Porsche 911 997.1 Daily Driver

[adean22]

Just thought id give a little update on the car.
The cars still going great and the miles are still racking up on it - not far from 100k miles now, however I'm now partly working from home so iv dropped down to doing about 600 miles a month from about 2000.

The seller also kindly included some nice thule roofbars when I bought the car, of which iv been putting to good use.

I'm still looking out for an aero roofbox, however I do keep thinking about a roof tent aswell. But with the price of roof tents I think a roofbox is more likely.

[adean22]

Its been nearly 6 months with the car now so i thought id do a 6 month update. The cars currently sitting at 98,189 miles. Less miles than I originally expected to do due to working from home over Christmas until march.

I purchased some LED rear lights for the car in February (as can be seen in the photo - is a poor photo but the only photo I can find). They came up for a good price and I'm still not sure if I prefer them to the stock ones, iv kept the stock ones so can always be swapped back if needed.

(also note the reg that came with the car - is pretty handy considering my names Andrew. It also reads a bit like "Another Car" which is rather suiting for me. I believe the car came with that reg from factory)

People with a keen eye may also spot a different air intake pipe on the car. I purchased the air intake resonator blanking plug and pipe from Spyder performance as I heard it make the car sound nicer under load.
The difference is subtle but from 4k plus you can definitely hear the intake noise more so before, and it is a rather nice noise indeed - makes it rather addictive to drive in the upper RPMS - surprisingly my license has stayed clean up until now.

On my to do list is a set of new PS4S tyres and a service in the coming months - I live near Hartech so ill be booking it in with them.

I know a few people are interested in the cost of running so here's a little breakdown of all the costs incurred so far: (I'll base these numbers on 6 months of ownership)

Road Tax - £300 (half of the £600 I paid for a year)

Insurance - £1000 (half of what I paid for the year). Yes, it is a large amount but im still young and insurance for a 22 year old on a 3.8 litre car is never gonna be cheap - I can confirm its worth every penny though

Fuel - £1850 (rough calculation putting fuel at £1.55 a litre and averaging 19 MPG over 6 months for the approx 5000 Miles iv done)

Additional parts/Mods - £405 (this includes engine mounts, ctek charger port, intake pipe bypass and rear LED tail lights)

Excluding the cost of purchasing the car it sits me at £3,555 to run the car for 6 months. In my opinion I think this is pretty good considering its factoring in my high insurance and high fuel costs etc. I think its a bargain for the amount of time it makes me smile and the fact that I love every minute that I'm in the car.
I expect the 12 months cost to be more than double this as it will include a service and new tyres, and lets be honest, something's bound to break on a nearly 100k 15 year old car. I'm guessing it to sit me at around 10k a year for maintenance + running, ill take that as a win to be able to drive round in my dream car everyday.

Ill also attach the build sheet with the options on the car as I know some people may find it interesting/informative.

Edited by adean22 on Monday 4th April 11:26

Edited by adean22 on Monday 4th April 11:31

[adean22]

AyBee said:

30% of a cars value to run it for a year? Ouch!

I do think its fair to say that a lot of people can afford to purchase an expensive car that's depreciated hugely, however many can't afford to run them. Its easy to forget how expensive the cars were new. I paid the same price as a new base spec VW golf, however my running costs match a car that is 100k new. I'm sure it would be cheaper to run a brand new 911, however I didn't have a spare 75k additional to purchase a new one.
If we do estimate 10k a year to run it (everything in) it would come to about 40% of the purchase price, ouch. Oh well, we only have one life don't we. 10k a year is better than me sat at home with a boring car thinking "I wish I had a 911".

I don't even want to do the math's of how much of the cars value my MG costs me to run each year, 300% a year would be about right, ouch.

What a great thing man maths is.

Edited by adean22 on Monday 4th April 15:57

[adean22]

Car still running great, touching 99k miles now.

However, the other night I noticed a huge oil patch under the car . The oil wasn't engine oil (that was a relief), it appeared to be gearbox oil. After getting the car jacked up and having a good luck underneath it appeared to be coming from where the driveshaft goes into the diff/gearbox as can be seen below


The leak is fairly bad so I got underway with stripping everything down ready to replace the seal.

First job was to unbolt the driveshaft from the inner cv joint flange - this was done with 6 8mm hex bolts


It was now time to drain the gearbox so the entire contents didn't come out when the inner joint was pulled out.


These gearboxes are meant to hold around 2.9 liters but about 3.3 liters came out - and that's after a good few hundred ml had leaked out. So I'm guessing the gearbox had been overfilled previously which has potentially lead to the seal giving way. The oil looked fairly old so it had been running at overfilled for some time.

