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Help me buy a (decent) 996

deMort said:
From the pictures ..

X2 silencers .

Front and rear discs and pads .

X4 coffin arms .. not urgent but they will be debonding .. not an MOT fail though .

Brake pipe o/s/f where it enters the car.

Front shocks .. hmm .. ok but dont look pleasent .. clean and protect .

Rear main / oil leaks .. looks ok .. old misting .. so im disagreeing with the garage there .. i dont see any fresh oil.

Probably wants a clutch .. biteing point high would certainly indicate to me it needs one let alone being a hard pedal .

Water from the exhaust .. pretty normal .. you would have taisted sulpher and a mixture of co2 / acid in it .. if it WAS coolant then the engine would no longer be running !

From the general corrosion then i hope the garage removed all the under trays as i suspect the brake pipes under the L shaped panel will also be heavily corroded .

All in all .. a fair bit of corrosion but fairly normal for a car that hasnt had any protective waxoil etc and is maybe slighlty under serviced .

It will need approx 5k of work there though .

Thanks.

The oil leak photo isn't great, I should have got a close up but wanted to give an idea of the area it was coming from. It's definitely a current oil leak as I took a drip of fresh wet oil on my finger.

The water from the exhaust must have been from washing or a coincidence of the weather. Dry day today and no water, oil smell or smoke from the exhaust (although admittedly it's not even attached). There was a slight ticking noise from the engine which I believe can be a sign of bore score if loud. Not sure if a slight tick is normal?
 
If you have a drip from the bell houseing then i would recomend getting the seals done .. if combineing with a clutch then its cheaper ... as you say the picture is a bit difficult to see .

A Tick is normally tappet based and not a problem as such ..

Bore score .. it would have to be pretty advanced to actually get a noise and even then you dont always .. this is more what i would expect from a 997 than a 996 ... ive seen very few 996 with actual bore score , talking fingers on one hand to be honest .. but im not Hartech !

Its more of a heavey note .. almost a slapping of the piston against the cylinder .. hard to desribe but you can " feel " its deep inside the engine .. a tappet to me at least always sounds like its from the outer parts of the engine ... which it is and it will be one sided .. either o/s or n/s .

Tinny noise .. outside and tappet .. deep knocking .. so more bass .. big end , bore , piston slap , small end etc etc .

my opinion of this car .. it needs to be cheap .. i see a fair bit of work ahead .. nothing terminal from what ive seen or read so far .. but the general condition makes me feel that you will have to spend a few bob to get it back upto par .
 
Shocks have never been replaced. Will be OK i.e. not leak and probably pass a dyno test, but won't be 100%

Exhaust boxes are mis matched someones just done one side (!)

------


You say its cheap, it looks like a sub £12k car. You probably aren't going to find much better without spending more.

You either do bits and bobs constantly over the next few years, and drive the car but it won't be 100%.

Or bite the bullet and give it a refresh, as demort says you are going to need £5k+

Then it may well be better than cars at £17-18k only you can make the call.

I was where you are 5 years ago. I bought at the bottom of the market and I've done LOADS over time. My car was MOT'd and everything worked much like this car. I've spent £6k in parts alone. Car has been faultless* for a year now.





*Apart from leaking door membrane, key fob battery drain, rattling heat shields.... there is ALWAYS something on an old car.
 
wasz said:
I was where you are 5 years ago. I bought at the bottom of the market and I've done LOADS over time. My car was MOT'd and everything worked much like this car. I've spent £6k in parts alone. Car has been faultless* for a year now.

*Apart from leaking door membrane, key fob battery drain, rattling heat shields.... there is ALWAYS something on an old car.

Haha, I know that feeling. I currently run a 16 year old snotter as a daily and have another 29 year old car that likes to self destruct while sat in the garage.

I appreciate the honest appraisals and estimates on work and costs. Means I can make an informed decision.
 
A manual 996 is a £20k car. This one doesn't seem to be the exception, or to be particularly cheap.
Take a step back and look at it. Do all the bits and pieces work? Do you like it? What's the bodywork and interior like? The bits you'll actually see and interact with. If you spend £18/19k in total on it will you be pleased with the result, or will you wish you'd held out for something else?
There are very few 996 bargains these days.
 
After sleeping on it.

I'm going to call the garage and see where they stand on doing all the repairs from the PPI along with slapping a clutch in while the box is off.

I'm happy to slowly refresh all the suspension, buying parts and doing the work myself over time. I'm about 8/10 happy with the body work condition. Fine with the colour and the interior is my ideal spec.

The advice and perspective here has really helped. It's easy to forget the age of the cars as they hide it so well and it's also easy to forget that the days of a clean £10k 996 are gone (cue scores of posts from people saying they bought a minter for £9K)
 
I bought my 3.4 C2 in May 2017. 53k miles.
The list of fairly recent work carried out by the previous owner was as follows.
Discs and pads all round
Clutch
M030 suspension
Coffin arms
Water reservoir
AOS
Manifolds and silencers
Rads and condensers
Water pump and thermostat
Starter and alternator
Spark plug tubes
Oxygen sensors
Coil packs
Along with normal servicing.
I paid £16k for the car which at the time seemed expensive, but having looked at countless tired worn out cars it just seemed more sensible to pay a bit more for a car that had been properly maintained.
The car you're looking at may have had some of these items or may need them in the near future.
If I were you I'd be driving a hard bargain.....and budget £5k worth of work.
 
