£4,000 a year to run an 06 Porsche 911 (997 C2S) before fuel - Page 2 - Porsche General - PistonHeads UK

I love my 997 and I've owned it for about six and half years. It's a 2006 Carrera S. I was toying with selling it (probably won't) and have just spent some time organising all it's service and repair history in to chronological order. I've never before totted up what I've spent on it during my ownership but today I did. In those 6.5 years I've spent just short of £20k on services, tyres (2 rears and 2 fronts) and repairs etc. In addition, it costs c£550 a year to tax it and another £400 to insure it. In those 6.5 years the mileage has grown from 33,000 to 63,000, so I've covered 30,000 miles in it. So, excluding petrol, it has cost me c£4,000 a year to run the car when on average it has covered 5,000 miles in each of those years. It's had quite a lot of big stuff done in that time including having the interior stripped out to dry after the door liners failed and the car flooded with rain water. It's had coolant hoses (front suspension dropped), new clutch & flywheel (engine out), ignition packs, alternator, discs and brakes, front struts, drop links, rear suspension arms, suspension bushes, ignition wiring , engine mounts (that's a whole other story) and of course a service every 24 months. It's a nice car (Seal Grey with black sports interior) in good condition but as I look at it it needs its wheels refurbished, some little bits of cosmetic paintwork doing. Just thought I throw that out there. I think that's a lot of money and sometimes when the bills have hit I wonder why I keep it. Most of the work has been carried out by Porsche specialist indies with me doing the brakes and alternator. Tyres from Asda (proper N rated Michelins). On the plus side I paid £28k for it in April 2006 and from the looks of the classifieds a similar car would fetch about the same or maybe a little bit more now. So it hasn't suffered any real depreciation. Thoughts?

Those sound like big jobs but now they're done there might not be much to do for a while. There will always be logical (and financial) reasons not to own a 16yr old sports car though

Sounds like a very well maintained car. You're very brave to sit down and add everything up, I bought my 997.1 GT3 over 11 years ago and I have no intention of ever going near a calculator and adding up the bills. In the last year alone I could've bought an Up GTi for the amount I've spent on preventative maintenance. Remember the longer you own it, the lower that headline figure will be. But we don't do it for the money, we do it for the love of this irrational past time we have called being a petrolhead

I've gone through similar sums and applied basic man maths. If I had gone the normal route of pcp on a basic car, that would be in excess of £300 per month and you don't get to own the car. So for a keeper, if maintenance stays below an average of £3600 per year, I am winning as I own the car and enjoy it a lot more that a basic hatchback.

I recently sold my 981 GT4. I owned it almost 3 years and drove 10k miles. I bought from a dealer and traded it in. After it was sold I added up the receipts and with depreciation it cost me about £13k (tyres, expensive brakes, and OPC servicing). I guess you can say that irrespective of the age of the car, this isn't a cheap hobby. Still, you would lose the same amount in depreciation driving any humdrum diesel estate if you bought it new. Much better to be having fun.

As above, I think the obvious comparison is the depreciation with a new(er) car which is of course paid for through those monthlies. Of course, one could just run a different used car that's cheaper to maintain. I dunno, something like an E86 Z4 Coupe 3.0 Si would probably be half the cost to maintain and is still a nice car with a decent NA engine etc. Just a question of would you love it? I dread to think how much I've shovelled into Porches in the last 10 years. I imagine if I'd run a basic s tbox the savings over the period would be in the region of £100,000 - certainly not far off. Has it been worth it? Dunno. One thing I do think is that I could probably have cut at least £30-40k out of that by doing various things a bit more wisely. And maybe not driving them quite as much! I'm all for driving these things, but I tend to do about 15k a year and that really does get expensive! 10k a year would still be a fair amount of miles and far more than most people do and would deliver a 30% savings on fuel and wear and tear right there! On the other hand, even if I did have the extra £100k, would my life be dramatically better? Nope.

esotericar said: As above, I think the obvious comparison is the depreciation with a new(er) car which is of course paid for through those monthlies. Of course, one could just run a different used car that's cheaper to maintain. I dunno, something like an E86 Z4 Coupe 3.0 Si would probably be half the cost to maintain and is still a nice car with a decent NA engine etc. Just a question of would you love it? I dread to think how much I've shovelled into Porches in the last 10 years. I imagine if I'd run a basic s tbox the savings over the period would be in the region of £100,000 - certainly not far off. Has it been worth it? Dunno. One thing I do think is that I could probably have cut at least £30-40k out of that by doing various things a bit more wisely. And maybe not driving them quite as much! I'm all for driving these things, but I tend to do about 15k a year and that really does get expensive! 10k a year would still be a fair amount of miles and far more than most people do and would deliver a 30% savings on fuel and wear and tear right there! On the other hand, even if I did have the extra £100k, would my life be dramatically better? Nope. My OH has an E89 Z4 35is (6 cylinder 3ltr turbo with 335bhp). It's a lovely thing and the comparison to the Porsche is pretty stark cost-wise. Hers is a 2009 car with 23,000 miles on it that she's owned for 5 years. In that time it's had 2 tyres, a software update (c£75ish I think) and no repairs at all, simply servicing. We get that done at a local BMW indy specialist. I'm going to guess that ex tax and insurance the Z4 has costs about £500 a year to run v's £3k for the Porsche. They're three years apart in age, Porsche is 16, BMW is 13. Like the Porsche, the Z4 has suffered virtually no depreciation.