Removing the inner joint proved to be very difficult and wasn't for moving at all - I didn't like the idea of prying it out with a pry tool between the gearbox casing and the joint, if the gearbox casing gaveway before the joint it would of been an expensive mistake.


I needed a slide hammer to remove it, luckily my work has a HGV fleet maintenance in house which means I have a huge array of tools that I can borrow at any time. So I borrowed a slide hammer with a chain attachment, wrapped the chain around the joint and the joint came straight out. I then popped the seal off and cleaned up the mating surface. I'm now waiting for my local OPC to have the seal and springclip in stock and then I can go about refitting everything and putting in some new gearbox oil - the correct amount.



Reasons like the overfilling of the gearbox is the main reason I do work on my cars myself, it's the only way I can be sure that everything is done how it should be done. A garage that is busy and trying to get cars in and out aren't going to be as careful and meticulous as myself who can approach everything slowly in no rush. I document everything with pictures and keep all the receipts to build up my own service records.

Edited by adean22 on Friday 22 April 09:03

[adean22]

Still waiting on the diff seal from OPC so thought i'd make the most of the car being in the air and go about installing a low temperature thermostat (LTT). Hartech (highly regarded Porsche specialist - conveniently a few miles away from my house) recommend this and say it reduces the chances of bore scoring. The cars at nearly 100k so its had plenty of time to bore score so i doubt it will make much difference, however it cant do any harm can it.

Firstly I went about popping off the coolant pipe to drain some of the coolant, only about 4 litres came out which is good. I was worried the entire 32 litres would come pouring out. Once this was drained I could remove the standard thermostat. This is done by removing 5 E10 screws in really awkward tight locations.




The thermostat was marked up with 2006 so its safe to assume it was the original thermostat, even if the LTT makes no difference at least I can class it as some preventative maintenance.

It was then time to install the new stat in the reverse order I removed the old one, including a new gasket. This went back together easy enough and I reconnected the coolant pipes ready to top the coolant back up.



I filled back up the coolant and bled it a few times and the install is now done. Just got to wait for my OPC to get the seal in stock and the entire car can go back together.

I started looking at installing a 3rd radiator but they seem to have mixed reviews so I'll have to wait till I'm more informed to make that decision. Any advice on the 3rd radiator would be much appreciated

[adean22]

TheOctaneAddict said:

Nice work! I'm going to buy a 911 next year for my 30th, the choice between a regular car and a 996 for the weekends or a 997 as a do it all daily is one I can't decide between!

When I was looking I weighed up a 996 C4s. I saw a 996 in person and no matter which way you look at I, the interiors are terrible compared to the 997s. Id personally go for a 997 and daily it (I'm biased as this was the choice I made) . If you have a 'regular car' and a 911 on the drive I know which one your gonna wanna take to work everyday.

[adean22]

Alfred Pina said:

Love the mission you have undertaken here. May as well enjoy these cars whilst you can! I held onto a 911 until very recently where I finally gave up due to having a young family. That's where the life of 4 door M cars come in handy

Great to see the DIY work and I totally agree that doing things yourself generally results in a better quality job - so long as you have a manual to guide you with certain nuances.

I keep looking at E90 M3's, I think if my circumstances ever change and I need a 'practical' car then an E90 is defo at the top of my list. Practical car + a V8, what else could you want

I bought my MGTF with full service history and when I got underneath it the oil filter was dated 2 years before the last 'Service' (dated with writing on it from a garage with the date and mileage stated when fitted - a practice I have taken up myself - this was done at a fairly reputable garage aswell.

I found an invoice for a gearbox oil change for my 911 last night which dated back to only mid 2021. At least that means the gearbox hasn't been overfilled for a significant amount of time. Annoying as the overfilling would of been what caused the seal to go due to excessive pressure, at least I will know its been done right after iv done it

[adean22]

Parts came into OPC yesterday so over the past 2 days after work iv been piecing the car back together.

£55 for a seal and a tiny spring clip was painful but they come in a Porsche wrapper so that explains the price.

The new seal went in fine and I managed to bolt everything back up and go over with a torque wrench to torque everything up to the correct value.

Iv refilled the gearbox with new oil and the correct quantity this time - bout 2.9 litres or when the bottom fill plug is overflowing. There is a fill plug higher up as well so I'm guessing that's the mistake the previous garage made when overfilling.


I took the car for a long run today and the oil temp seems to sit about 10 degrees lower now as well as the oil pressure staying a bit higher, I don't now how accurate the resolution of the gauges are but the LTT has made a slight difference at least.

There's also no more oil leaking from the gearbox/diff so ill class this repair as a success.


