New to the Porsche Market - Tips, Tricks and Advice?
 

Hey all,

I feel this is a general topic, so I started a new thread.

For those of us looking into used (or "pre-owned" as marketing powers would have it) and perhaps older Porsches, do any of you have advice for shopping around for one?

In particular, I am looking for a '87-'89 928 S4

Help appreciated!

They are just cars: nothing that special about a Porsche or even most of the exotics -- everything you know/hear about inspecting used cars applies and there are really no unique Porsche-only issues, really. Older ones tended to rust. They are durable if cared for well but deteriorate iquickly if not maintained well: check maintenance records, etc.

I'd think hard about a 928. If you really know those cars, have time and tolerance, don't mind if it eats money hand over fist and can live with it sitting, not running, for days or weeks at a time, get into one, but among all older Porsches the 928 is probably the model to stay away from. To begin with it is a 25ish year old design -- still rather good looking but rather heavy, thirsty, and not that powerful by today's standards: a great comfortable GT but not a particularly fast sports car and not at all the flingy handling champ that many other Porsches are. There are not that many in service now and parts are sometimes hard to get quickly and mechanics who really know the cars well are getting hard to find, too. And worst, the car is just incredibly tight under the hood -- nothing, absolutely nothing, not even the V12 XKE, is more difficult to work on. An '87 or so car is 23 years old, and even if great condition, will have rubber seals and such that are old and hard and worn, and a lot of age-related issues.