I worked out that my 997.1 cost me £10k over the 5 years I owned it.. that included servicing, warranty, tyres and all maintenance but not tax or insurance as you would pay that on any car Bought it for £28k and sold for £29k and that was back in 2019 before the current crazy used values So £9k net cost over 60 months or £150 a month Absolute bargain I reckon!

And the losses with most new cars over the first three years ? Conventional wisdom was around 50% depreciation plus running costs ....

Yup, depreciation is the great equaliser here. It does sound like you had a load of the well-known preventative maintenance done, too - so unless you’re unlucky, you can expect normal service and running costs for a while. 300 quid a month - not bad. And that’s including tax and insurance if I read correctly.

Just to add perspective with Ferraris in my experience it’s been free motoring . A LHD Testarossa I imported into the uk from CH ,for ( Fex) £24 K .86 on a D . Kept it for 9 yrs pex d it for £39 K against a 360 F1 which was up for £42 k back in 2009 a year after the crash . Sold that in 2018 for £56 k to WBAC .If you add up the FFSH .Cashed in so to speak With Pork ,picked up a straight 987.2 base with the none issue 2.9 closed deck port injection motor on 87 K Full SH all the stamps for £15 K . Loving it cheap motoring .No monthlies.Never done this . Also to keep “in the game “ @ auction picked up a LHD Italian ( read no rust ) Ferrari 77 GT 4 for £32 K back in 2018 . It s rising ….like the other F cars .But this one’s a keeper . So yeh depreciation Is a killer, it’s built into those on monthlies . Imho it’s optional……….I am making money on cars bucking the market and enjoying every minute behind what ever wheel .

My 997 Targa had a similar amount of ‘stuff’ to you OP And in reality, it seems that this is very much a Porsche soft spot around 50k miles that collects whopping bills. I don’t know other cats that degrade at such an expense at that mileage Still. Loved mine. Would love another - but still bizarre at the weakness of some components

This might make you feel more positive about your £4,000pa on your 911. Over the last 5 years, the repairs and maintenance spend on my 2004 L322 Range Rover has averaged £5,000pa. And it does 16mpg. And isn’t worth much at all.

Fiammetta said: With Pork ,picked up a straight 987.2 base with the none issue 2.9 closed deck port injection motor I've had the inlet cleaned (walnut media blasted) on a DFI 987.2 3.4 It cost me £300. Worst case scenario, you'd want to get that done every 50k miles. Be really prudent and add £1,500 for a failed high pressure pump which you're really only likely to have to do once. In other words, the DFI thing is a bit of a non issue. So, I wouldn't choose the non-DFI 2.9 for that reason.

Many of the big ticket jobs you highlight are as expected for a Porsche of that age - suspension refresh, failing coolant crossover pipes and crumbling door cards are common failures at around 15 years (as I've found!). It is unfortunate in some ways that you are the one who is the owner at the point when these needed doing, the benefit being that now these are done they won't need doing again for a long time and are also plus points that can be mentioned if you do come to sell. Now that they are done, the average sum in theory should come down over the next few years. If it's any consolation, at least these costs are a smaller proportion of the car's value than they are for a Boxster of the same vintage.

PushedDover said: My 997 Targa had a similar amount of ‘stuff’ to you OP And in reality, it seems that this is very much a Porsche soft spot around 50k miles that collects whopping bills. I don’t know other cats that degrade at such an expense at that mileage Still. Loved mine. Would love another - but still bizarre at the weakness of some components I’ve often wondered why Porsche are so badly built . Yet have a reputation of producing high quality motors . I guess it just saves them money in production

Well you could argue its only money and whatever happens after this pretty sure you cant take it with you so spend it on stuff you enjoy

If you genuinely love the 997 whats £4k a year? Enjoy life and indulge yourself a little. Make a point of using it more too

