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Tell me I'm not mad!!!

richthomas

richthomas

PCGB Member
Member
I'm selling my perfectly good 944 S2 which I have cherished the last 4 years to buy an 18 year old 3.2 911 which is a lot more expensive. This would be my new daily driver, am I mad to think I can use the 911 like this?

The 944 has been brilliant and I have no doubt the 911 will be just as reliable, but I am just aprehensive of selling a car I know inside and out, done loads of work to and has been 100% reliable over the last 4 years for an unknown quantity. To top that I will be travelling most of the country to go and get it!

Getting the 911 will be the acheivement of a life long dream, but I just want to know I'm doing the right thing[:)]

Rich
 
I suppose it depends what "daily driver" means. If you are doing 20 - 40 miles a day to a place where there is fairly secure parking then fine. If, however, you are doing 30K per year in to areas where the parking is an unknown then I wouldn't do it.

2 reasons a) you will knock value out of the car and b) Unlike 944 3.2 is not like a modern drive and candidly I wouldn't want to do high mileages day in and day out in mine ( or maybe I'm just getting old ).

I know what you mean about life long dream - it's the reason I bought mine and I have not regretted it for a second.

Hope this helps

Andrew



 
Rich
My daily car for the last 8 years has been my 3.2 come sun , rain and snow, I do change it now and again with my wifes cars to give them a run out but mostly its the 3.2
All I can say is get a good one with a good body, no rust and keep up the maintenance, service etc and it will not let you down
So good luck
 
Thanks guys.

I will only be doing less than 5k a year in the car, my work has a fully enclosed carpark with secirity guard and I will garage the car all the time. ( As I do now)

I think I'm just worried about giving up a car I know so well and finding problems with the new one later. I am having a full inspection done, so hopefully that should give me a good idea before I buy, but you can't find everything. Bodywork is my main concern, and as it will be my daily car, driving in the rain will be a given.
 
Rich,
Buy the 911,you wont regret it!I have owned 12 porsches over the last ten years,6 which have been 944 s.The 944 is a great car,but the moment you drive an air cooled 911,you will be hooked.As regards reliability,i have found no difference between the two,but the 911 is so much easier to work on than the 944 (it is a more basic car).
The big difference is that everytime you start a 911,you will have a big grin on your face,and it will still be there at the end of the drive(and this excitment does not wear off)!
I currently own a 3.2 celebration targa,and would not go back to a 944.
Good luck with the 911 if you buy one!
Andrew
 
Just to add,as regards rust,all porsches will rust if not looked after.If you buy a sound car to start with,and jet wash the wheel arches on a regular basis,you should not get any problems.
Andrew
 
Given the circs re. mileage and parking it's a no brainer - buy the car you will not regret it and Andy is right, the grin
m9.gif
just goes on and on.

Where are you looking to buy it?

Andrew
 
I was looking in the usual places, here, 911 virgin (2 just sold [:mad:]) other dealers, in porsche post etc. I have found one for sale privately that looks great, just waiting for the inspection later this week to confirm. Haven't actually seen the car yet, just many photos and from speaking to the guy it seems like a nice one.

Getting inspected first as I think it's the one and it's a long way to go just to look ;)

Have looked at others, and one local to me that was an anniversary coupe ( I liked it, and the colour) but the guy wanted more and I felt it could do with a few jobs doing, dampers, brakes etc. While not overly expensive to do my budget wouldn't really stretch to what he was asking fro the car plus the extra for the new parts right now. They would probably be OK left for now but I like things to be right. One thing was the interior even though 20 years old was good it did have some scuffs and the steering wheel leather was worn in the usual places and it looks like a nightmare to improve (scuffmaster type kits) and even southbound can't get the leather unless a massive group buy goes ahead from Germany. Even then a full trim (didn't really need that much I just got a quote) was more than the 944 is up for!
 
Hi Rich,

I did the same as you are planning to do, about 5 years ago and do not regret it at all. I bought a 1987 SSE Cab with 97K on the clock. It has not been any trouble at all but you should bear in mind that it does not have power steering or ABS brakes so you need to be more careful in wet weather.

Good luck with your search, just remenber a 911 is a 911 and there is nothing like it.

Adam
 
I sold my 944 last year and bought a 1988 3.2. BEST thing I have ever done (car wise) used it everyday to work (and at the time I worked teaching kids who had been excluded from school) its not as user frendy as a 44. But who cares

Nothing against 944s but the 911 is the real thing
 
NOT mad at all. The 944 is a superb car (my wife had a 2.7 and it was a dream to drive) but nothing compares to a flat 6 air cooled 911.... just do it! They are fab machines that somehoew just make you grin from ear to ear!!! You wont regret it!!
 
