Maintenace /servicing costs?

[pauljmcnulty]

Running costs have become far more of a lottery over the last few years, as the cars have reached the point where both restoration and preventative maintenance become as important as regular servicing. This is why the advice to buy the best you can is so important, and to keep a chunk of money back as a reserve.

I'm discounting the DIY option here; you can obviously save a lot if you do the work yourself, but that's not really an accurate guide to costs for many of us. My Lux cost just over £1000 per year to tax, insure and maintain, and it's depreciation, over 5 years/30K miles. The S2 has cost more than £3000 per year over three years/20K miles, and still needs £000s spending on the bodywork. This is partly down to work I would have had to do on the Lux, as it also needed some TLC, but there are just so many age-related problems that can rear their head.

Things that will cost a lot are:

Bodywork, rust can cost £000s to put right if it's done properly and you need a lot of paintwork.

All the fuel and brake cables and lines are at the end of their life, calipers corrode and need refurbing, head gaskets are really needing changing, water pumps are often original and a belt service can also include seals, rollers etc. Clutches are on their last legs if original, and suspension is often shot. There are also numerous little things that can go wrong, and if it's going in to a specialist every time it all adds up.

A good buy will have at least some of the above in it's recent history, the more the better as there is little difference in price between the average, and the best.

It might all sound negative, but there's nothing worse than the people who buy a shiny 944 at a knock-down price, then find they can't afford to get it through the first MOT. Unless you are going to run it in to the ground and then scrap it, I'd treat it as a £10K car; if you don't spend the reserve you've not lost out, but at least you are prepared.

As I've said many times, there's no comparable car from the period that will rust less, or be more mechanically robust, let alone drive so well. What I guess you have to think very hard about now is if you actually want an old 944, when £10K buys an awful lot of newer car. Personally, although I am often tempted, I come back to the 944 every time. I am a bit of an obsessive though. []

 

[Copperman05]

I look at 944 ownership as a long term restoration project, its what makes us enthusiasts, willing to spend money on a different older car knowing that it wont be redeemed on selling. The reward being that you get to drive and use arguably the best 1980's car Porsche made, a modern classic in every sense and perfectly usable on a daily basis some 23+ years later.

Edd

 

[zcacogp]

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty
The S2 has cost more than £3000 per year over three years/20K miles, and still needs £000s spending on the bodywork.

Strewth Paul, that means you have spent around £10k on your S2 since you bought it! That's a big pile of cabbage; what's cost you so much? Your comment implies that it doesn't include the bodywork too ... []

Edd - I think you are right when you call them 'long term restoration projects'. I sometimes wonder what it's like to own a new car that doesn't constantly need something minor doing to it, and have a list of "To Do's" as long as your arm!


Oli.

 

[Hairyarse]

ORIGINAL: zcacogp
I sometimes wonder what it's like to own a new car that doesn't constantly need something minor doing to it, and have a list of "To Do's" as long as your arm!


Oli.

Dull! []

 

[zcacogp]

ORIGINAL: Hairyarse

ORIGINAL: zcacogp
I sometimes wonder what it's like to own a new car that doesn't constantly need something minor doing to it, and have a list of "To Do's" as long as your arm!

Dull! []

In all seriousness, I really think it would be.


Oli.

 

[Hairyarse]

Yup! I do like my Beemer. It's fast comfy and easy to drive very quickly but I love my 944 - and my Golf when it's on the road! Just something about older cars without all the electrics and gizmos, no abs, traction control etc just raw driving pleasure

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Strewth Paul, that means you have spent around £10k on your S2 since you bought it! That's a big pile of cabbage; what's cost you so much? Your comment implies that it doesn't include the bodywork too ...

Roughly:

£1.5K depreciation (although it'll rise once the dodywork is sorted, so that's a good chunk of the repairs paid for in increased value, if not all).
£1.5K 3 year's tax and insurance (as I'd included that in the Lux running costs)
£600 service in year one
£3.5k in year two, to include tyres, fuel lines (the really expensive option in the end, I wouldn't do that again) nearly £2K on brakes etc.
£2.5K this year, including welding, belts with all the extras, wheel bearings, CV boots and a lot of little bits

Some of this is general servicing, of course; if you own a 944 for four years you'll be up for a belt service for instance. The trick is to buy one that's just had the big service including water pump. Other bits, like the brake overhaul, I knew needed doing when I bought it, I just didn't know that "caliper refurb" would also need to include all discs, pads, lines, handbrake etc. as well.

