buying 1999 911

I am a 928 and 944 owner and will be buying a 1999 carrera in bark blue with options. The car has 40000 miles on it and the rear seal has been done. Any thoughts before I get this car on Tuesday

Wear good shoes so you can enjoy driving it Get a PPI !

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+1

PPI yes but most importantly make sure your camera is charged because we / Tim will need some pics!

One thing... dont lose any sleep on engine destruction. What happens ....... happens.

928, 944 and a 996? Remember that when you have a threesome, unless you are careful someone is being ignored. I'm sure you did your research and are aware of IMS RMS concerns. A PPI and you're good. Shoot me a PM if it is local and you want a drop off. I'm currently unemplo, er, between jobs, and looking for an excuse for a drive.

I have to come clean. I didnt have a PPI. I too am a 928 owner. I can tell you, you are going to be fine. Just pay special attention to the possible IMS issue. As the 928 has the TBF the 996 has the IMS. Just take the proper steps to try to assure your new baby isn't going to self destruct. The thing that popped out at me from driving both units. The 928's "reason for being" became very clear. The 996 is the most impractical car you can have while the 928 has the big hatch for luggage and is very very comfortable. The 996 doesnt have that. It will become very clear the 928 was to get in and travel, While the 996 was made to just go like hell.

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Dave, Now that VW owns Porsche, is you new avatar pic a sneak preview of the new convertable top to be used on all future 911 Cabs? VW always "got it right" when it came to stowing the convertable top.

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Ferd, that was cruel! BAWAHAHAHAHA!!

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just some disclosure for the new owner.... last thing we need is another I didnt know this engine is susceptible to blowing up thread... but to the OP.... really, dont sweat it.

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Relatively speaking, but still a fair bit off from the most impractical car you can have. Let me tell you about impracticable, coming from a strictly 2 seat Japanese car the 996 actually has space to stow bags Oh yeah, and I think I've heard it enough it's burnt in... PPI +1 and most of all make sure you enjoy the ride Robert

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Im in medford. Check the oil cap for excessive oil/coolant mix and check coolant reservior for any oil. Also start the car and listen for any marble type noises underneath, IMS bearing!! It will be aparrent under low rpms. need any help send me a PM. Good luck.

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I agree. Lots of negative hype about 996s. Buy it and enjoy it by driving it. Can't wait to see some pics. GL

RMS has been done at dealer, What is IMS?

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Inter mediate shaft. There is a bearing that fails when it does, it takes the ENTIRE engine with it-usually. I just replaced my bearing for peice of mind. Being an engine from porsche is 14K adn even a used engine is minimum 6K plus installtion.. You can search it all you want. But let me save you 3 days: 1. no rhyme or reason, failures have been as little as 5K miles 2. No obvious warnings 3. doesnt matter how well you take care of the car 4. it does seem to happen more to garage queens 5. the best number of failre we can come up with is about 10%. 6. No it hasnt happened to everyone. my car had 104K on it when I replaced mine. another guy on here has 200K on his and still going good 7. Can it be prevented? Some people have a fix but it is not proven yet. 8. Can the fix be DIY, yes it can. about 20-30 hours on your back. 9. Am I serious? does it really happen? Yes 10. You cant be right, their has to be some pattern? No there is not. 11. It has to be how the car is taken care of or driven? Nope! try again to convince yourself it cant happen to you. 12. If your car is out of warranty Porsche will do ZERO for you. 13. Yes thats right ZERO 14. Well, they will sell you a "discounted" engine at 14K 15. if you are under 100K miles you can get an extended warranty

Where to get this extended warrantee. The car only has 41000 on it. I will go out on a limb here and say, this car is out of warrantee. So what I get out of this is, it is a crap shoot if motor will self destruct.

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Please note that while Shark Attack should be applauded for the information he provided to you and the fact that he has done the IMS bearing retrofit on his own, he is one of our resident worry worts. You know the type, pacing bck and forth worrying about the destruction of his engine (well before he had his 996 mind you) and then at the moment he received it: he hugged it and loved it and petted it and drove it very gently and then he........ Tore the car apart and installed the new IMS bearing. Again a job well done but a bit extreme. Is everything he said a possibility? yes. Is getting struck by a bus on your walk to the coffee shop a possibility? yup. For full disclosure, my car still has a year left on a Porsche CPO warranty. At the end of the warranty I have a choice to make: upgrade to a 996 turbo/GT3 get an extended warranty to cover the WHOLE car or get the IMS retrofit from Flat 6 innovations This note is just so you have more info with which to help you decide what to do.

**cough, cough, * upgrade to a TT...*cough, cough**...

I think advising against a PPI is really not very smart. I bought mine without a PPI and it has worked out OK so far,...... BUT If I had the info from a PPI I surely would not have paid as much for the car and might have even walked away... in my case the car is fine, but the records of past life will come out when I sell is (or give it away) and that is a "ding" I wish I knew prior to buying it

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I agree. A PPI is a must. If for nothing else it is a way to lower the purchase price do to items that need to be addressed. A $250 PPI might just save you $500, or more.

