Yep must be a story behind it. Especially as it was on then off then back on lower priced.

What is there to check on one of these at those miles?

Guessing its:

When/has 5 rad's been changed

Turbo's anything in history

Brakes - last serviced/replaced.

What else goes on them?

... Still need to Build the house by the looks of it - let alone the road!

Just a used car. So check everything.

Be sure CEL and other lights come on then go off when you start the cold engine. Let engine idle and listen to it as it idles/warms up.

After it idles to nearly full operating temp -- maybe warm enough to check the oil level -- have the seller take you on a test ride.

A 15 miles test ride and on a route selected that gives the driver a chance to demo the car in a variety of scenarios.

Engine should pull hard from near idle to red line and with an upshift continue to pull hard. Once off the throttle rpms should drop to a steady/smooth idle.

For a powerful engine these things when healthy are very well behaved lack any real drama.

(The real drama comes when you shove the gas pedal to the floor and hold it there. Be sure your pointing the car where you want it to go when you do this.)

Look for reasonable hot idle oil pressure (based on my car around 1.5 bar or higher to around 2.0 bar) and hot high rpm oil pressure (4+ bar at 3K rpms).

Look that engine develops 0.7 bar boost though under some conditions this can go to 0.8 bar even 0.9 bar but my experience is you'll need to be driving at say 8K feet above sea level to see 0.9 bar boost.

After the test ride take the car out and over the same route and drive the car the same way.

Give the engine plenty of running at operating temperature to manifest any untoward behavior. Give the DME plenty of time to check out all sensors/systems are aok.

Back at the starting point give the car a thorough used car check out.

Then after this if you still like the car have it subjected to a PPI. This is done after the test ride/drive because if there are any leaks the odds are they'll be more visible after the car having been driven 30 miles.

You want to avoid focusing on say the radiators -- which of course in some cases do sprout a leak (mainly arising from corrosion from trash build up in the radiator ducts) -- and fail to spot tire wear that suggests the car's bent, or a leaking transmission, or torn CV boots, or an engine the turns on the CEL after having been driven some miles, a car that fails to generate any boost, or has exceptionally low (or exceptionally high -- someone running 75w-90 tranny fluid in the engine to hide a worn out engine), and so on.

BTW, my 03 Turbo now has over 96K miles on it and its radiators are fine along with everything else. Original clutch, coils, CV boots. 6-speed tranny replaced under warranty when selector shaft seal developed a leak. (Hence, my advice above to drive that car before the PPI! And PPI must be prepared to remove some of the underbody panels to expose areas that can hide leaks. The tranny leak only found when I had the car in for an early tranny/diff fluid change and tech removed panels to do this and spotted the leaking shaft seal.)

Anyhow, these cars can go some big miles with proper care and luck (luck primarily at avoiding accidents which over time accounts for taking many otherwise fine cars off the road before their time).

I know of one USA Turbo owner who has over 350K miles on his Turbo, S model too, IRRC.

Sincerely,

Rockster.

Mechanical sympathy and speed are not exclusive. The smoothest drivers are usually the quickest.

MTR

The car is a 6-speed manual.

Frankly, I think it is not normal -- at least based on my experience -- for these cars to have their clutches not last longer than some report.

Anyhow, I don't think I drive the Turbo like a granny.

'course, I don't, well, rarely, very rarely engage in stop light gran prix races, and I do not otherwise engage in reckless driving and generally try (ahem) to behave myself at all times. (I'll not tell you about the M-B SL 65 AMG the other night on the way home. God I want to own a car with a V12 engine...)

I've driven powerful cars before. Not super cars mind you, but (USA) cars (coupes) with a big engine (V8), manual transmission, and plenty of power and torque. In fact, I prefer them. They are generally easy to drive as long as one keeps in his mind what power is under his right foot and the engines (and drive trains) are robust because they aren't stressed very much as long as one isn't thrashing the car about like a mad man.

Driven reasonably they often deliver pretty good (for a car with a big engine) gas mileage. The 6.0l GTO with 400hp/400lbft would deliver 26/27mph on long drives at some speed as long as I was good and kept the pace steady and didn't go crazy passing other traffic. But oh would it pass traffic.

The Turbo too delivers pretty good gas mileage about the same in fact as the GTO.

More on that stress thing: Based on my observation it takes around 40hp to move either my Boxster or my Turbo down a flat road with no head wind (no real wind of any kind) and keeping a steady and not too fast cruising speed.

For the Boxster (~220hp), that 40hp represents around 20% of the engine's total output. For the Turbo (420hp) around 10%. Which engine is working harder, stressed more?

As for the clutch both cars have very communicative clutches though the Boxster is a better clutch because it is not boosted as is the Turbo clutch, which is a bit overboosted and as a result lacks some of the feel the Boxster clutch has. However, it doesn't take much mental energy to adapt when I switch from car to car and the Turbo is easy to move off from a stop. I pride myself on my smooth low rpm take off in my Turbo (and Boxster).

'course, most other cars can leave the line quicker than my Turbo. Even smaller cars, less powerful cars, courtesy of an automatic and a driver with a heavy right foot. But if I wanted to I could easily smoke most cars off the line. I'm just not willing to subject my Turbo to that treatment for the sake of confirming what I already know: The Turbo is a very powerful and fast car, faster than all but a handful of other cars on the road.

Might add I'm not the only one to note that generally Porsches can deliver good clutch life along with brake life and so on.(Might add the brakes on the Turbo are original though the rotors and pads are getting thin, maybe they'll need doing around the 100K mile mark).

Anyhow, I read some UK published car mags which once in a while have a story on an exotic car club all of which have a good selection of exotic cars, including of course various Porsches. Invariably the Porsches come in for praise for needing the least amount of upkeep. While other brands require clutches (sometimes in under 10K miles), camshaft belts, brakes, and even attention to other drivetrain hardware, the Porsches require just regular services and that's about it.

Sincerely,

Rockster.