Iv started using the car for work purposes as well so you may well see a 911 with a flashing beacon and a highway maintenance livery whizzing up and down the county, ill get a picture at some point. It does get a lot of funny looks which I love.

[adean22]

Got 4 new pilot sport 4 s's fitted today as the old tyres had worn down at the rear and due to the age they had all gone a bit hard.

Car feels way way better now and grips so much better in 1st gear.

Only downside was the price of tyres, ouch. Beans and rice for me for the next month.

[adean22]

Picked up some GT3 brake air ducts to have a go at fitting when I next get some chance. For road use they will make absolutely no difference, however they were £5.18 from my local Porsche dealer and they will look nicer than the 15 year old ones that are on it.

They are only slightly larger than the standard items, the gt3 cup items are bigger again but they retail for a few hundred quid. Iv got access to a 3d printer so its got me thinking about possibly printing some 'cup' versions.

These fit in with the OEM+ upgrades I want to do to the car. I also want to upgrade the brakes to the bigger turbo sized brakes - the brakes are good but I'm used to my MG with big 4 pot AP racing calipers on the front, and upgraded rear big brakes on a car that weighs less than the 911 . So every time I go from the MG to the 911 I am wishing that the 911 brakes were just that bit better.

Edited by adean22 on Thursday 12th May 09:02

[adean22]

So I cracked on with fitting the GT3 brake ducts last night.

Was a nice simple job, I only needed to jack up the car and remove the front wheels - in hindsight you could probably do it without taking wheels off - however it was a good excuse for me to clean up the brake calipers.

Here's a picture of the standard ducts on the car:



Here's the standard and the GT3 ducts side by side:

As you can see, there isn't much difference, the bottom part just catches more air.

And here's a picture of the GT3 ducts installed:



The install took about half an hour for both sides and was a nice little modification.

I did a quick clean of my calipers before putting the wheels back on
I also inspected the brakes - the discs will need changing with the next pad change and the pads only look to have a few mm left so I'll need to do them in the next few thousand miles.

Cars now back together and ready for the next thing to go wrong....and the next thing does go wrong on my way to work the day after installing these (today)

Edited by adean22 on Friday 13th May 11:47

[adean22]

My handbrake has been making the occasional squealing noise from the rear nearside wheel for the last week or so, my plan was to dismantle the rear brakes this weekend to see where the noise was coming from. I know these cars have drum brakes for the handbrake that sit within the brake disc. Its not uncommon for the shoes to become delaminated and cause squealing noises so I'm expecting that is the cause of the noise?

However, on my way to work today I applied my handbrake and then when I set off there was a horrible constant squealing and rattling noise from the rear left wheel, and my handbrake lever now feels very odd and floaty. I turned around to go home and swap cars so the 911 is currently on my drive broke.

I'm expecting it to be the brake shoes coming apart or the springs failing - maybe even both.

Iv ordered a new set of brake shoes today and a set of shoe springs for a VW LT46 as apparently some of the shoe springs are the same as the 997 ones. They were 8 quid for a set instead off the £180 for Porsche ones so its worth a try. Even if only a few of them fit, at least it will minimize the amount of £20 springs I need from Porsche.

Plan is to strip the rear brakes over the next week and change all springs and shoes - depending on condition of rear discs/pads i may even fettle them whilst iv got the wheels off.

[adean22]

I set about stripping down the rear brakes today to find the issue.




Once the caliper and disc were removed it was evident straight away what the issue is. The brake shoes had delaminated and the springs had come out - the noise I had been hearing was springs and friction material spinning round at the bottom of the disc/drum (this car uses the inside of the disc as a drum for the handbrake).



The other side was in far better condition but that will be getting replaced aswell.

Once both sides brakes were apart I cleaned up the hub with a wire brush whilst I was there.

Some of the springs, aswell as the adjusters, can be reused so iv got them soaking in some penetrating fluid to clean them up.


Iv ordered some new springs and brake shoes so they can be fitted once they arrive.

I was shocked at the price of £20 per small retaining spring, even £5 would be overpriced for these, nvm £20.

Next update will be when the brakes have gone back together .

I also added a small sticker to the car which you may recognize:

[adean22]

New brake shoes and springs arrived so I could crack on with refitting the handbrake shoes.



The springs are over 20 each over VAT which is painful, they must cost pennies to make!!

Reassembling the shoes was a pain, you've got to put the ling tension spring in first and then fit the shoes, this resulted in many cuts on my hands and many hours of struggling.

However they got installed in the end.


