DAVIDGT996
Silverstone
- Joined
- 24 Feb 2019
- Messages
- 118
Well I have gone and done it! - a gleaming 996 is proudly sitting in my drive gleaming in the sun as I look on lovingly through the bifold doors, coffee in hand.
No 1 son had finished his Masters Degree and joined the paid ranks and no 2 son was in last year of Uni so the years of me paying out for flat rent, maintenance and for treking around the Far East or up and down some god forsaken Mountain was coming to an end.
So, it was time for me to dip my toes into the ranks of Porsche ownership- a long held dream of mine. After a bit of of research I came to the conclusion that the 996 model represented good value for money entry level into Porsche ownership for sub £20K.
In the first instance I must stress that I know absolutely nothing about Porsches apart from the fact that I like the look of them. I started trawling the internet for 996's for sale and over number of weeks kept my eye on a couple of vehicles I was interested in whilst at the same time doing a bit of homework on the model - IMS, RMS, Borescore etc so I didnt look like a complete idiot when I went to view.
It just so happens I was selling my mums Focus at the time and the guy that came to buy it was a car dealer. Whilst concluding the deal in my office I mentioned that i was looking to buy a 996 at which stage he said he had a 996 Turbo wide boddied looked after by Alex @ Porschatech in Waltham Cross. Anything you need to know about Porsches speak to Alex who was Porsche trained.
Alex was great, I sent him the link to the car listing I was particularily interested in a 2001 996 c2 triptronic with full GT3 Aerokit and he gave me his opinion on a few items that didnt look right in the listing and the questions I should be asking the dealer. I did ask Alex if he could do a PPI on the car but he was rammed and the car was to far away from his garage anyway.
If truth be told my heart was ruling my head this one! The listing orginally made no mention of the IMS bearing having been replaced so I asked the question of the dealer. He said the car had full Dealership (Porsche Mid Sussex) service history and had been well maintained but no mention of the IMS. I didnt matter to me whether the IMS had been replaced or not as I would factor that into any offer I was prepared to make and get the work done if it hadnt been replaced.
Alex told me the car was was overpriced so I held back for a while wating for the price to be dropped. The classified ad listing lapsed and when relisted there in red we had IMS bearing replaced at 75K. I was straight back on the case and asked the dealer if he could let me have details of the IMS work carried out. He said the IMS work was carried out by Porsche Mid Sussex and I could check with them for works details.
So the sun came out and I dragged the missus with me for the 200 mile round trip to go and have a look at the Porsche. I found a few niggling things that needed doing on the car - rusty wheel bolts, rear Pirrelis were low on tread and gave the dealer the impresssion i knew what I was looking at when I pulled some leaves and debris from inside the front spoiler.
When I pulled the oil filler cap off there was little build up of some milky substance in the filler neck. I just put it down to the car had probably been not been used that much recently and it was just the effects of condensation build up. Should I be worried at this?
Leafing through the service book I could see that the car had all the correct services carried out and then came accross the service at 75K miles, job number, date, Porsche Mid Sussex stamp and then the words 'IMS BEARING REPLACED'. Now I didnt realise hand writting analysing skills was a prerequisite of Porsche car buying but it looked to me it was in the same handwriting and using the same pen as the person who had written down the job number, mileage & date. There were no invoices or receipts with the service records to check back so I took a photo of the appropriate page with the intention on checking it out with Porsche Mid Sussex (PMS).
I rang PMS from my office first thing Monday morning. It connected and rang twice before I had to abort the call to take an urgent business call. Anyway on finishing my business call in the space of a few minutes I had 2 call backs from PMS saying they had on their systems a missed call from my number. Wow how's that for service? these people must be efficient so i thought there woulld be no trouble finding out what i needed about this IMS work!
I gave them the cars Reg number but they were unable to trace it and wanted the VIN number. With the VIN supplied they said that they had located the car and the job number on their systems but were unable to open up the documents as it was more than 7 years ago and they only kept records for 7 years. Now I never got to the bottom on whether the records were archived somewhere or whether they were actually deleted.
As I could not verify that the IMS had been replaced I offerred the dealer £2K less than the asking price not expecting to him to accept. Well he did accept and even offerred to deliver the car to me for a small fee.
Now for the problems which are worrying me:
How do I now check that the IMS work has been done?
Why would the IMS been replaced at 75K miles if it was replaced.
What IMS bearing would PMS have used if they changed it?
Is it part of routine service at that mileage to replace the IMS?
The car has different size tyres on the front to the rear, is that normal?