So, that's nearly £10K, plus fuel, over about £20K miles. Being fair, that's about the per-mile cost of running a new Focus, so it's not too unreasonable put in to context as I drive a classic Porsche which is cheap enough to actually use and enjoy without being precious about it. A good all-round compromise for me.

My point is that, if you can't work on the car yourself, it's possible to have bills in the £000s, and you need to keep money back for that. The parts aren't the main issue, the £65 per hour plus vat labour charge here is.

The other problem is that I really should do the HG as a precaution, and the suspension is really worn on mine. Then it should be fully sorted, albeit in a "Trigger's Broom" kind of way. [&o]

 

[Copperman05]

I too have spent a fair wad of spondooley's on the car since taking ownership of it. Some of it necessary, like the clutch and second hand gearbox and some less so, like the seats (I still have the originals and they are near perfect). On other items like the suspension I decided to go for the kw's when the front nearside struts failed an MOT due to play. I didnt need to fit kw to solve the problem, but I'm happy I did. More recently plate lift in the rear calipers resulted in a brake upgrade/refresh, again perhaps a bit of overkill in relation to the issue but its all part of my long term restoration philosophy.

In contrast to the money spent the car is now being tracked, used on holidays to South of France and Le Mans, driven everyday and kept on the street in London. The car looks and feels completely different to when I bought it and its probably one of the best examples of the model in the UK at the moment. Although it doesnt stop there, next on the list (for next year) that needs doing are gearbox mounts, and headgasket (as a precaution), although I'm aware that may open a whole new can of worms in itself...

Edd

 

[GrahamD]

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

Strewth Paul, that means you have spent around £10k on your S2 since you bought it! That's a big pile of cabbage; what's cost you so much? Your comment implies that it doesn't include the bodywork too ...

Roughly:

£1.5K depreciation (although it'll rise once the dodywork is sorted, so that's a good chunk of the repairs paid for in increased value, if not all).
£1.5K 3 year's tax and insurance (as I'd included that in the Lux running costs)
£600 service in year one
£3.5k in year two, to include tyres, fuel lines (the really expensive option in the end, I wouldn't do that again) nearly £2K on brakes etc.
£2.5K this year, including welding, belts with all the extras, wheel bearings, CV boots and a lot of little bits

Some of this is general servicing, of course; if you own a 944 for four years you'll be up for a belt service for instance. The trick is to buy one that's just had the big service including water pump. Other bits, like the brake overhaul, I knew needed doing when I bought it, I just didn't know that "caliper refurb" would also need to include all discs, pads, lines, handbrake etc. as well.

So, that's nearly £10K, plus fuel, over about £20K miles. Being fair, that's about the per-mile cost of running a new Focus, so it's not too unreasonable put in to context as I drive a classic Porsche which is cheap enough to actually use and enjoy without being precious about it. A good all-round compromise for me.

My point is that, if you can't work on the car yourself, it's possible to have bills in the £000s, and you need to keep money back for that. The parts aren't the main issue, the £65 per hour plus vat labour charge here is.

The other problem is that I really should do the HG as a precaution, and the suspension is really worn on mine. Then it should be fully sorted, albeit in a "Trigger's Broom" kind of way. [&o]

Thanks for the information. That is a scary list! You are making me nervous now...very glad I asked the question and have received so much response. Buying a run around for now and careful search for a quality 944 which has a list of repairs that someone else has paid for, is clearly the order of the day.

Graham

 

[zcacogp]

Oi! McNulters - you're scared off a potential owner! That's not what a Register Secretary should be doing!

Graham, it proves the point that a 944 can be an expensive car to own and run. I'd suspect that Paul and Edd are the two owners on here who spend the most on their daily-driver S2's (the turbo boys seem to spend a lot, lot more). I know that I run mine fairly economically, sourcing the cheapest possible * replacement parts when I need them and doing all the work myself. As has been said, there are about four or five really expensive things on a 944, and looking for one where these have been done recently will mean you can go for longer without needing big expenditure. A list of these would include the clutch, the brake calipers (google 'plate lift'), rust in the sills, belts and waterpump at the front of the engine and fuel lines over the back axle. And if a seller says they have been done then look for documentary evidence of this before believing them!

If you are handy then you can save a lot of money. Parts prices can be dear but labour is the killer. (Refurbishing the brake calipers can cost over a hundred quid a corner, but the total parts cost is about a pound for some bolts and fittings. It's not a difficult job if you have a workshop, and not un-enjoyable to do either. Another example would be the clutch - a new clutch plate and cover will cost a few hundred quid, but fitting them is a MAMMOTH job. However it's a very easy job to do, and for the sake of a weekend with a friend you can save a LOT of money.)

