Advice on buying a 944 ?

[declangrady]

Hi folks,
I need your advice.
I'm considering buying a 944 to use as a daily driver.
My budget is very very low, probably sub 3k, as I have to sell my current daily driver to finance it first, but I also don't want to buy a shed for the sake of a few hundred more !
Say around 170 miles/week commuting, plus another "few" fun.

Is this feasible ?
Where should I be looking for 944's for sale ?
I've seen a few ads between trader & ph from 2k up, but these are prob sheds, or are they ?

I don't know what sort of price level a decent early 944 should be .. please help !

Any suggestions / pointers welcome

Thanks,
Declan

 

[Fen]

£3k is reasonable money to buy a nice 2.5 or 2.7 car. Age is irrelevant as they are all old enough to be priced on condition, but an '85.5 on car has a nicer interior. You will have to be very careful though as you will not get a decent car and retain much contingency with a £3k budget and owners of the ropey ones still think they are £2,500 worth when they are not. There is no such thing as a cheap Porsche but the closest you'll get is a nice example of a 924 or a non-S2 or Turbo 944. I've never owned the models you are looking at so I'll open the floor to those who have.

 

[Guest]

This is entirely feasible based on the models Fen mentions or the pre 85.5 non turbo models, depends on how confident you are in your own abilities or if you know a 'friendly' mechanic. I base this on experience, I have bought two pre facelift models in the last year; the first for £1500 and my current daily driver for £2000. I was lucky enough to find two straight cars from two honest owners on Ebay but I was prepared to walk away (despite having driven 150 miles) if the car was a pup and I do my own spanner work, not to mention a couple of mates who are mechanics. The first one, I sold six month later for the same money I paid for her.

If you spend all your cash acquiring the car, you may come unstuck with running costs. You need a tick list for all the things you must see, I'l start you off and we'll see what others can add:

As much history as possible - Sounds obvious, but if you get a box full of service sheets and receipts you can assume that at least some of the previous keepers have looked after your prospective chariot.

New MOT - Only any good on the day it takes the test but at least you know it's not a total death trap. Any seller tells you they don't have time (or similar) walk away, no one is too busy to realise the full potential of a monetary asset.

Electrics - unless you can fix it yourself make sure everything works - my first one had a problem whereby using the rear demist made the drivers window operate!

Rust - Galvanised body is a boon but 20 years of UK weather still takes a toll. I have seen metal worm around headlamps on front wings, behind wheelarch on front wings, same on rear wings due to drain holes. Also check doors, rear hatch and sunroof seals for water.

Good things to have would include, a dash with no cracks (common problem on pre oval dash models), a thatcham approved alarm & immobilizer (for bearable insurance) and a recent cambelt and tensioners replacement. This last point, if you can't verify belt and tensioners were all changed, budget to do it immediately, you can barter the cost off of the asking price.

Ripped seats and broken tachos also seems to be a recurring theme on 'cheap' cars. I'm sure the more experienced members can write very long lists of areas I've not even mention. I hope this helps and Good Luck

 

[Guest]

I would advise, if you find a car you like, to take someone with you who knows about Porsche cars, even if you pay some bloke who advertises in Porsche mags. I'm implusive and bought 2 cars that both looked fine - but found out later needed work. Any car 20 years old is going to need some work, it depends on how much you can do yourself.

Servicing can cost a fortune, but it is not rocket science to do half of it yourself, so worst case £500.a year with some repairs. Most parts available on ebay.

High road tax, but cheap classic car insurance.

One thing not mentioned I would check is battery box. Has drain holes but gets easily blocked, and rust. No problem if you can weld, but expensive if you have to get someone else to do it. Had this on my 924 and 944.

 

[944Turbo]

2nd the battery box especially on square dash pre-86 cars with the battery in the front.
Also check in front of the rear wheels there is a 'box shape area' under there that fills up with cr*p and rots through to the sills
Tony

 

[Fen]

