RE: bout to buy, please advise
 

Dude, my dad's got a plumber and he's got a cool set of tools. I can fix anything.

RE: bout to buy, please advise
 

buy a rx7 and sell me the carrera kit

RE: bout to buy, please advise
 

Check around. . . I'm in the same situation and someone told me to check out another link. I forget what it is, but it's in one of the other threads here. There was some pretty good advice there. It seemed like one big thing was to check timing belts, but I have no idea how to do that. I'll ask my friend who has the car. Maybe I'll have a mechanic look at it too.

RE: bout to buy, please advise
 

"Your Turbos and 944 S models have the single piece bumpers that you like. They are also faster than the other models - and their price reflects this."

Uh, only the 944S2 had the Turbo front-end and rear valance. The 944S looks like any other 944.

RE: bout to buy, please advise
 

unique acheter Porsches thanksggiving êtes ont et assemblé dans Texan!

RE: bout to buy, please advise
 

The steps I posted earlier about removing the bumper and pads are correct. Sorry about the S as opposed to S2 thing. I thought both had the single piece bumpers.

I posted most of this in earlier threads:

I like the 1985.5 models much better that the earlier 944s - I think the interiors look and feel nicer. By 1987 the engines got noticeably stronger. In 89 the engines were bumped up to 2.7 liters. The earlier cars are generally cheaper. I would look at the maintenance records and have the car checked over by a mechanic.

Look for any obvious impact damage - one easy way is to check wheel wells (they are plastic) - if they are broken or missing ask why. The bumpers are so easy to straighten that lots of damage can go unnoticed.

If you do get the car do all of the required maintenance. ESPECIALLY the timing belt and water pump. If it the belt breaks or jumps time you have just double the price of the car. The 944 has an interference engine, the valves open into the in the piston's space in the cylinders. Generally this makes for a very powerful and efficient engine, but if the timing isn't absolutely perfect the valves will be struck by the pistons. Once this happens they don’t seat properly and you won't get any compression. Porsche used the interference design to allow more fuel and air to mix (the valves open much wider) - giving the 944 more power than its mid 80's 4 cylinder engine would have otherwise.

Motor mounts and wheel bearings also seem to be weak spots. Most of the 944’s I looked at last time out had very sloppy suspensions. I haven’t had any clutch problems but if you do they are very hard to work on and so they are rather expensive. There are some upgraded clutch parts to make them stronger in the future – if you do need to fix it. I would avoid NA cars priced less than $3500. A poorly maintained 944 is going to fall apart on you. Also consider the very last few years of the 924 (924 S?). They are basically 944 engines in the lighter 924 body. I don't think that they don't look as nice but they are supposed to be quicker than a standard 944 NA. Any used sports car is going to cost a few grand in maintenance & upgrades a year. I do most of the work on my car myself but still spend a lot in minor repairs and maintenance. For things that take special tools like alignments, belt tensioning and etc I go to one specific shop. There is always at least one good shop in town - you pay more per hour but your car actually runs when they are done.

Look around the web (http://www.efn.org/~gsdiseth/944.html) there is tons of info on these cars. You should also buy the Haynes Workshop Manual. I've used that book to make repairs that I wasn't sure that I could do.

Hope that helps.