[url|https://thumbsnap.com/U9JEPSHh[/url]





The car was now back on the ground for the first time in nearly 2 weeks and the handbrake was working fine. However on the test drive the car gave me this error:


The error went away of the spoiler was raised which was odd, I went round to the rear pf the car to look and the middle brake light (not the spoiler one - these cars have 2 middle brake lights, one for when the spoiler is down and one for when the spoiler is up.

The middle brake light for when the spoiler is down was half full of water so that explains the error, it did work but was dim.

I went about removing the brake light to see if i could fix it in anyway:

There was 3 bolts from the engine compartment to undo nd then 2 bolts that you have to access from behind the rear seats.





I took the rear brake light out and have drilled a tiny hole at the rear of the casing to drain the water out. I'm gonna see if doing this and allowing it to dry will fix it. Iv accepted I need a new one but hopefully this will do as a temporary measure.

Edited by adean22 on Tuesday 24th May 11:07

[adean22]

Thought id give a small update on costs of owning the car.

I keep track of it on a spreadsheet. Everyone always wonders how much it is to run a car like this so that's the reason I keep track of it.

Id always wondered about the costs myself so its interesting to keep track of it .

This is excluding fuel, insurance and tax




Now iv hidden the purchase cost just to make life easier and get rid of anyone piping up with their opinions on the purchase price.

So its costed 1410 to maintain/ modify the car . Divide this over the 7 months iv had it and it comes to 201 a month . A figure I don't think is too bad tbh.

This number is subject to huge change as things may go wrong but i cant predict the future and i can only go off what has happened.

So that's a total of 1410 over about 6.5k Miles .

Now lets compare that to a very different car......
My MGTF



Iv had the MG for 17 months and iv spent 3275 on maintaining and modifying it. I know this sounds like a lot but the car is exactly how I want it and there is very little on it that hasn't been upgraded/replaced. I'm very happy with the car and iv got it to my perfect spec.
This cost is over 15K miles with it

So 3275 divided over 17 months comes to 192 a month.


I know the ownerships aren't the same length but it does show that both cars so far have pretty much the same "cost per month" to maintain . Both cars are on pretty much the same mileage.

I will keep track of both cars and it will be interesting to see how much iv spent on the 911 once iv had it for 17 months in comparison to the MG

NOTE:
I am fully aware that the 911 will have very high maintenance costs and I am sure it will cost me a fortune to maintain. This is purely based on my experience so far.
I'm also fortunate enough to be able to work on my own cars which decreases the maintenance costs by a vast amount - this is only possible having more than one car as I always have a car I can use when the other one is in pieces

Edited by adean22 on Wednesday 25th May 11:53

[adean22]

I am finding it very rewarding, I'm hoping for no repairs in the next month as iv spent enough time and money this month on it.

The sloped driveway is far from ideal but there isn't much I can do about it , I have wheel chocks and a few bricks infront of the front wheels to prevent any movement and iv had no issues with it so far. Plus I always use 2 jack stands underneath just incase on of the stands fail

Nice to see that someone else isn't scared of getting the spanners out on their porsche .

Your neighbor's LS400 has caught my eye. My mum had one when I was growing up and I have very fond memory's of it. It was a 1996 car and had things like electric headrests and even electric seatbelt height adjusters, they were way ahead of their time. The indestructible V8's are fantastic engines too.

Edited by adean22 on Wednesday 25th May 16:42

Edited by adean22 on Thursday 26th May 09:23

[adean22]

Even after drying out the brake light it still wasn't working.
As the original third brake light had been water damaged I was a bit reluctant to purchase a new one at over £100 to have the same happen again. This got me thinking about ways to improve it.

I ordered a 30cm LED waterproof light strip as i knew this would fir in the casing.

I replaced the old led board in the casing with this light strip and wired it up to the connector.

This solution works well and looks OEM. Its also brighter than stock and shouldn't get water damaged ever again.



For the first time in a few weeks, the car is now together in one piece and back to daily duties.

Im also slowly getting my dad used to driving the car as he had always wanted a 911 when he was younger (often tells me if he hadn't of had me he would of been able to buy one) Its nice to see him drive about in it and enjoy it too.

[adean22]

Brake light fix hasn't come up with any errors on the dash so I'm classing that as a success, since the car was taken off the roads for the thermostat etc after fitting new tyres I hadn't had proper chance to see how the new PS4s's were.

Compared to the old tyres they are so quiet, the tyre noise used to really bug me but now the tyre noise has gone. Dont get me wrong, there is still some tyre noise which is to be expected from 295 wide tyres in the rear.
The car also grips so much better now. Even when enthusiastically setting off in 1st the car just grips and goes which is impressive for a RWD car.

