porche 996 turbo

[220bhp]

I have a chance to buy a W reg 996 turbo.I have known this car for the last 7 years,and its in A1 condition,price is right to.
I have always been into Audi, but this chance has come up,and I am thinking of it.
What I need to know is what people on hear think of them,and wether anyone has had any expeariance of them.
I know the car has always been serviced at the local porche dealers and the bills, which I have seen are scary,but then all dealers are a rip of,especialy porche dealers.
As I say I know this car very well and the owner has told me that the running cost are not bad for super car,but I am not as rich as he is.I just wonder how it would conpair with my rs2 coupe,with regard to running costs excetra,bareing in mind that the coupe has cost me a small fortune to get it running right.

[A1QSHIP]

The initial buy-in for these cars is the usual stumbling block for enthusiast. Maintenance is the next problem but with a stack of repair bills that seems to have been taken care of. Best to speak with the people that serviced said vehicle as they would best be able to tell you "what is next" since they know the car. Get a Pr-purchase inspection done! Go to the Porsche forums to get an idea about what the service life is for the various components on this car, i.e., clutch, water pump, engine, turbos, driveshafts.... Have you considered the total cost such as insurance, storage or garage space? How much can you afford to spend on maintenance each month? If you have the time, resources & ability to perform your own repairs you will be better off than paying others to do it for you.
HTH, Chris

[AndyP]

Speak to Darren Jones ( DJones ) he has a 996 Turbo.

[mcandmar]

I'm not that familiar with the 996 generation but generally Porsches aren't that scary a prospect. 996's do have a few soft spots as with all porsches so do your homework. General service items like brake disks/pads, suspension parts arent crazy money, in my experience they can be cheaper than Audi parts. Major mechanical parts like clutches, transmission, and engine rebuilds is when things can get serious. When you do your research you will find some model generations had known issues like flywheels failing, engine leaks, even bearing failures, but 90% of the time those issues will have been sorted by now. The best advice i can give is to get a porsche specialist, or somebody with detailed knowledge of the car to inspect it so you know what your getting into. As super cars go, and for the performance they give, they are a bargain.

[DJones]

Great cars, when you drive it you will want it, so planted and so much low down torque from the 3.6 twin turbo lump and as standard they are only running .8 of a bar.

Things to look for in no particular order:

Rads corrode due to debris getting between the air-con rads and main rads. Most place mesh across them to stop it. circa 1k repair for all 5 rads.

Turbo waste gate actuator arms seize and snap due to them being hung out the back with road muck thrown up at them.

Clutch slave cylinders and pressure bombs have a circa 3 year life span, clutch is power assisted and has a bomb that we are all familiar with.. Not to bad a job circa £500 for parts.

Rear spoiler rams leak and spoiler stops going up and down and a fault light shows on the dash. Have a look at the bottom of the rams if they are damp its on count down, like mine.... circa £700 for parts, you cant fix them, many have tried to no avail.

Air con pipes rust, not that expensive to repair, they run under the drivers side floor.

When they are hot and ticking over they sound quite noisy, its common to all turbos, GT2 and gen 1 997 turbos. Its just the intermediate shaft chatter. Not to be confused with intermediate shaft problem on the NA engines, its a completely separate design and derived from the GT1 race car, bulletproof. Not heard of one engine failure (i'm on 4 forums)

Don't be put off by a smokey start up its common due to the flat 6 design.

Gearboxes are bullet proof, the manuals do occasionally suffer with a second gear pop out, drive it around in 2nd for a while, accelerating and on over run, if you catch it early you can fit a stronger indent which helps it.

Fairly easy to work on, certainly easier than the B5 RS4 and in my view cheaper.. but it all is done from underneath, a ramp is nice...

Touch wood i have only had one problem, which turned out to be a broken variocam bracket, the right bank of cylinder went out the second the engine felt load.

I'm sure other things will come to mind but they are not to be scared of.. Its the only car i have driven that would push me to sell the UR if times were hard...

Pics of the broken bracket attached, which shows what you have to remove to change the plugs, much easier than it looks...