2005 997 ownership so far....

So. Bought my dream car. And it has been nothing short of a nightmare!

Viewed the car around late November. Test driven. All seemed well. Drove half length of country home. All seemed well.

Coming from the 986, it certainly felt far more refined. Meant for more mature tastes in truth, but the 911 buzz is certainly a pleasant one.. Or so I thought.

Within a week.

Having become settled with the clutch and the balance difference to the 986, I began to test the car. Onto motorway slipway at speed, enormous and quite sudden slipping clutch. Had zero signs up to this point.

From then on the degradation of the clutch, the hydraulics and the release fork was insane. Undriveable within a week. On to a flat bed it goes..

Clutch, flywheel, clutch slave all needed.

Oh. The car is corroded to *****, too. Little did I know that a ten year old, German-made prestige car could rot worse than a 20 year old TVR Griffith I had once owned (and god, are they known for rotting) .

All coolant pipes, front and back, corroded to the point of almost forming one single pipe. So, that'll be £2.5k please.

Within a month.

As a dutiful car owner and all round fettling enthusiast, I thought I'd sort my brakes out. The pedal feel was spongey (little did I know at that point, that this is somehow normal for an £80k supercar..)

Component parts (discs, pads, lines etc) bought. Decided to take the calipers off and paint them red to bring my 3.6 up to 3.8 spec. My, oh my. Not one of my greatest impulses...!

Caliper lines like everything else, corroded to hell. Virtually all need replacing.

End up truly ***** up the paint job. So I enter a bright new world of industrial paint thinners which my hands are still recovering from... Obviously, this was due to me (and the first batch of paint) being crap. Can't blame the car for that!

Brakes put back together eventually. Red calipers look particularly wonderful in the end. A sense of achievement washes over me. Which doesn't last long.

Can I bleed the brakes? Can I *****. An eternally soft pedal means it flat bed time again.. Yay, upon yay. :thumbs:

Porsche ABS/PSM diagnostic tool obviously needed. (Obviously.....)

That'll be £600 please (brakes overhaul total). My hair seemed thinner after this episode.


SO. FINALLY. I HAVE A WORKING 911!!? I CAN ACTUALLY DRIVE MY DREAM CAR !!!? :sad:

Within 2-3 months.


The story continues...

Having been slightly underwhelmed by the standard exhaust note, I went about fettling with the back boxes in an attempt to get the sound I wanted. I like the quite high pitched metallic rasp thing, you see. I'm not ready to deep burble just yet.

So. Gundo the back boxes! This can only go smoothly!!? It's an easy hack, right??

Only find the car has already been Gundo'd and then.. Un-Gundo'd, amazingly. Ohm and you guessed it. The boxes are a seized-to-***** nightmare to get off, and a previous person has bolted them up the wrong way around. Takes a complete day to finish the job.


The sound? Still a bit meh.


Not one to be content with not being content, I then opt for Dansk Super Sound. Probably still not the sound I want, but it's more race car, more obnoxious. Keeps the kid in me happy.


Having driven the car straight off the ramp, I head straight home across the M62. Wow. These Dansk' are so raw! I can.. Feel the whole car vibrating.... (is this normal...?). And... Hmmm.. The gear shift is a bit funky... Aaaaaaaand.. I seem to have lost power? Aren't mufflers supposed to "increase" BHP...? Can changing mufflers effect all these changes..? Am I seriously going to have to put the Gundos back on...? :?

Well, no, because one of my engine mounts has just snapped! :thumbs:

I walk back to my car having seen the back of the car for the first time since the Dansk went on. One tailpipe is halfway between where it should be and the ground. Oh, and the engine block is tilting at an angle of about 30 degrees. In many ways, I am seriously lucky to have escaped without anything truly terrible happening, considering I was traveling at speed with my engine hanging sideways..

Time to change both mounts and pray NOTHING ***** ELSE goes wrong.


So yeah. Maybe soon, I'll get to feel the magic of 911 ownership. Presently, it feels a lot like something else! Hopefully these notes may be of some use to those looking at older 997s! :bye:

Sorry to hear about all your woes. And even more sorry to tell you that you probably could have taken the car back to wherever you bought it on the grounds of it having all those problems?

jpsh120 said:

Sorry to hear about all your woes. And even more sorry to tell you that you probably could have taken the car back to wherever you bought it on the grounds of it having all those problems?

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thanks.. nice to feel some love!

Bought privately at a pretty irresistible price, sold as seen etc. I think had I bought it off a forecourt with a warranty, I would have paid the difference for that pleasure.

ironically, when i bought what felt like quite a ropey 986 from a dealer (with a warranty) I hadn't cause to use the warranty once for anything in the first full year.

I think my main point is just watch out for rotting on these cars. It has caught me totally by surprise.

Blimey mate, that's an unfortunate set of issues. still as a cup half full type of person I can tell you that at least you are getting to know what's done on the car and the 3.6 is supposed to have a less problamatic engine :?: :grin: which would explain all your issues not being engine related. let's hope you can now start to enjoy the car as your supposed to and "stop getting under it and finding problems" :floor: :floor: :thumb:

Phil 997 said:

Blimey mate, that's an unfortunate set of issues. still as a cup half full type of person I can tell you that at least you are getting to know what's done on the car and the 3.6 is supposed to have a less problamatic engine :?: :grin: which would explain all your issues not being engine related. let's hope you can now start to enjoy the car as your supposed to and "stop getting under it and finding problems" :floor: :floor: :thumb:

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amen to that! again the irony of plumping for the "safer" engine and virtually everything else ***** up :sad:

How are you finding the Dansk super sports boxes , now they are lined up under the car ok. :thumb: I have the topgear set up and an told the two sound very similar I like the way mine sound but very little resonance in the cabin :grin: :thumbs:

Sorry to hear of your woes.
is yours a c2 or c4?
Do you have any pictures of the exhausts?
I looked at quite a few 911's before buying ours.
The one I remember was one from Jersey that proved that living on an island isn't good for a car, it is a low miles 996 cab and is still for sale a year later!

