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Advice - Considering A 944..

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Hi - I am considering selling my Ducati sports bike and buying a 944 to replace it - this would give me a budget of around £4000 to play with. I am a reasonably competent DIY mechanic but have no specialist tools or knowledge. I would cover about 5000 miles a year and have a servicing/tyres budget around £1000 per year, not including insurance and tax. Here's my question - is this sufficient budget and how practical a 'DIY' prospect is the 944 for general maintenance? Any other wisdom regarding model choice etc greatfully recieved, but I have seen that there are lots of links here that will help me with that aspect.

Cheers and thanks in advance.
 
Having had mine for only 7 months..with Only cambelt etc Change in that time
I say, Yes! Although Be sure to buy a Good one First!
 
Assuming you are talking about an S2, recent posts would suggest that on a budget of £4000 you are more likely to have an initial "fix the immediate problems" bill of up to £1500 and then you will have your running costs on top of that. There's loads of advice on a number of recent posts, but as with all these things it's not always the obvious issues that can cause problems. For example replacing my idiotic immobiliser is soon to cost me £150. It works fine, but it's so annoying to use that it's driving me crazy and so it must go.

Beware the dreaded sill rot too as that really is expensive and the car won't feel any different afterwards, which always makes parting with money difficult.[;)]

Don't worry though, they are cracking cars and I am still amazed that people in petrol stations will come and talk to me about mine, althought that maybe because they are amazed to see me driving it in the cold and the wet.
 
I'd say that on recent experience you really need to allow £1500 over the first year if you buy a good S2. It will need either mechanical fettling or bodywork, and most likely both....

I'd suggest that £4k would buy you the very best Lux, and leave you with plenty in hand over the year. If you want an S2 then £4k is not going to buy the best, and might well blow the budget first year.

If you set the "display topics from" at the top to 1 year and read everything on here, you'll get all the advice you'll ever need, plus a lot of ramblings from owners of all the models! [8|]
 
As for the DIY question, yes definitely! I have done a lot of work on my S2 over the last few years (the car is at "that age") and they are suitable for the competent DIY mechanic. I say competent because the cars although straightforward to work on can be fiddly and time consuming, steel bolts in ali threads can sieze, limited acces etc. The car being very low slung is not as easy to jack up to a comfortable working height as a typical classic car, either. There are plenty of resources and information for the home mechanic- Clarks garage manual website is very good, and there are choices for after market parts and rebuild kits for parts.
 
£1000 a year for 5000 miles should be pretty achievable if the car is good to start with and you are reasonably competent to do things yourself. As others have said, you should be able to find an excellent Lux or even an S for that budget, but you might struggle to find a good S2. If you are prepared to fix a few things immediately then you could find a cheaper example but make doubly sure there is zero rust as that can get expensive. Check both sills and the bottom of all wings very carefully

Mmmmm Ducati [8D] drool [8D]
 
That's deff a good bedget for it, def affordable, just try not to buy one that looks like it will catch fire!
 
The 944 is a fairly nice car to work on - they are well built. At times as with any other 20 year old car things are corroded and beyond any spanner and socket.
Get one with as good bodywork as you can find - otherwise a money pit.
Watch out for an S2 that needs cams £350ish each, clutches are a pain due to the time they take and getting at them.
On the positive side most jobs you can do yourself at reasonable cost - I have recently done a full service + dizzy cap, rotor arm, leads, belts/rollers, refurbished brake calipers, fuel lines and braided brake lines all for well less than £1000.

Go for it!!

Rich
 
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