When I was 16 I always wanted a Porsche 944, so now I am going to buy one, even though it’s going to be 20 years old.
I’ve had over 26 different cars, but just never one of these, so was looking to see if anyone has first-hand experience owning one of these as a daily driver.
I’m expecting about $2,000 to $2,500 in maintenance/repair costs per year, is that about reasonable?
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Actually, if you find one that’s not clapped out, the maint should be fairly low.
It depends if it’s DOHC, turbo, or the “normal” 4.
Good driver.
the 944s are great cars, and are fairly reliable if you dont abuse them too badly. they handle amazingly well too. many owners daily drive them. As long as you keep up on maitenence and such, youll be fine. Great fun to do the occasional trackday in to, if thats your thing.
assuming you do your own work, thats should be plenty adeqate for the car. if you dont, it should still be fine. Thank you for being a reasonable person when it comes to owning an older car (especially a P car), when it comes to repair costs.
i suggest buying a 951 though (944 turbo). Maitenance will be about the same, and theyre not much more for the initial purchase. Theyre a ton faster and more fun to drive.
How much work can you do yourself? There are procedures that are $40 in parts and a morning of labor (plenty of online help), or $400 at a shop.
You’ll need a dedicated set of snow tires if you intend to drive it in winter and you live in an area with a winter.
Base cars, known as NA or 8-valve cars, were made from 83-89. They were incrementally upgraded, with a big interior upgrade halfway through the 85 model year. Early and late (post-interior change) cars are pretty much a wash in terms of maintenance expense. They can get out of their own way, but they’re inertia cars- you keep your speed up in corners, since it isn’t always easy to accelerate. You may actually lose drag races to minivans, but it was declared the best-handling ’80s car (bar none) for a reason.
I would not recommend a 944 turbo to students, in general. Very fast, but double the cost of an 8-valve in annual maintenance. You also sacrifice reliability. Also somewhat of a pain to work on, if you do the work yourself.
S and S2 cars are a bit of a compromise. Both are DOHC. The S is a little weak around town, and not much stronger than the 8v cars at the top end. The S2 is hard to find and more expensive, but has 3 liters (everything else is 2.5 or 2.7) and many weak points in earlier cars have been addressed.
I have daily driven an ‘83 for nearly 3 years, and I’m a college student. Lots of fun and less expensive to maintain with manual steering (an 83 exclusive), and it’s the lightest of all stock 944s. I have also autocrossed an S model, and I can say it isn’t much of an upgrade over the 8-valve cars. An S2 may be a different story. Because I do the work myself, it isn’t unreasonably expensive.
No matter what model you choose, do not skimp on having the timing belt serviced every 3 years/30,000 miles and retensioned at 1500 and 15,000 miles after replacing the belt. All are interference engines. They will strand you and bend valves if the belt slips or breaks.
that is a good price it may go a little over but it would be less if you drove it on weekends go for it drive it as often as you want
well thats a little high in my book i didn’t even come close to spending even that much and i had mine for fours years until some idiot ran a stop sign and had it totaled. But then again my porsche was’nt a daily driven car only out in the summer or weekends.
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