Best of luck with your search.


Oli.

* - 'Cheapest possible' invariably means looking for cross-compatibility with other cars, and not buying Porsche-branded stuff. I bought a new coolant temperature sensor for my S2 a couple of weeks ago for £10. Made by Bosch, same Bosch part number, but it came with an E36 BMW part code - which meant it cost a third of the price of the one with the Porsche part code ...

 

[graham.webb]

And while we're in the confessional...
This thread has driven me to tot everything up since I bought my S2 in 2006. The last 2 years have been lucky...just servicing and odd jobs. Before that there were a couple of whopping bills, and I have a guilt list of stuff that will be expensive when we decide, or have to, do them!!

Services at the indie:
2010: 358
2011: 453
2009: 813 (steering rack)
2009: 61 (alarm fault)
2008: 1715 (belts, rollers, cam chain, wishbone bushes)
2007: 803 (steering column u.j)
TOTAL: 4243

Other
2011: 218 (wheel refurb)
2009: 1345 (n/s cill & front wing; o/s front wing)
TOTAL: 1563

Grand Total: 5806

So that's about £1162 per annum, or much less that most normal cars would depreciate. And on that subject, I still have some of the ads I collected when I started looking, and I reckon the going rate of c.£4k in 2006 still holds good for a well maintained car. There's plenty of cars about for less, but unless the expensive jobs are documented as done, then the cost will always approach Paul's figure of £10k.

Guilt List

Clutch (I'm on 104k mls and driving gently...Karl at Specialised Paintwork reckons his 944 did over 150k on its original clutch).

Suspension (just bushes, or OEM shocks as well???)

Head gasket

Cill (o/s still looks OK and Specialised Paintwork reckoned it was OK)

Heater

Update alarm......etc, etc

Still worth it in my opinion...modern cars cost about £400 to service, and when my SAAB swallows its turbo that's a £1k job (twice so far). Clutch cost me over £1k too

 

[GrahamD]

ORIGINAL: graham.webb

And while we're in the confessional...
This thread has driven me to tot everything up since I bought my S2 in 2006. The last 2 years have been lucky...just servicing and odd jobs. Before that there were a couple of whopping bills, and I have a guilt list of stuff that will be expensive when we decide, or have to, do them!!

Services at the indie:
2010: 358
2011: 453
2009: 813 (steering rack)
2009: 61 (alarm fault)
2008: 1715 (belts, rollers, cam chain, wishbone bushes)
2007: 803 (steering column u.j)
TOTAL: 4243

Other
2011: 218 (wheel refurb)
2009: 1345 (n/s cill & front wing; o/s front wing)
TOTAL: 1563

Grand Total: 5806

So that's about £1162 per annum, or much less that most normal cars would depreciate. And on that subject, I still have some of the ads I collected when I started looking, and I reckon the going rate of c.£4k in 2006 still holds good for a well maintained car. There's plenty of cars about for less, but unless the expensive jobs are documented as done, then the cost will always approach Paul's figure of £10k.

Guilt List

Clutch (I'm on 104k mls and driving gently...Karl at Specialised Paintwork reckons his 944 did over 150k on its original clutch).

Suspension (just bushes, or OEM shocks as well???)

Head gasket

Cill (o/s still looks OK and Specialised Paintwork reckoned it was OK)

Heater

Update alarm......etc, etc

Still worth it in my opinion...modern cars cost about £400 to service, and when my SAAB swallows its turbo that's a £1k job (twice so far). Clutch cost me over £1k too

Your recent years costs look remarkably good, what mileage have you done over that period?

 

[zcacogp]

ORIGINAL: GrahamD
Your recent years costs look remarkably good, what mileage have you done over that period?

A good Q, but bear in mind that many things aren't mileage dependant. Belts and rollers are 36k miles OR 3 years (most people get to three years before 36k miles.) Sills are time-dependant and not affected by miles (in fact, given the design of the 944 then cills will last longer the more the car is used, as they have fresh air blown down them when the car drives.) Caliper lift will be irrespective of mileage as well. Clutch clearly isn't, although fuel lines over the rear axle will be to a significant extent.


Oli.

 

[George Elliott]

this thread has prompted me to consider the past two years of running costs.