Good advice from both but I'd really suggest getting an oval dash car. That way the chance of a cracked dash is much reduced and provided it is RHD the battery is in the boot so that problem goes also. Rust is getting to be a big issue now but it is confined to the places mentioned already. On the sills it is especially costly to repair and as it is structual you can't just put up with it. They tend to start to go below the back corner of the door it would seem and it starts with bubbling under the crinkly paint. Other expensive problems would be a clutch as it's lots of time to replace or worn bushes or ball joints on the front suspension (on '86- cars with alloy arms). Anything you wouldn't like the look/sound/smell of from the engine is bad as they should run sweetly with no wierd noises or smoke - possibly a lazy hydraulic tappet at worst. Mixing of oil and water could be a failed seal on the oil/water cooler (apparently and confusingly referred to sometimes as an intercooler) which is cheap but *might* be lots of labour (anyone who's done one know?) or the head gasket. Transmission gets noisy quite early in the car's life and goes on like that for a long time. If you look at a 16v S model then it is possible that the cams, chain that drives one from the other and/or tensioner could be an issue. In reverse order that's £25, £250 or £2,500 to fix as a rule of thumb. Everything else I can think of is standard stuff; check for accident damage (the panel gaps are huge but should be even), things not working, interior damage as with all old cars can be costly to fix, it might leak but that's usually an easy fix if you're patient with tracking it down and lots of help is available here with that, the sunroof may not work but that is usually stripped gears or dirty microswitches and a cheap fix. You want to see history as Shaun suggested but I'd say 2 years of recent history is worth 10 years of early receipts - any gaps should ideally be a long time ago and if there is nothing for the time the current owner has had it then get a feel for the likelihood they did it themselves (and where are the parts receipts if they did) and walk if you aren't happy. There are plenty of these cars to choose from and last thing from me is that the advertised price is not always a good indication of the condition; there are a lot of top money dreamers out there as well as a few who are over-sensitive to minor faults and undervalue because of them.

 

[944Turbo]

I did the oil water heat exchanger on my lux a bit fiddly as there is only just enough space to get it out, it was a bit of a puzzle and then it virtually jumped out. Longest time was spent getting oil out of cooling system and it still used to occasionally burp a little out into the header tank.
Oh and it is relatively common for the panel gaps to be a little strange around the headlights.
See combined knowledge is better than 911 and 911 world []
Tony

 

[Guest]

Good point on panel gaps. Heavy doors + mega usage and can drop. making it a pain to open door and catch breaks. Easy to fix but difficult without a responsible adult to help! Hence my replacement door handle in handbag and door needs upping 1 mm or so.

 

[declangrady]

Wow. Great info.
I heard this was the best section of the forum, but didnt expect such informative replies so quickly !

As a pure coincidence, I got a drive in an '83 2.5 Lux last night (mates one) I'm even more hooked now. That was a fantastic drive, even if only about 15 miles or so.

I'd intend on doing most of my own maintenance work, probably with a lot of input from here !

Where do I go to find these motors for sale ?
I've looked on pistonheads, classifieds here & porsche-1, had a quick look on ebay, and a look in autotrader.
Where should I look ? What mags ?
I had a quick scan through August 911&PW, & a few recent pp's and there were quite a few 944s there, nut mostly S2's, Turbos & Cabs.

Another quick question ... are there already fixing points there for rear 3-pt belts ?
(I was surprised to find them in my '75 911 !)

Thanks for all the pointers folks ... Much appreciated.

Cheers,
Declan

 

[edh]

You might also want to look at 924S - same as early 944's mechanically, but generally £500-£1000 cheaper

FWIW The '88 model 924S had 3 point inertia reel belts in the rear, earlier ones had 2-point static belts (but there is a third mounting hole on the pillar)

 

[declangrady]

ORIGINAL: edh

You might also want to look at 924S - same as early 944's mechanically, but generally £500-£1000 cheaper

Interesting .. I didn't know they were the same mechanically !

ORIGINAL: edh
FWIW The '88 model 924S had 3 point inertia reel belts in the rear, earlier ones had 2-point static belts (but there is a third mounting hole on the pillar)

Even more interesting !

Off to look up some info on the 924 !

Cheers,
Declan

 

[Fen]

I think you will pay the same for a good 924S as for a good early 944 - it's the top 924 vs. the bottom 944 being the reason.

I'd look to eBay, here, Pistonheads, Titanic, Auto Trader, local paper and possibly 911&PW and PP although the latter 2 tend to be somewhat "optimistic" in terms of price - I mean ALL the cars in there each issue can't be concourse standard minters, surely?

 

[pae]

You could look at this one ..... http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=142857

1988 model so you get a much later car with same running gear (and very sound it all is, might I add [] ). I've loads of photo's and more details.

Plus good CD player, rear 3-point belts, Cup alloys, big bills all recently paid. You get a Cat C damaged one admittedly, but I can show every detail of it before and after.

It doesn't suffer from the majority of the points mentioned above except the sunroof doesn't work (but doesn't leak either !!!)

