Reliability and Big Bill Potential 996tt v 997 C2S Questions

[blueg33]

I am still trying to decide between these two cars, having driven both, I like them equally but for different reasons.

I now need to get my head around costs and reliability. 997 bore scoring seems a potential big cost, the 996tt's I have seen tend to have had rads and condensors sorted already.

So in reality which carries the most risk in terms of potential big bills, the and the likelihood of the big bill occurring?

I need the car as a daily driver covering circa 15k miles pa. I am looking at cars with circa 45k miles on the clock.

I had always thought of Porsche's being ultra reliable for a performance car, but the more I read, particularly about wet sumped normally aspirated 3.6's and 3.8's the more worried I get. If they are really only weekend cars, then there is no point in me buying one as my current toy serves that purpose admirably.

Thanks in advance

[monthefish]

I suppose it depends what you class as a "big bill".

In all honesty, either one has the potential to generate a £1k+ bill at the drop of a hat and you need to be prepeared for that.

Rads/condensers are vulnerable on the turbo (hence the high replacement rate), but this can mostly be resiolved by adding mesh.

The engine of the turbo is not prone to the other horror stories that I'm sure you've read about on the 996/997 N/A engines, but no engine is guranteed and I read in the buyers guide that a new 996t engine is £20k.

Would you consider a maintenance plan with Hartech or other, which mostly protects you against big bills?

Edited by monthefish on Thursday 22 March 10:16

[jonamv8]

Scaremongering - You don't tend to hear too much about all the examples, both 996 and 997, that go on without issues for years.

I've had a 996 C4S and TT and never had any major issues

[blueg33]

Thanks that's useful. £1k bills are fine, £10k bills would be a problem

I will look at Hartech's website, part of my rationale is to reduce the overall running costs I have of my Tuscan + my A6 (not allowing for fuel - man maths). So the 911 has to replace both and cost a bit less on maintenance.

Current Costs of maintenance on £15k per annum excluding tyres are

Tuscan £1000
Audi £500

[monthefish]

jonamv8 said:

Scaremongering - You don't tend to hear too much about all the examples, both 996 and 997, that go on without issues for years.

I've had a 996 C4S and TT and never had any major issues

Good for you.

My post was not scaremongering - I've never had any major issue with my car either, but I've had a few reasonably sized bills.

What is the point in posting that there are no issues - surely the whole point of forums is to share the collective knowledge, and allow potential owners to make thei minds up on sample size, relative number of occurences etc.

My advice is to definitely buy one, but buy informed.

[RiccardoG]

blueg33 said:

Thanks that's useful. £1k bills are fine, £10k bills would be a problem

I will look at Hartech's website, part of my rationale is to reduce the overall running costs I have of my Tuscan + my A6 (not allowing for fuel - man maths). So the 911 has to replace both and cost a bit less on maintenance.

Current Costs of maintenance on £15k per annum excluding tyres are

Tuscan £1000
Audi £500

I'd say that, on average, a 911 will cost more than £1500/year in maintenance costs (not including depreciation, insurance, tax and petrol, which are general car running costs) once you include the extra servicing items such as brakes, clutches, tyres etc.

Having said that, £500 a year for <i>any</i> car seems to me very low to me anyways, unless its either brand new (and therefore its depreciating a lot) or an old banger which isn't being maintained properly.

[blueg33]

RiccardoG said:

I'd say that, on average, a 911 will cost more than £1500/year in maintenance costs (not including depreciation, insurance, tax and petrol, which are general car running costs) once you include the extra servicing items such as brakes, clutches, tyres etc.

Having said that, £500 a year for <i>any</i> car seems to me very low to me anyways, unless its either brand new (and therefore its depreciating a lot) or an old banger which isn't being maintained properly.

Audi is 18k mile service interval, in 85k miles and 5 years from new it has had 1 set of brakes. Average service is £350. Its a big heavy car and not exactly slow, but I think I am gentle on brakes. Its always dealer serviced and I have had it from new. Total cost in the last 12 months 12k miles on the Audi is £45 for MOT, £180 for arb bushes, no service needed.

Tuscan last year was about £1700 but I had lots done, this year will be about £800

[jonamv8]

monthefish said:

Good for you.

My post was not scaremongering - I've never had any major issue with my car either, but I've had a few reasonably sized bills.

What is the point in posting that there are no issues - surely the whole point of forums is to share the collective knowledge, and allow potential owners to make thei minds up on sample size, relative number of occurences etc.

My advice is to definitely buy one, but buy informed.

I replied as you had replied - My Scaremongering comment no aimed at you but the general negativity that surrounds these cars through people using forums to vent or fact find when they have issues. I agree with what you say but worth noting that there are many owners who dont experience what the forums would show is commonplace

[monthefish]

jonamv8 said:

monthefish said:

Good for you.

My post was not scaremongering - I've never had any major issue with my car either, but I've had a few reasonably sized bills.

What is the point in posting that there are no issues - surely the whole point of forums is to share the collective knowledge, and allow potential owners to make thei minds up on sample size, relative number of occurences etc.

My advice is to definitely buy one, but buy informed.

I replied as you had replied - My Scaremongering comment no aimed at you but the general negativity that surrounds these cars through people using forums to vent or fact find when they have issues. I agree with what you say but worth noting that there are many owners who dont experience what the forums would show is commonplace

Fair enough. I really don't want to be seen as a "scaremongerer" (I hate those guys), as I'm really not. I'm very happy with my purchase, and the bills haven't really been any worse than I was expecting. (Still higher than any other car I've ever owned though.)

