Im looking into buying a car for myself. i havent had the need for one up until now. i found a guy selling a 944 in an ad. He said its a 1984 944 automatic. needs a new tranny, has 150,000 miles on it and the price is 1100 dollars. from what ive seen visually its in good condition, and seems to be well taken care of.

first question. i didn't think the 1984 944 coupe had the option for a automatic. thought that was the 1986

second question: it needs a transmission replacement. where is a good place to find one/ how expensive will it be to replace?

third question: is there any way to change the car to a manual? (totally new to the car thing, might be a silly question)

fourth question: since the car does have 150,000 miles on it, is there any other problems i should be looking for with the car?

thanks for any help you can offer.

~Hack

 

You can get early 944 (pre 1985.5). I would imagine you can find a used transaxle for 6-800, but who knows the condition. A manual swap is going to not only be labor intensive, but will run 1500-2000 by the time you buy the tranmission, new clutch assembly, etc. It will also be about 15-20 hours of labor to do the conversion.

First thing you would have to do to the car is the timing belt. $500 in parts to do the belts, rollers, and waterpump. Then worry about the transmission. You will dump $2000 into the car in just parts to get it going, then you will have to deal with keeping up on the 20 year old stuff that wears out.

If you aren't mechanically inclined, or need it as a reliable vehicle, then I would pass.

 

i am mechanically inclined, have worked on VWs for a long time, really easy to work on =P but none the less i do have a general understanding of how things work. and know people that are more mechanically inclined than i.

im going to meet up with the guy and take a good look at the car in a couple days. so saying i forget about the swap to manual, how hard is it to replace a tranny on one of these?( like me and my buddys doing it) and what else should i look for on the car in regards to parts that might need replacing? other than the timing belts, rollers and pump. my price cap is 4,000 dollars and i wouldnt mind working on one of these, the challenge excites me. the car caught my eye and reliability isnt a huge issue, besides still would be bussing myself around to work and school most of the time anyway.