Phil

 

[declangrady]

ORIGINAL: pae
You could look at this one ..... http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=142857
1988 model so you get a much later car with same running gear (and very sound it all is, might I add [] ). I've loads of photo's and more details.
Plus good CD player, rear 3-point belts, Cup alloys, big bills all recently paid. You get a Cat C damaged one admittedly, but I can show every detail of it before and after.
It doesn't suffer from the majority of the points mentioned above except the sunroof doesn't work (but doesn't leak either !!!)
Phil

I may be tempted yet .. I did read some of your posts just last week !

ORIGINAL: Fen
I think you will pay the same for a good 924S as for a good early 944 - it's the top 924 vs. the bottom 944 being the reason.

Yep, from what I can see the prices arent that different.

ORIGINAL: Fen
I'd look to eBay, here, Pistonheads, Titanic, Auto Trader, local paper and possibly 911&PW and PP although the latter 2 tend to be somewhat "optimistic" in terms of price - I mean ALL the cars in there each issue can't be concourse standard minters, surely?

Those last 2 mags are the ones I looked in last night.... not cheap !

I found titanic, thanks. Never saw that site before..

Currently looking on ebay ... not a great start when the first 2 I look at have 170k or 180k miles and one is lhd too ! Oh well, keep looking. Havent had any offers on my other car yet, so might take a while.

Cheers,
Declan

 

[Fen]

Don't be put off by miles. I can't believe I didn't say that before [8|]

I ran my S2 cab from 142k to 192k and aside from the valve gear expenses associated with the 16 valve engine it only really needed regular maintenance in that time - specifically I replaced the struts and shocks and it needed clutch master and slave cylinders and a battery. That was pretty much it aside servicing and tyres as far as I remember.

They aren't always as low mileage as they claim; the interior wears the miles well and a knob to wind the miles back wouldn't make it much easier to clock them. Also a car with low miles can have many, many more problems than one that has higher usage simply through long periods of standing about. Things like hardening hoses and seals (which can cost loads in terms of labour and parts to replace) and siezed cables, brakes and gear linkages spring to mind.

 

[declangrady]

ORIGINAL: Fen
They aren't always as low mileage as they claim; the interior wears the miles well and a knob to wind the miles back wouldn't make it much easier to clock them.

[]
I had to re-read that sentence a few times before I twigged !
I thought mabye I had missed a great Porsche invention !

Point taken about miles .. guess it just inbuilt in my brain that v.high miles = bad.
(comes from starting off with fords, I guess)

Cheers,
Declan

 

[944turboS]

Don't forget that the original 924S had a 150bhp engine & the later ones got the full 160bhp same as the 944.

 

[sawood12]

I got mine from the Exchange & Mart website!

Another option if you are not afraid to take a risk and if you are confident mechanically is to buy a car that has been written off before. There are basically 4 write off categories, 2 basically mean the car was uneconomical to repair (not hard with the value of a 944 compared to 2 new wings, a bonnet, a front bumper and a radiator at OEM prices) but otherwise structurally sound, and the other 2 are where the car is a structural write off and should be taken off the road (obviously stay clear of these two). The categories are A to D but i'm not sure which order they are in.

The point being these cars are obviously cheaper than a similar specc'd/aged/milage car but will require you to be much more thorough in checking the car out to satisfy yourself that the repairs have been carried out properly with proper parts and by trustworthy repair mechanics.

 

[declangrady]

ORIGINAL: 944turboS
Don't forget that the original 924S had a 150bhp engine & the later ones got the full 160bhp same as the 944.

Which years are which ?
I may yet be tempted by a 924S, as the vrt (import duty) over here is a bit less for a 24 compared to a 44, but there doesnt seem to be many 924S's around. Mabye I'm not looking in the right places.
I got the current 911&pw and theres only a handful, 2 of which are turbos.

pointers ?

 

[Fen]

I think it was just the last year, which I believe was '88, that got the 160bhp. Might be worth asking on the 924 forum to be sure. Insurance write-offs are: A- Vehicle and all parts must be destroyed, no parts can be used againB- Vehicle must not go back on the road, parts can be used on other carsC- Vehicle may go back on the road after an inspection by a qualified inspectorD- Vehicle was considered uneconomic to repair so insuarnce company paid out for car rather than for repairs but can go back on the road. I think this must need a lesser inspection as I'm sure it needs to be inspected but it is less serious than C If at all I wouldn't touch anything but a cat D. They are OK as with a 924 or 944 that could easily just be panel damage. Remember resale if you choose to buy an ex-write-off. Of course if you are importing to Eire then maybe the accident history get's left in the UK?