ORIGINAL: Bob
The trouble with yours Peter is that you have spent so much money modifying it that you can't reconcile in your mind to sell it for its true worth. Only a very small handful of people (who probably already have a 944 Turbo) would consider your car, everyone else will be looking for a standard car because they believe the mods will make it less reliable. Every mod that you do is money down the drain and you will never get it back. You would be better off removing them all and selling them separately, that's the only way you'll get anywhere near your money back.
Too many garages are happy to take money off us owners, take ages to do the work, then hand the car back full of parts that actually devalue the car. You need to advertise it properly and not just a half hearted post on here, most of us have seen the months and months of problems you have had and all the time its been in the garage. If you plan to keep it forever that's fine, but if you change cars regularly then it will unfortunately cost a lot of money.
Some words of wisdom there, but also some details I would argue...
If you modify any car, you devalue it and never get the money back when you sell it.. That is a fact and something I do not make any bones about and often tell customers.
Modifying a car has to be a personal thing, where you want to make the car "how you want it" and that is not going to be the same for everyone, so no one will ever appreciate what you have done, too an extent.
If someone out there wants a 944 and then put KW on it, then they will see a car with KW already fitted as £1500 and the rest, saved.. But half the time people want a modified car to be their own making and they want to feel the KW at its best, which is when it is new.. It might be just as good 30,000 miles later, but that to be honest is not good enough, people want that new feeling a warm fuzzy feeling that things are as good as they can be, as well as experiencing the "before and after", that too is a big part of the modified car experience.
Car value needs to be on a car for car basis, and if Pete seriously wants to sell his, and for once I actually felt deep down that he really wanted to sell it, then there are some things, including a decent advert, which would make it happen... But, I have found that Pete is a lovely bloke and his car is a seriously lovely beast to drive.. But every time he says he wants to sell it, I know he will change his mind.. What he really does need to do is enjoy it.
Now the bit I will argue about... There are only two things to my knowledge which has been a trouble for Pete's car...
He had a problem with a persistant battery drain problem, which turned out to be a permanently on glove box lamp and a halfords battery with a slow drain...
He also had the most evil of squeeling brakes, which turned out to be caused by a seized piston in one of the calipers causing every set of brake pads it had to wear into a very slight wedge shape, which made a hell of a racket... We changed about 3 sets of pads for him, each time when it started squeeling, rather than waiting for the wedge shape to form, each time assuming Textar/Pagid group has made another dodgy batch of brake disks like they did about 4 years ago (which were noisey as well)... We even changed the disks once, thinking maybe they surface was too pourous... Each one of these fix'es was a quick change of parts, followed by no squealing, the car staying with us until Pete could next come down, and then it would be fine until eventually "Squeaaaaaaaal" again and a very peeved pete... Eventually once I realised that it could no longer be bad pads or disks (having tried a couple of sets of pagid and mintex) I Stripped it all down and found that with new pads with the pistons all the way back the pistons all worked in unison, but once the pad wore beyond about 1mm, one of the pistons would no longer move further out.. Easy problem to fix, and reasonably unusual, but in the meantime bloody annoying for all concerned.
The only other problem pete had was a knocking noise over bumps and occasional damp in the car.. Which turned out to be a quick find and a quick fix, tailgate and sunroof seals and adjustment.
The car has been with me for months, dropped off with the knocking noise, flat batteries and squealing brakes, all long ago fixed, and to keep it going I take it out for a spin on a regular basis, the car is awesome... But Pete asked me to look after it while he decided what to do with it next, and since then it has been up for sale a couple of times, and he has had a couple of changes of heart as to what direction to go in.
I think Pete will be the first to say we have not been messing him about, we have been storing his car for him, waiting for instructions, which we are fine with because we wanted to make sure his car did not develop any more irritations for him.. So if he wants to leave it with us for months, thats fine... But I am now pretty damn sure the brakes are not going to squeal again! lol
Further modifications to Pete's car? I don't think he needs any.. As it stands it is rapid, nimble, has awesome road manners, is reliable, sweat and smooth... Some extra power is always nice, but it is impressive as it is..
My advice for Pete.. There are a handful of small things I would recommend as precautionary maintenance, maybe some paintwork here and there to make it beautiful, and get it back so he can show it off at the "Hoon in June" and be proud of it over a bacon butty...
Apart from that he needs to use it, enjoy it and most importantly come with me to the Nurburgring with it in the summer so we can blat our 944 turbos around the track, Stay at Eddies place at night, break my association with the Ring and bad health, drink too much beer in the evenings and eat too much steak... Who else is coming? (and no, you can't bring the wife!)
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