Phil 997 said:

How are you finding the Dansk super sports boxes , now they are lined up under the car ok. :thumb: I have the topgear set up and an told the two sound very similar I like the way mine sound but very little resonance in the cabin :grin: :thumbs:

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Yo.

Well tbh I'm not really too sure yet as my engine fell off just after I put them on! There was shitloads of resonance and my reaction was, What the ***** have I messed with here !!!? :frustrated:

..but that was clearly the noise from the block. I shall report back!

I have been pretty desperate to get this really high pitched metallic almost clean sound I heard a 997 make a while ago (it sped away along the motorway before I could ask the fella anything). It really blew me away.

From my impression on the ramp, it sounded pretty brutal. So I'll take another listen soon, when all is well again

Is your TG quite deep? I'm actually starting to think that each car might have its own sound. I have the 3.6, yet I don't think mine sounds like many 996s. It's definitely a different (not as good) sound to the 3.8 imo

Captain Lockheed said:

Sorry to hear of your woes.
is yours a c2 or c4?
Do you have any pictures of the exhausts?
I looked at quite a few 911's before buying ours.
The one I remember was one from Jersey that proved that living on an island isn't good for a car, it is a low miles 996 cab and is still for sale a year later!

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it's a c2

pics of the exhausts? the original ones? or the Dansk?

Wow, really feel for you there Bud.

Why the ***** is it so corroded !? I don't dare take the undertrays off on mine now I read what you found lol.

Did you buy it cheap or was it meant to be a pampered one by the last owner?

Well done for keeping your chin up, hopefully you will start enjoying the car soon.

Basalt_Yellow_997 said:

Captain Lockheed said:

Sorry to hear of your woes.
is yours a c2 or c4?
Do you have any pictures of the exhausts?
I looked at quite a few 911's before buying ours.
The one I remember was one from Jersey that proved that living on an island isn't good for a car, it is a low miles 996 cab and is still for sale a year later!

Click to expand...

it's a c2

pics of the exhausts? the original ones? or the Dansk?

Click to expand...

Yeah, when i got her serviced, the guys were like, Has this car been living by the sea? I was like, Um say wha??

Didn't realise the sea air here could be that bad. All I know from the car history is a lot of stamps in Essex area. Not sure if Colchester comes under the "coastal" banner?

mavster said:

Wow, really feel for you there Bud.

Why the ***** is it so corroded !? I don't dare take the undertrays off on mine now I read what you found lol.

Did you buy it cheap or was it meant to be a pampered one by the last owner?

Well done for keeping your chin up, hopefully you will start enjoying the car soon.

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cheers man

no idea! guys up in Yorkshire were pretty surprised. Admittedly, I'm not a mechanic and I didn't have the car checked as I stupidly / naively assumed that a 997, being as it still is a relatively modern car, would not suffer from these kinds of issues. Big wrong on me.

I got it pretty cheap, yeah. Played my hand a bit and haven't been so lucky, but I'm hopeful that I will be able to look back and laugh about it all over a few beers with pals!

Driving a 911 will mostly always have to involve certain sacrifices, mainly finance-oriented..

I feel your pain!

TBH the coolant pipes are a common problem (crap design in reality) as the metal fittings on the hose ends corrode into the alloy tubes and seize solid.

Wow...thats some experience...

It not what you want from a 911, everyone thinks so much of these cars..yet there are so many abused examples out there! and people charging

My brother also had issues when he bought his (now mine) 997 gen1 c2s last year from a Porsche specialist..

My brother knows his cars, as he buys and sells often..though this was his first 911.

He had put the deposit down as the car sounded good and had the extra;s he wanted.. did not realise it had 5 owners!

Car was not really driving for the first month, as it was parked int he garage, but when he did problem after problem...total repair bills were £6k + the dealer only contributed to £600 still did a shoddy job for the bit that he did agree to fix! (All within the first 4 months)

Check the list out here...

http://911uk.com/viewtopic.php?p=1154118#1154118

Put it down to being sold a crap car by the specialist..and due to the number of owners, of-course no one spent a penny on maintaining the car..

Anyway...now sorted..and it drives like a dream!

Basalt_Yellow_997 said:

Captain Lockheed said:

Sorry to hear of your woes.
is yours a c2 or c4?
Do you have any pictures of the exhausts?
I looked at quite a few 911's before buying ours.
The one I remember was one from Jersey that proved that living on an island isn't good for a car, it is a low miles 996 cab and is still for sale a year later!

Click to expand...

it's a c2

pics of the exhausts? the original ones? or the Dansk?

Click to expand...

Sorry, the originals, where were they corroded?
Reason for asking is I am trying to work out where they go and where to take preventative maintenance.
Similarly the undertrays, I need to take mine off and clean under there.

I must say, I admire your positive outlook, there are many who would have thrown their toys.