Without going into specifics, nor the scale of the matter (there are plenty of threads already ), I think it's fair to say there is a higher liklihood of a 997 N/A engine having issues than the 996t engine, indeed a recent magazine article mentioned that, as 996 prices have dropped, so too has the gap between the 996t and n/a versions, and it is likely that many propsective owners will find that extra to get themselves into a 996t for that relative peace of mind. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but certainly sounded like a reasonable theory to me.


Anyway, engine issues aside, any 997 n/a owners want to give a picture of general reliability?

[RiccardoG]

blueg33 said:

Audi is 18k mile service interval, in 85k miles and 5 years from new it has had 1 set of brakes. Average service is £350. Its a big heavy car and not exactly slow, but I think I am gentle on brakes. Its always dealer serviced and I have had it from new. Total cost in the last 12 months 12k miles on the Audi is £45 for MOT, £180 for arb bushes, no service needed.

Tuscan last year was about £1700 but I had lots done, this year will be about £800

That is really quite good value on the servicing side of things. My 10 year old BMW 530i has cost me on average £730/year in 2 years and 3000 miles! Obviously the flip side is the depreciation aspect.

[mm450exc]

The Turbo has the Mezger engine which is a fully serviceable racing block. Way over engineered for road use. So yes - it's better!

[ScienceTeacher]

And still the fantasy continues. Have a look at what Hartech charge to have a 997 NA on the scheme vs a 996T. The Turbo is almost twice as much. There is a reason for this. http://www.hartech.org/docs/LMP_Jan_2011.pdf

[blueg33]

ScienceTeacher said:

And still the fantasy continues. Have a look at what Hartech charge to have a 997 NA on the scheme vs a 996T. The Turbo is almost twice as much. There is a reason for this. http://www.hartech.org/docs/LMP_Jan_2011.pdf

But is the reason shorter servicing intervals? 997 is 20k miles between services

[monthefish]

ScienceTeacher said:

There is a reason for this.

The turbo has a higher number of components to cover?
It's more difficult to work on the turbo engine bay because of the packaging?

Help us out here...

(I'm presuming you have some comprehensive statistics to share with us)

[carcrazypop]

With that annual mileage I think I'd be looking for a car with a Porsche Extended Warranty, assuming your budget is adequate.

Look at OPC supplied 997's with the 2yr warranty & also any private cars which already have the Porsche warranty.

I realise you'll be restricted on servicing etc., but at least you'll be protected from any major bills such as engines etc IMHO

Good Luck.

[Callughan]

6t are ageing and most have reasonably high miles. So things will eventually need to start changing, mounts, hoses etc...especially if you drive hard costs can mount up.

Carrera S, will have the usual engine worry and going through the classifieds many have had replacement engines. So may be worthing buying with Porsche warranty. Or maybe getting Baz to change the weak spots?

[ScienceTeacher]

monthefish said:

The turbo has a higher number of components to cover?
It's more difficult to work on the turbo engine bay because of the packaging?

Help us out here...

(I'm presuming you have some comprehensive statistics to share with us)

My point is what you say exactly. The larger part of the cost of the Hartech scheme is for the servicing they offer. It is more of nuisance on the Turbo. There is not much in it in terms of the 'warranty component' and the cost might even be more for the turbo for some of the above reasons. Accordingly it is wrong to think that Turbo ownership will be a safe bet as the engines are bullet proof. Yes there will be fewer £5-10K bills - but the rare £15-20K bill as others on here will attest - but more of the £2K-5K bills. This amounts to the running cost being almost twice that of a NA car, over all. This is too much for me. I have a C2 on the Hartech scheme, but I'd like a Turbo.
A nice C2S will be considerably cheaper to run. People seem to ignore the cost of turbos, intercoolers, gearbox, clutch and 4wd all of which are expensive to maintain vs the C2S.

[Nano2nd]

carcrazypop said:

With that annual mileage I think I'd be looking for a car with a Porsche Extended Warranty, assuming your budget is adequate.

Look at OPC supplied 997's with the 2yr warranty & also any private cars which already have the Porsche warranty.

I realise you'll be restricted on servicing etc., but at least you'll be protected from any major bills such as engines etc IMHO

Good Luck.

this ^ when i bought mine i also looked at 996 turbos, i too was doing 15k a year (or intending too anyway) hence the OPC warranty was a must, though technically a late 996t could still be warrantied for a couple of years

[PedroPistol]

Monthefish is right. I've had both with nothing major, but £1-2k is easy to run up. Example from earlier today. Put my 996tt in for an MOT and just had a the dreaded call. Sorry sir your front indicator bulbs are insufficiently orange and the front brake pipes are corroded. That'l be £1600 thanks. I couldn't stop myself laughing at the bulb part. In fairness Idid get them to do a few other advisories while it was up on the ramp and I had paid for an hours labour for them to do a through check but you get the gist. I went and spoke to the mechanic and he told me that it all looked pretty good, so bizarrely I actaully went away feeling not too bad.

[fastgerman]

A lot of what you will have read on these forums is exaggerated in my opinion. People do not post on the Internet when everything is working perfectly, just when there are issues. You will read more comments regarding the 996/997 because there are more in production. So really you need to work out percentages to give a decent view but nobody seems to be prepared to declare number of rebuilds/replacements : number produced.

To get a decent perspective, call an OPC or specialist and see what they say is the more expensive car to run. It will nearly always be the turbo of any model.

Both cars are fantastic and depend on what you prefer :-)