dannyp1 said:Yeah, still makes me smile every time i drive my Porsche. Car's been an absolute gem for the nine glorious years i've had her. Absolutely loved it. Car's in very good order otherwise, everything works fine, body work is good too. She is a keeper but i can't afford it to go wrong again in an expensive way some time down the line. So it's a soul searching time for me right now:-(
I can't do any of the work myself as i have no experience at all.
On top of all this i just shelled out £5k on a new engine on my Mercedes! It's all going Pete Tong and i'm having a car nightmare right now. In fact, just sold the Merc today and bought a Peugoet instead:-((((
I will report back with what Hartech and Autofarm say.
Danny I feel your pain: what you're experiencing seems to be the luck of the draw with these cars.
I know it's not easy but can you convince yourself to spread the outlay you're facing over the last "nine glorious years"? It won't make the money grow on a tree, it won't reduce the bill but it's another way of looking at it.
I don't think you said how much smoke you've got from your nearside exhaust? When I had my 996 into OPC Cambridge last year for the free 111-point inspection kindly arranged betwen OPC Cambridge and the 996 Register I mentioned "slightly smokey n/s exhaust" to the technician who went over my car with a nit comb: his remark was to "leave it until the bumper's black". I don't suggest that you can ignore the issue forever but it might be that you have a bit of time to up-end the piggy bank, maybe you should discuss this with Pie Performance I'm sure they'll give you honest advice.
I suppose there's a discussion about whether you entrust the repair of your engine to a shop who can carry out the repairs in-house or who outsource to a specialist like hartech or autofarm: I can't answer that for you but I'd want convincing that they really know their onions if going down option 1.
Keep us posted eh?