be someone who wants a second car that is a little different and that will not depreciate. For every kid who wants to drive a Saxo with half of Halfwits glued to the outside, I think there are always going to be another one who aspires to something different. That said, I still think that the 944 will have its day as there will be fewer and fewer nice ones left (lots of rough ones as we all know) so for all of those people (like me) who fancied a 944 Turbo when they read about it in Fast Lane back in the day and who find themselves in the position of being finally able to get one, there will be less choice.

There are a lot of people out there of a certain age who are buying cars that they lusted after when they were in their twenties, but couldn't afford - Quattro, Peugeot 205 GTI 1.9, Golf Gti 16v, E30 M3, Merc 190 2.3 Cosworth etc.

Or am I just hoping...[8|]

 

[sawood12]

After writing what I wrote before about the younger generation I went through a Mcdonalds drive through today in the 944 and as the young adolescent, who couldn't have been much more than 16, lent over to hand me my Big Mac he said "Nice car mate" and stuck his thumb up. I thought id give him the benefit of the doubt in that he actually knew what car he was looking at and thanked him for his comment. So there you go, maybe the younger generation will take over the mantle when we get too old and arthritic to climb into our cars and start complaining that the suspension is too hard.

Not sure about the RMS becoming a standard service item. The chaps over on the 996 forum affected by the problem certainly seem to be complaining that the OPC's are still charging its replacement to those that are outside of warranty, so the cost of its replacement hasn't been included in the servicing costs.