Starting with a good car, and at the top end of the market prices:

YEAR 1
£5 Oil Filter x 2
£50 Oil x2
£20 Air Filter
£1 Bulb

YEAR 2
as above plus
£450 4 Tyres
£15 2 wiper blades
£0 one eighth turn of the front wheel bearing nuts

YEAR 3
as Yr 1 so far (less the bulb)

thats 21000 miles
DIY Labour
Keep the sills, fuel lines and brake pipes protected from corrosion. Never wash the underside without drying (jack up the rear and dry with space heater for 2 hours) and reapplying a fine mist of Oil/wax protection(except the brake discs)[].

They are extremely well engineered, and if looked after they go on like a W123 mercedes.

On the other hand, if you want to sponsor some employment in the motor trade, they can need all sorts of stuff.

If you get a neglected one, they genuinely will need a big refurb.

good luck with finding a nice one.
George
944t

 

[graham.webb]

Graham
Have to admit it's not a daily driver...I'm on an agreed value/3000ml p.a. policy. so at c. 2000 ml p.a that's about 10000 in 5 years. Don't forget, though, that things like belts & rollers (every 4 yrs) and bodywork (a stitch in time...) are not mileage related.

If I were doing a larger mileage we would have done the clutch by now...

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Clutch clearly isn't, although fuel lines over the rear axle will be to a significant extent.

I'd disagree about the clutch, and it's something to consider on low-mileage cars. The rubber centre is going to be more likely to break up if it's old, and although a car that's got a perished piece of rubber might be fine if it's only gently driven for a few hundred miles a year, it'll soon need a new clutch if it's driven properly by the new owner.

Fuel lines are an interesting question, as are the bodywork repairs such as sills. I joined the 944 community about 9 years ago, and although sills on early cars were rusting then, it was seen as a problem limited to the early Luxes for some reason. Probably as that was the only model affected at the time, and we were all hoping that our later cars would not succumb to either sill rot, or the dreaded cracking dashes. We were soooo wrong. [&:]

But, the age-related issues might not be such a huge problem? If you fit original fuel lines they should last almost indefinitely; the problem with the original set was that the cars weren't treated as "classics" for the first 15 or 20 years of their lives. Any half-decent indie will be spraying the fuel lines as a matter of course at every service now, so they should last longer than the 20-odd years that the first set managed. Sills are the same; we should be treating them at least once a year now, with the knowledge that it's a weaker area, so why won't the new sills last far longer than the 20 years the original, untreated, ones did? My worry is that wherever you join new metal you create a starting point for rust, but if that was inevitable there would be no older cars surviving I guess.

I am very positive about the long-term survival of some 944s, although I think most will be finding their way to the Nurburgring in the sky. Parts are plentiful, and they aren't so complicated that they will be impossible to repair over time even if parts are obsolete. The design is strong, and although few people will be prepared to spend the money on them compared to, say, a 911 or an e-type, they will always have a hard-core following amongst the more educated car owners such as myself or Oli. []

 

[zcacogp]

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty
... educated car owners such as myself or Oli.

You're complimenting me McNulters. Which makes me worried. Especially as I called you an 'Old Git' on another thread recently.

Do you want something? Or have I done something wrong? []

>FurrowsBrowInConfusion<


Oli.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

You're complimenting me McNulters. Which makes me worried. Especially as I called you an 'Old Git' on another thread recently.

I missed that one, so "/faceslap" Oli. []

I always compliment the forum old-timers; half the job of keeping the cars on the road, and maintaining their profile, is down to you guys. Just a shame you don't come out to play in the real world more often! Get yourself to the Ace one month and I'll miss my badminton and come along as well. []

 

[GlennS]

ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty
The design is strong, and although few people will be prepared to spend the money on them compared to, say, a 911 or an e-type, they will always have a hard-core following amongst the more educated car owners such as myself or Oli. []

It will be interesting to see how many do survive long-term. I own a 944 because (with the exception of a 928) it is the only Porsche I've wanted. Even as a kid, 911s never adorned my bedroom walls. As such I am willing to spend an unreasonable amount of money keeping my one trundling along and in respectable nick. I harbour no illusions about the car ever becoming a valuable classic. However, I will say that car gets lots of attention from the public at general car shows. Far more than a very nice period 911 that's also part of my local classic car club gets. I guess that's because the 944 is "unusual". Over the years, all the 911s have blurred into one but the 944 marks a very specific period.

 

[George Elliott]

I think more miles = less maintenance, as opposed to what might be expected.
George
944t