Desert Dragon said: If you genuinely love the 997 whats £4k a year? Enjoy life and indulge yourself a little. Make a point of using it more too I suppose I don't begrudge £4k per year per se but I do think the Porsche has required too much remedial work when I compare for example to my OH's BMW (see earlier) of a similar age etc. My other Porsches (a 944S2, 944 Turbo and a 968 Clubsport) were all seemingly much more robust than the 997 and required much less fixing. As to the usage, I live in Kent so driving around here isn't much fun because of the volume of traffic all around. I have motorbikes for that so the Porsche tends to be used either for a)weekend work or b) nicer more fun trips away in the UK or in Europe Edited by Gixer968CS on Monday 24th October 12:23

I've had opposite experience but over 15,000 mile a year. My 944 turbo was a complete money pit. S2 both coupe and cab were far better. I can't say my own 997 has been any more to run than say the S2 and I use main dealers. My 944 turbo by comparison was very expensive to run with servicing every 6000 miles or 6 months. Something would always go wrong on my 944 turbo usually expensive! Newer stuff build quality not as well made for sure though. Those water cooled front engined cars were built like Panzer Tanks.

Desert Dragon said: I've had opposite experience but over 15,000 mile a year. My 944 turbo was a complete money pit. S2 both coupe and cab were far better. I can't say my own 997 has been any more to run than say the S2 and I use main dealers. My 944 turbo by comparison was very expensive to run with servicing every 6000 miles or 6 months. Something would always go wrong on my 944 turbo usually expensive! Newer stuff build quality not as well made for sure though. Those water cooled front engined cars were built like Panzer Tanks. The 944S2 was probably the best ownership experience I've had in nearly 40 years of car buying. J reg bridge spoiler model in an unusual shade of metallic blue (forget the name). I think it'd done c70k when I bought it in 2001 - so ten years old, same as my 997 when I bought that. Kept it for a little over 2 years and maybe 10k miles sold it for £8k having paid £7k for it and hadn't spent anything other than a service and 2 MOTs on it. I bought a 968 Clubsport after than which I managed to sell for less I bought it for and about a third of what it'd be worth now!!

Well you could argue its only money and whatever happens after this pretty sure you cant take it with you so spend it on stuff you enjoy

I'd just be grateful the engine hadn't gone bang I'm currently considering buying one with a bust engine before getting it sorted - if it's going to cost me £4k p.a. in maintenance, I might not bother...

Has anyone done the 'man' maths on wether it is cheaper to buy a new 911 and run it for a few years before selling?

gerlewis said: Has anyone done the 'man' maths on wether it is cheaper to buy a new 911 and run it for a few years before selling? Well, a friend of mine bought a 992 carrera 2 new that was delivered in November 2020. In June he part exchanged it back with the same dealer for new carrera 2S and they gave him £7k more than he paid for it. It’d done about 6k miles.

Tagteam said: PushedDover said: My 997 Targa had a similar amount of ‘stuff’ to you OP And in reality, it seems that this is very much a Porsche soft spot around 50k miles that collects whopping bills. I don’t know other cats that degrade at such an expense at that mileage Still. Loved mine. Would love another - but still bizarre at the weakness of some components I’ve often wondered why Porsche are so badly built . Yet have a reputation of producing high quality motors . I guess it just saves them money in production The build quality declines inversely with Porsche's profits. Edited by TEKNOPUG on Tuesday 25th October 09:53

Gixer968CS said: Well, a friend of mine bought a 992 carrera 2 new that was delivered in November 2020. In June he part exchanged it back with the same dealer for new carrera 2S and they gave him £7k more than he paid for it. It’d done about 6k miles. Damn Much as I like/love my 997.1 C2, it's silly expensive to run. I don't tot up costs because I think that would hasten the sale of the car. I'm feeling a GT4 now but want a new one at list price. I know an OPC won't sell me one (probably) so not sure what to do

I know mine is a 997.2 but seeing as the OP's engine's done ok, I can't see that it should make a world of a difference maintenance-wise. Overall it has cost me £12k in maintenance - including having it detailed & ceramic coated, 6x tyres and a suspension refresh - all in a 5 year period and 30k miles driven, similar to OP's usage figures. Add another £1k a year for tax & insurance. Mileage currently sitting around 54k and next year will be an expensive 12 year service (PDK and 4WD), so the average will go up slightly then. On that basis I'd say 4k a year is not unreasonable. Meanwhile the car has lost around £14k in value almost entirely due to having driven it a lot of miles, meaning depreciation still beats maintenance costs. Not a fair reference but I think an interesting point regardless, our family car is a 2017 7.5 R estate which we bought with 10k miles on the clock 3 years ago. The amount we paid for the car, plus extended warranty, plus all maintenance spent on it across 18k miles driven (also including a set of tyres) cost us LESS than what the 911 cost on maintenance & depreciation (edited to correct!). I could probably sell that car today and get back what we paid for it too. Absolutely not unexpected but a reasonable reference for not using a car's sticker price as metric for whether one can afford it. Edited by walnut3 on Sunday 30th October 10:52