[quote name='p92968' post='61585' date='Oct 13 2008, 01:58 PM']I guess it is just hitting hard right now. In reading the timing belt sagas folks were saying do the belts every 15K ????? I just had them done with all the seals and pulleys water pump and all the doodads to the tune of $2,200.00 large. Every 15K? I know wrong forum. Oh yeah this little adventure with the flywheel damper as well as hydraulic lines rear trans seal $4,100. So much for Christmas[/quote]
Ross,
I bought my car about 2.5 years ago with 122K miles. When I looked through through the records in detail the PO had done the rubber damper, motor mounts, belts/water pump/seals, new power steering hoses, and a bunch of other major repairs all in the 1.5 years before I bought it. I didn't revisit the list just now, but I wouldn't be surprised if the total approached $10K. I always thought that might have been one of the reasons why he decided to sell it. I haven't had any of these types of major problems since. I did the PPI of course, but even before that I planned that I should expect several $K that I need to put into it, and in order to make the purchase worthwhile, either waited for the right one, or negotiated lower prices, so the combination of purchase price plus what I had to add subsequently made a sound total.
My view on Porsche's is they are designed and built for high quality and performance in a daily driver, and they meet this goal very, very well. To accomplish this goal the auto design (architecture) is optimized for that goal, which means things like:
- materials (metals) are much higher quality (reliability)
- designs are compact, they are custom designs, so that things fit in smaller spaces.
- parts are designed specific to a model, and therefore custom
- developmental testing of Porsches is legendary (costly also).
Contrast it to American cars which are typically architected starting with what parts are on the shelf, and what the company can push onto the consumer, rather than designing and building something that might be genuinely attractive to the consumer; note the focus is more on looks, nifty gadget features, wizz-bang stuff, and new (but not necessarily enduring) appearance, rather than sound engineering. Detroit is still thinking everybody should buy a new car every 3--5 years, and therefore don't bother delivering quality and performance like Porsche.
So my experience is that these are very high quality and reliable cars. But, at repair time, the parts can be expensive (since they are custom or specific to a model), and labor times can be long, since the car's architecture is such that it is optimized for "quality and performance", not for Mean-Time-To-Repair. The 968 even at this age, if it is in good condition, still represents about a $40K-$50K value if you compared it to brand new equivalent car.
Most people keep Porsches a long time, their usable life may be 10 years for the average owner (or more) in comparison to other brands with a life of about 5 years. I've done some quick napkin calculations, and if I buy a used one, hold them for years (like I have) the cost (even including major repairs) can be a fraction of a new car, and you still get to drive an excellent car. I really, really hope my wording doesn't sound like lecturing, I love these cars, and wanted to write a bit about why, but also the tradeoffs. My mission was to cheer you up, you have a terrific car, sorry about the hit in repairs, it stinks, but in the long run it should be excellent.
Roland