The car is now back to daily duties. Here's some pics of the car as it is now. And before anyone says anything about the front plate, it must have shrunk in the wash. But the plate is now the exact same size as the backing plate (only a little smaller than standard), in my opinion it makes the front of the car a lot nicer as the plate doesn't stick out from the bodylines of the car as much.

I have been pulled over by the police and they didn't mention anything about the plate and he did have a good look over the car. Apparently was a routine check - officers smirk was wiped off his face when I proved the car was owned by myself and it was fully insured ETC. Think he had saw a young lad driving a 911 and thought it was an easy catch.

Edited by adean22 on Friday 27th May 11:41

[adean22]

Montyjsr said:

Just read this full thread and really impressed by your attitude to the repairs with the gearbox etc... fella. Car looks very good and no doubt you'll continue to look after it. Have you got anything planned trip wise with it for the summer now? Saw you mentioned repeating the MG trip and wondered if anything was lined up?

Thanks for the kind words. Original plan was to go back up to Scotland and fetch the 911 this time. However now travelling abroad has opened up again my summer holiday will be abroad this year. However I am thinking of a nice road trip round the south of France next year.

The car will be coming with me to a camping trip to Cornwall at the end of summer. Not quite Scotland but it will be interesting to see how it deals with a 5 hour drive. Granted, I feel the journey may be shorter than it normally is in the MG

[adean22]

We all know bank holiday weekends are for car mods and the jubilee weekend was no exception.

I had seen a Maxton splitter advertised on facebook for less than half of what it was new and it was still wrapped up in the brand new packaging. Only caveat was it didn't come with a fitting kit. But tbh I wouldn't trust the self tappers that they come with anyway.
I went to collect the splitter from Cheshire and found myself upon some gorgeous roads that I need to revisit. The guy selling had a gorgeous 997 that he had tastefully modified, I was extremely jealous of his carbon fabspeed intake

I had also ordered some plastic mesh to make some grilles to go infront of the AC rads to protect them from all the crap that builds up on them. I would install the splitter and the grilles at the same time as the bumper would need to come off for both - was also a good time to clean out between the radiators. The 997's have a common issue of AC Radiator and coolant radiators rotting out as leaves and other debris gets stuck on and between them and it sits there wet causing it to corrode. The idea of grilles is that it stops leaves and larger debris from entering the radiator area.

First job was to take the headlights out - this was very easy and I was very impressed by the mechanism.

7

Next job was jacking the car up and removing wheels so I could remove the arch lining to access the bumper bolts.




The bumper was now removed, it was a bit fiddly but was easy enough. Just have to be methodical and have some patience.



I used my grass (mostly moss but lets still call it grass) as a soft surface to lay the bumper on so I could test fit the splitter and go about securing it onto the bumper. For this I used 12 M14 bolts bolted through the splitter and the bottom of the bumper. The splitter is very secure on the bumper and there is no way its going anywhere. Some people use self tapping bolts but no way would I trust that at 100+mph, sorry I mean 70MPH.
(plastic wrapper still on splitter in this pic)


For the grilles I cut the plastic mesh to shape and used a hot glue gun to secure them in place - reminded me of primary school. I opted for using a glue gun as it would secure the grilles strongly but without the need for drilling or anything like that. And if i remove the grilles the glue will be removed as well and there will be no trace that the grilles were ever installed.


Next job was to clean all around the radiators, when I removed the cowling around them they were full of crap, loads of leaves, small stones and even a few parts of cigarettes. The previous owner has cleaned these last year so I was surprised to see just how much has accumulated in only 7k miles . I undid the front rads so I could properly clean out in front of the rear ones .




Going back to the wheel well, when had removed the lining I noticed that on both sides the metal support frame for the radiators had some surface rust and were really showing their age.




I couldn't put the bumper back on but leave them like that so I set about sorting them out.
I used a wire brush to clean all the rust and muck off, then painted some rust convertor primer on, ten went over the top with a few layers of black paint. These now look a lot more presentable and the main thing is they are now protected and wont continue to rust.


Once the paint had dried I went about putting everything back together. The tape on the car is to protect the edge of the bodywork when reinstalling the bumper




Here are some pics of the grilles installed and the splitter installed on the car. I really like the grilles, they are subtle but purposeful - basically the opposite to the splitter.

Moving onto the splitter, I really don't know if I like it or not. From some angles I really like it and it makes the front end look more aggressive, but from other angles I'm not too keen. Maybe the fact its gloss black doesn't help, I do feel if it was satin black or body coloured it would be more OEM looking. Im gonna leave it on for a bit and see how I feel about it in a few months. Here's some pics of it complete and back together:

Edited by adean22 on Thursday 9th June 16:46