Hopefully not gonna cause too much controversy. Agree with alot of the points above,
OK for short drives and small mileages, ok if got somewhere to park securely, you will grin from ear to ear every journey, sounds and looks great, fanatastic to drive-but takes a bit of time to get into the handling, but the 944 is the better car for an every day drive- more user friendly, also looks great too, more civilised.

The 911 3.2 is a pre-historic brut, got attitude, rude, brash and you have to get hold of it by the scruff of the neck and tell it whose boss. The 944 is a well behaved, goody 2 shoes and does all its told first time and gets 10 A *s in it's GSSEs.(apart from in the wet).

Best of luck with your choice, and afterall unless you buyone you will never truely know.
 
I drove my 912e for 5-6 years daily, kept outside rain or shine, parked in the most dodgy places and never had any problems. Bought my 3.2 last September as its replacement as a daily driver and never looked back. As usual I plan to do as much of the maintenance myself. The trip to work and back adds about 40miles each day, it handles traffic comfortably and is great a traffic light grand prix[:D] anybody familiar with Mansfield will know what I mean. I'm getting around 320-330 miles out of a full tank, not the most economical but not bad.
 
Greetings
Nothing like coming in a bit late with more thoughts but for what its worth, I bought mine in late '04 and have used it every day since[:D]. She is as good as gold apart from the alternator giving out a couple of times[:mad:]
The bodywork did have a few issues which are being done at the moment. Meanwhile I've got the delights of the company diesel van (god, the things boring, I think my lawn mower is faster[:mad:]) however in another couple of weeks time my car will be done, hoorah.
And I will still use her every day. Trouble is if you wait for a sunny day to get the car out of the closet and then you promtly run into every slow t****r for the rest of the afternoon. No thanks.
I'll just make sure I give her a good going over every week and worry about the body in another twenty years time. Blimey I'll nearly be a hundred[:eek:]
Just go for it. Trust me.
Alex
 
Well, thanks for all the replies, I have gone for it and did hesitate for a bit thinking what have I done, but now not looking back. The 944 is sold, the guy is comming to pick it up this weekend and I have had the 911 for nearly 2 weeks now. Will be good to have the garage space back so it doesn't have to live outside!

There are a couple of things needing doing but they will get addressed and I'm sure I'll be asking lots of questions on here all the time. It was the Aberdeen car, and we went up in the morning and drove back to Leamington the same day, so gave me plenty of time to get used to it! The car was pretty faultless on the 500 mile trip down, the main bug bear was the heater was warm all the time, so windows and sun roof were open whenever it wasn't raining, which it did in sheets some times, then perfect sun others. The trials of driving from one end of the country to the other I guess. I did have a look underneath at the heater valves which do seem to move and weren't stuck fully open but they were also a bit gunky so a clean up of them will be the first thing to try. I also removed the temp sensor in the dash and cleaned up the element which was full of fluff, and blew through the pipe which was also full of fluff. Glad I did that outside of the car! The fresh air blower doesn't work, but it's really the only thing that doesn't, the car really is very nice indeed. I suspect the resistor as the fuse is OK. Anyone know how to get to this or how difficult it is? I had a similar thing with the 944 only it would only work on full, but cleaning the contacts sorted it and has worked fine for 3 or so years since.

No proper pics yet, my wife left the camera at work, but here it is.


9952B23F9D124070B37396F4271EC27C.jpg
 
looks good,​
​
The fresh air blower will most likely be burnt out itself, you can just buy the motor part. My car still blows warm air through, even after I've messed with it, think it still needs more messing with. I think the the cables needs adjusting so that they are slightly shorter therefore when the servo closes the valves it closes them tighter. If that makes sense.​
 
Where did you buy just the motor from Nige, can you remember how much it was as Mine packed up recently?
Small whiff of smoke, had me panicking like hell, visions of a pile of soot & some twisted metal work!

Ian
1987 3.2 Targa
Audi A6 1.8T.SE.
 
Greetings
I had a problem with the fresh air blower, it made an awful racket when on, viz: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee etc and so on. OK dry bearing or worn or both.I bought the motor part only from JAZ in Wembley, NW London (020.8903.1118). But there is NO way I know of getting the stupid a***hole b*****d *?!"@@¬&$ silly impeller/fan off the armature shaft without some damage [:mad:][:mad:][:mad:], unless, of course, you've got a "pinion puller" of some sort.
So in the end I bought the whole assy. problem solved[:D]
Good luck
 
Glad your enjoying it,

Pick my 3.2 up in a couple of weeks :)

Think a PCGB track day is needed to explore the handling.

Oh, by the way, yes you are mad, wonderful isn't it
 
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