944 S2 camshaft wear?

[HearingAidBeige]

I've been looking for something to fill my 944's boots, and happened across a '91 944s2 with 140000k and 1 owner from new, the cambelt and chain were done roughly 2000 miles ago.
Is camshaft wear an issue at this kind of mileage? the car seems honest with full porsche history (last 3 years JZMachtech) also the clutch has never been replaced. Anything else I should be looking for?

The car is in excellent condition overall,but ideally I'd have liked the mileage to be below 100000.
Any ownership experience or advice with higher mileage s2's would be really helpful.
cheers, John

[diver944]

Don't even bother looking at the mileometer for a car this old, especially if it's a Porsche. Buy purely on condition, documented history of recent maintenance and get a proper inspection by a person who know's these cars.

I have a 164k mile S2 on its original cams and original clutch. As long as the chain and tensioner are replaced every 5 years or 50k miles you should not have a problem with cams. The big worry with S2 is if they have not been changed regularly. The chain can stretch, the cam sprockets can round off or even snap and that's when you need new cams £££££

[iguana]

968 cam sprocket wear is a massive issue due to variocam, S2 not affected in the same way, im sure some S2s may have had repacement cams through wear- but Ive not heard of any, yet on 968s they are practically a service item.

[andys2]

I had to change the cams on my S2, took it to Hartech for a 96K service when I first got it, they took the cams out and measured them and told me that they were worn out and putting a new chain on would only make things worse. £900 for a set of cams and everything was OK, that was nearly 5yrs ago now and the car has not missed a beat since. It's just come back from Hartech after another Cat 'C' service and has a clean bill of health, it's now on 132K
Great car, highly recommended.

[softinthehead]

iguana said:

968 cam sprocket wear is a massive issue due to variocam, S2 not affected in the same way, im sure some S2s may have had repacement cams through wear- but Ive not heard of any, yet on 968s they are practically a service item.

not sure I'd go quite that far....cams on 968 should last well, provided that when the cam and balance belts are done you should also check the variocam chain tensioner. the problem is that the latter isnt part of the OPC 48k service so gets missed in the car's early life. Take it to an Indie early!

My stepfather had to have new cams on his S2 at about 70K miles - cost him £3500 at his OPC (but that did include a belts service too!)

[HearingAidBeige]

Thanks for the advice, folks,

I would be prepared to put the car through a pre-purchase inspection at JZMachtech, although I'm assuming they won't check camshaft wear? I'm so tempted to buy this one because it's a one mature owner car, although if anyone knows of a decent Turbo 220 or 250..

Edited to ask- how thorough are the inspections, do they check interior, bodywork etc?.

>> Edited by HearingAidBeige on Monday 17th October 19:02

[diver944]

Machtech will be as thorough as you ask them to be, but I personally wouldn't worry about interior bits, it's the mechanicals I'd like checking.

Dave at Machtech whipped my cam cover off and changed a leaky gasket in under 30 mins so I'm sure if you pay them they'll do the same for this car and inspect the cam and chain while they are in there (with the owners permission of course )

[softinthehead]

wot e sed

inspecting the cams is no huge deal, and money very very well spent. i gather hartech have even made a little tool to measure the cam teeth and will write you a report acordingly

[iguana]

softinthehead said:

not sure I'd go quite that far....cams on 968 should last well,

Its not the cams that wear, but the teeth on the sprocket on the cams.

I dont think im being unrealistic, of about 8 968CS's that mates have had, 7 have had cams replaced due to missing teeth.... one was sub 40k miles too....

[flamingeye]

When cams go bad.
www.flamingeye.fotopic.net/p15775523.html

>> Edited by flamingeye on Monday 17th October 23:57