Running costs for a 15 year old 996

[spanky3]

Afternoon,

I'm considering a 1998 996 3.4 Tiptronic with 100k on the clock for just shy of £10k. Insurance is around the £600 mark so that's ok but how common do you lucky owners find horrendous service bills, engine refreshes and so on?

My heart's telling me to buy but the tight-arse monkey part of my head thinks I'll be spending £5k a year on engine and suspension work.

Any real-life experience to warn me off?

thanks
Spanky.

[spanky3]

Hi, thanks for the quick reply. I've read a bit about issues with the first water-cooled engine but not sure know how big a problem it is in reality.

As an example I've owned a couple of 2 litre BMWs with the 'infamous' N47 engine without issue - I always wonder if problems like that appear to be more common than they are as only angry customers post on forums.

I'll do some more reading and see if it scares me off,...or makes me look for something air-cooled.

[spanky3]

Hello all, thanks for the useful responses which has given me enough info to do some more reading.

I had a read through the 'poverty porker thread' (not all of the 75 pages but most), lots of interesting stuff but still set on a 911 of some sort. My plan is to replace the wife's car with the 996 so we end up with one sensible family car and a 2+2 that I can still pick the kids up in occasionally.

I'm also happy doing routine and some not so routine servicing myself so brakes, suspension etc are probably ok although I haven't looked up spares prices yet. It's really the catastrophic engine failure scenario that worries me given I'll only be looking at high milers. An IMS replacement at around £1500 doesn't sound like a bad insurance policy but good advice about trying to find a ready-sorted car. Interesting that the earliest ones are possibly the more robust, too. I'll look into that.

thanks all,
James.

[spanky3]

Just to follow up on the last couple of posts - Stuckmojo, thanks for list of your servicing costs, they look pretty reassuring.

Agree about 'Porsche paranoia' - it's easy to get scared off by horror stories but as I said earlier, happy people rarely feel the need to tell their story.

And finally - yes, 2d coupe is what I'm after but unfortunately the wife can only (barely) drive an auto. The 320d family car has the towbar for my bike trailer so there will be occasions we have to swap cars - that rules out a manual.

[spanky3]

Hi, thanks for taking the time to reply. That all sounds ok and your situation's not that dissimilar to mine.

I do now have a car in mind but am 50/50 on whether its service history is a good thing or not. It's a 1998 Tip C2. Current owner bought it a couple of years ago, took it to a well know specialist and found it wasn't as good as he hoped. The 'sorting it out' bill was about 8k, including uprated IMS bearing, various seals including gearbox ones, various bushes, control arms, drop links, brake pipes, hacksawing through corroded bolts etc, tyres, 96k service etc. The workshop notes mention it having a non-standard exhaust.

Part of me looks at the list and thinks 'great, all the bits that wear out have been sorted and anything else I buy will probably need this lot doing to it.' and the other half of me think 'Previous owners neglected it and it will turn into a money pit'.

Decisions, decisions.