255's on the rear and 225's on the front.
Key fob remote not working - had a go at trying to wake it up again but not sure i did it right.
No 1 son had finished his Masters Degree and joined the paid ranks and no 2 son was in last year of Uni so the years of me paying out for flat rent, maintenance and for treking around the Far East or up and down some god forsaken Mountain was coming to an end.
So, it was time for me to dip my toes into the ranks of Porsche ownership- a long held dream of mine. After a bit of of research I came to the conclusion that the 996 model represented good value for money entry level into Porsche ownership for sub £20K.
In the first instance I must stress that I know absolutely nothing about Porsches apart from the fact that I like the look of them. I started trawling the internet for 996's for sale and over number of weeks kept my eye on a couple of vehicles I was interested in whilst at the same time doing a bit of homework on the model - IMS, RMS, Borescore etc so I didnt look like a complete idiot when I went to view.
It just so happens I was selling my mums Focus at the time and the guy that came to buy it was a car dealer. Whilst concluding the deal in my office I mentioned that i was looking to buy a 996 at which stage he said he had a 996 Turbo wide boddied looked after by Alex @ Porschatech in Waltham Cross. Anything you need to know about Porsches speak to Alex who was Porsche trained.
Alex was great, I sent him the link to the car listing I was particularily interested in a 2001 996 c2 triptronic with full GT3 Aerokit and he gave me his opinion on a few items that didnt look right in the listing and the questions I should be asking the dealer. I did ask Alex if he could do a PPI on the car but he was rammed and the car was to far away from his garage anyway.
If truth be told my heart was ruling my head this one! The listing orginally made no mention of the IMS bearing having been replaced so I asked the question of the dealer. He said the car had full Dealership (Porsche Mid Sussex) service history and had been well maintained but no mention of the IMS. I didnt matter to me whether the IMS had been replaced or not as I would factor that into any offer I was prepared to make and get the work done if it hadnt been replaced.
Alex told me the car was was overpriced so I held back for a while wating for the price to be dropped. The classified ad listing lapsed and when relisted there in red we had IMS bearing replaced at 75K. I was straight back on the case and asked the dealer if he could let me have details of the IMS work carried out. He said the IMS work was carried out by Porsche Mid Sussex and I could check with them for works details.
So the sun came out and I dragged the missus with me for the 200 mile round trip to go and have a look at the Porsche. I found a few niggling things that needed doing on the car - rusty wheel bolts, rear Pirrelis were low on tread and gave the dealer the impresssion i knew what I was looking at when I pulled some leaves and debris from inside the front spoiler.
When I pulled the oil filler cap off there was little build up of some milky substance in the filler neck. I just put it down to the car had probably been not been used that much recently and it was just the effects of condensation build up. Should I be worried at this?
Leafing through the service book I could see that the car had all the correct services carried out and then came accross the service at 75K miles, job number, date, Porsche Mid Sussex stamp and then the words 'IMS BEARING REPLACED'. Now I didnt realise hand writting analysing skills was a prerequisite of Porsche car buying but it looked to me it was in the same handwriting and using the same pen as the person who had written down the job number, mileage & date. There were no invoices or receipts with the service records to check back so I took a photo of the appropriate page with the intention on checking it out with Porsche Mid Sussex (PMS).
I rang PMS from my office first thing Monday morning. It connected and rang twice before I had to abort the call to take an urgent business call. Anyway on finishing my business call in the space of a few minutes I had 2 call backs from PMS saying they had on their systems a missed call from my number. Wow how's that for service? these people must be efficient so i thought there woulld be no trouble finding out what i needed about this IMS work!
I gave them the cars Reg number but they were unable to trace it and wanted the VIN number. With the VIN supplied they said that they had located the car and the job number on their systems but were unable to open up the documents as it was more than 7 years ago and they only kept records for 7 years. Now I never got to the bottom on whether the records were archived somewhere or whether they were actually deleted.
As I could not verify that the IMS had been replaced I offerred the dealer £2K less than the asking price not expecting to him to accept. Well he did accept and even offerred to deliver the car to me for a small fee.
Now for the problems which are worrying me:
How do I now check that the IMS work has been done?
Why would the IMS been replaced at 75K miles if it was replaced.
What IMS bearing would PMS have used if they changed it?
Is it part of routine service at that mileage to replace the IMS?
The car has different size tyres on the front to the rear, is that normal?
255's on the rear and 225's on the front.
Key fob remote not working - had a go at trying to wake it up again but not sure i did it right.