I bought my 2003 C2 manual in Oct 17 privately and paid about 5/6k less than the dealers were asking. I've spent a bit on it - some necessary, some through choice eg two coil packs were cracked / degrading but I changed all 6. I'm able to do lots of work myself so having a car that needs fettling is not a problem as I like doing stuff on it (though putting off exhaust manifolds till next winter (again!)

I think the good thing is you're going in eye wide open.
Ian
 
UncleP said:
After sleeping on it.

I'm going to call the garage and see where they stand on doing all the repairs from the PPI along with slapping a clutch in while the box is off.

^^^
This.
And get them to throw in a major service + full MOT and say you'll pay the asking price. Tell them it will be a daily driver and must be 100% mechanically reliable and that it cant let you down for work, don't worry about cosmetics.

As you say you can always pay for a clutch (and IMS seal flip) whilst the 'box is off.

If they refuse I'd walk away as you are going to probably end up paying £5k+ to fix it up as it is so you'd be better off buying a sorted one. Chances are that you still spend several £1000 on it even if the garage sorts the issues as most owners bond with their car and like to improve it further.

Good luck.
 
I paid £18500 for my C2 cab two years ago. First service I had everything done which was another £2k, making it a £20500 car. I don't count the Kline exhaust as that was probably overkill but then I certainly don't regret it either as the car is a keeper.
As someone above has said, a standard manual 996 is a 20k car. However it started as a 70k car, so expect bills to match....but the enjoyment of ownership far exceeds any other car for the money.
 
Engine rebuilds and replacement gearboxes aside I didn't think parts prices looked too bad. Things like brakes, struts, coffin arms, water pumps, alternators, starters etc all looked surprisingly reasonable. I appreciate that it does all mount up over time.
 
Last summer I bought a 2002 C4 with 55,000 miles for what I thought was a bargain £14.5k. It'd had a full (£15k+) engine rebuild in 2016 from a well reputed indy (albeit not Hartech) which gave me reassurance that it shouldn't bring in any ridiculous bills. But I knew it would need some money spending on it as it had been a bit neglected.

I knew the aircon wasn't working so budgeted £1k for that. And I knew that there was no evidence of suspension refresh so I thought (perhaps naively) £2-3k for that.

Anyway, it's now had replacement front shock absorbers, springs, bump stops, top mounts, lower arms, top suspension arms, front and rear anti roll bars, brake pipes, engine mounts, alternator, window mechanism, fan resistor, condensers amongst other things. Mostly from the aforementioned (and reassuringly expensive) indy.

Which blows a bit of a hole in the £20k 996 theory - it's now nearer a £25k car!

That said,I'm sure I could've got it done a lot cheaper and over a longer period of time, but I decided to just bite the bullet and get it all over and done with in the hope of having a well sorted, trouble free car to enjoy for a while... Although if I had my time again, I definitely would've done things a bit differently...
 
UncleP said:
Engine rebuilds and replacement gearboxes aside I didn't think parts prices looked too bad. Things like brakes, struts, coffin arms, water pumps, alternators, starters etc all looked surprisingly reasonable. I appreciate that it does all mount up over time.

Yep parts can be no more expensive than run of the mill cars if you use cp4l and autodoc.

Mostly the costs are down to paying specialist labour rates and buying parts from the OPC.

Like I say, I spent £6k 5 years for parts I spent a long time sourcing and stacking deals (e.g. I got sachs clutch, luk flywheel and bolts and bits for £450).

If I had been paying specialist labour rates, my car would easily be a £20k 996 too, and I still need to paint it to make it mint.
 
...last January I paid £16.5k for a 69k miles genuinely immaculate 2 owner full Porsche history 2003 C2 Tip in lapis blue with black interior...

1000 miles later the ims stud broke; engine rebuild including new liners,complete rebuild of heads, new oil and tandem pumps etc,etc was close to £15k.

Since this I have refurbished the wheels, replaced the air conditioning radiators and a tricky seal in the aircon pipework,replaced both front springs,top mounts and bumpstops, replaced the exhaust which was going at the seams and now have a minor coolant leak that will require expense if it isn't the system burping itself following the rebuild?

I also elected to have both PU covers and wing mirror covers painted because I am super fussy...and new Porsche mats (£175!)

These cars, if you want them to be tip top, eat money...they are£70k odd cars with commensurate bills and are old !

You can have cheap or nothing needs doing/expensive ...you can't have both!
 
Bet you were glad you had that spare kidney.

Case above with the engine excluded I often wonder how much of quoted spend is necessary repairs as opposed to "refreshing/putting right" or otherwise possibly unnecessary spend. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I suffer the same affliction.

Anyway. The garage have agreed they will replace brakes, brake lines, exhaust, condensers, IMS/RMS leak. Still trying to persuade them to stick a new clutch in but if they refuse I'll buy one and get the mechanic to stick it in while they have the box out.
 

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