911 help needed for a total porsche noob

d chung · 18 Jun 2014

Hi all.

Iv been looking at cars in the £12-13,000 range and was looking at BMW 6 series and my friend said, why not get a porsche.

It never occured to me that i could afford one but was surprised to see so many 911s in that price range.

Im now in love with the idea of owning one of these cars. The bmw is so soulless by comparision, but im scared of the unknown.

Am i on a hiding to nothing buying a porsche in that price range. I dont want to buy something riddled with problems.

Are there porsche experts i could pay to give it the once over.

Is it going to be way more expensive to maintain than the bmw

I realise these sound like some very dumb questions but please bear with me

T8 · 19 Jun 2014

:welcome: to 911uk

Last year my previous 911 was worth £13k and I posted this.

==> What better car can you buy for £13k?

Obviously we're biased on here but I think you'll find you're making the right choice. :thumb:

Funnily enough I did once think (very seriously) about trading it in for a 645Ci. I never regretted changing my mind.

See here ==> A mistake I nearly made

£13k is entry level for 911 ownership but there's some nice cars around at that price. Have a good read of the 996 sub-forum. With £13k you'll be looking for a 3.4 litre 996, known on here as the 996.1.

Advice is to always have a Pre Purchase Inspection (PPI) done once you've found what looks like the right car for you. If you tell us where you are based someone will advise you who to use.

Good luck :thumb:

skinnedknuckles · 19 Jun 2014

Any Official Porsche Centre (know here as OPC) will give your potential purchase a thorough once over in exchange for a fist full of notes. You should factor this in to purchase price.
Contact your nearest OPC for prices.
Any reasonable vendor will allow this inspection before purchase. If they say no, just walk away. If the OPC find a long list of problems then you can haggle down the price or walk away.
At the price you are talking about you will be looking at a 996? There are known problems with this engine (IMS bearing failure, bore scoring and D chunking etc) and there are loads of posts on here that go in to much more detail about the warning signs of these.
If the engine goes pop, you could be looking easily at a bill of £10K to fix but once that is paid you have basically future proofed your car as they replace all of the questionable parts with uprated items that will see your engine outliving you with proper maintenance.
They are great cars if you get a good one and complete nightmares of you get a dog.
Do your homework and get a specialist to look at it properly and you are in with a good chance of owning the best car in the world for day to day driving. Leave yourself a couple of grand spare in your budget for the things that will crop up.

Andyc11 · 19 Jun 2014

As you've said, the idea of owning a 911 is now something that probably is filling your days looking through classifieds and forums such as these. But make sure you buy with your head not your heart. There's a lot of choice available in your budget, so the first car you see isn't the last you'll ever have the opportunity to own.

A PPI either by a well respected Indy or the OPC is an absolute. Personally, I'd go for a well respected Indy. You're not going to get an OPC warranty and it's likely the car will have been serviced outside the OPC network. More importantly, a good Indy would do a borescope as part of the PPI (I believe the OPC would charge extra for this on top of the 111 point check). This would check for any of the dreaded bore scoring, which could lead to engine issues as mentioned previously.

Check the classifieds here too, always some nice examples and generally, will have been very well cared for. That doesn't mean it will be trouble free motoring, remember you're buying a high performance car that could be in the region of 15 years old now. Not trying to put you off, just make sure you've got your eyes wide open when going into such a purchase.

This looks a nice example, well within budget and would leave some cash for any fettling if needed. Good luck, enjoy the search and the car when you finally bite the bullet.

http://911uk.com/ads_item.php?id=5327

Andyc11 · 19 Jun 2014

Also just seem this, which looks very good value considering the mileage...

http://911uk.com/ads_item.php?id=5312

cheshire911 · 19 Jun 2014

I'd echo andyc11's point. You are a brave man taking on one of these 15 year old supercars, so make sure you factor in two things:

1. Keep a healthy slush fund to budget for dealing with things that go wrong in addition to the usual servicing costs. I always suggest £2k to be set aside IN ADDITION to routine servicing costs.

2. Don't be seduced by good prices for fixed price servicing at independent specialist or Main dealers - as these cars are knocking on now, when its up on the ramp, they invariably find other work that it needs to keep it up to shape. So a a ticket price on a service looks seductive - typically minor service is £350 and major service might be £500. But once you add on other work that is identified, you can easily end up with a MUCH bigger bill - which is why you need to keep that slush fund of £2k aside every year.

I have no idea about BMW, but keeping a 15 year old Porsche in tip top shape and healthy condition does require cash to be spent - these were £70k supercars at their time (and £70k at that time is equivalent to a lot more now I'd guess) so they cannot be maintained on a shoe-string budget. They are seductive when you look at the ticket price - but then there is the on-going maintenance to consider. So go in with your eyes wide open is what I'd say.

d chung · 19 Jun 2014

thanks guys, some really helpful advice. Was expecting to get flamed for stupidity.

I think im going to keep an eye on this post and hopefully get more info and advice. Im going to spend a good 6-8 months researching as thats when my current lease ends.

I like the idea of future proofing the car if the engine goes bang. £10,000 is a lot of money but on the other hand this is a car id be happy with for life.

911 help needed for a total porsche noob

d chung

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T8

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