I'm of the same opinion as soverystout. I see/have worked with dozens of individuals and shops that work on these cars. I have yet to see an IMS affected car. RMS I have seen, but that's not really a big deal. I'm personally on my second 996, have not had any issues, nor do I plan on a retrofit. I was comfortable enough with this opinion that I do not even consider it when doing a clutch (which is most of the work and takes less than 6 hours for an experienced person). Of course vendors selling a 'retrofit kit' will disagree, but the fact is, there's literally tens of thousands of these cars running around without issue.

Agreed the IMS is not something to even consider on a PPI and RMS is a non-issue. Finding out it has been wrecked, flooded, hacked and chopped (remember the guy with the shaking motor that was JB welded together), or other things that might be nice to know (brake pads wornn ect) Anyhow, for a couple hundred I would say, well worth it.

I agree, I ride like a cowboy when it comes to a PPI. Mostly becasue I wrench my self. A PPI is certainly a good idea. I simply informed him of the IMS and what I know and have learned. And I am just talking here. Exstreem? I dont think so when an engine is 14K and the bearing is 500-1000. I call it sureing your bet. He had the right to know why the cars are so cheap. Get the PPI. Either do the IMS bearing or get a warranty. Its the only way I would own one. You are gambeling with 14000 dollars. thats Fourteen Thouwwwwwwsand and no/100 Dollars.

good advise, when I bought my car the last motor I had rebuilt was a 72' VW... and it cost ~$400 I figured if the motor goes, $4k and be down the road.... when I found out they were MORE I could not sleep for 2 weeks and tried despirately to return the car to the owner (well only in my head, but still I wanted OUT!!) it is a "need to know" item (not the IMS as much as the price and availabilty of motor parts for rebuid purposes) to OP: $14k is not the car price... its the motor replace/rebuid price !

Oh boy, you all are going to hate me. But I decided against purchasing this vehicle. Between this thread and my mechanic, I decided to walk away from this deal and instead, completely tranform one of the cars I currently own. My 928 is perfect and nothing need be done there. My 944 on the other hand is going to be changed a lot. I have contracted with Exotic Motor Werks in Plainview, NY for a complete transformation of the car. It has a rarer color, Nile Green, so I felt at less than half the cost of any car I wanted to purchase, I would have a monster of my own making per sae. I then will send it to C&C Collision in Lindenhurst for a respray. Hey, I am an accountant and like to keep my money in my pocket, of course, if something I like comes buy; I get that too.

its better you walk away if you cant sleep at nights about the m96.... there was a guy on here that sold his perfectly good 996 because he just cant get passed the idea that his engine will someday die..... and yeah, we hate you!

Just so you know, I do hang with the 964, 993, 996 and 997 guys. We are a crazy bunch but we have fun. Funny, no matter what car any of us drives, we all help and admire each others cars. Got to love us Porsche owners.

I convinced myself to enjoy the car, drive it hard and when something breaks...Im lucky enough to have some wrenching skills and all i need to worry about is the cost of parts, lifes to short to worry, lifes to short to worry....lifes to short to worry..........uh oh......Im loosin it again. But seriously you need to make decisions your the most comfortable with. Sad to see you decided against it but happy your gonna make a monster 944

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I am sorry to drive you here. I had to make the same choice a few months ago. A perfectly sorted, reliable, Bulletproof 928 or a 996. I did my homework and chose to make the jump. The 996 is like any other p car you buy, When you buy a 32 valve 928 you know you are going to do a TB, you know you have a chance the TT bearing has moved. If it is a AT you know you better darn well have it checked for TBF. The 996 isnt really different. You just have to know what you are jumping into and make the proper adjustments to make sure you are going to be ok. I think the thing that is shying you away is the cost of a motor. Yes its a lot, But it is a p-car, a late model p-car. Stuff is going to be big $$. The 996 is like the 928, at first glance can look like a bargain. And they are if you do your homework. But they can also be a money pit if you do not. May I ask what you were going to pay for the car? After I began my search and I found these issues, I made up my mind I was not going to pay any more than $20K. I ended up with a 99 factory Aero with 103K on it that is in better condition than most 60K cars. This thing is nice. I paid 17K. I also already knew I was going to replace the IMSB as soon as it got here. I am in a very nice areo car with IMS and RMS and new clutch for under 20K. Its all a matter of the plan.....

I think you made a good decision. Fix up the 944 as nice as your 928 and then get a 911 in a couple of years. The 996 isn't exactly appreciating in value, and you'll find a better deal down the road. What is Jason going to do?

PPI is ALWAYS a good idea anyway.. Good luck with mods. FM

Well somebody that buys the car is going to be happy My car didn't have a PPI. It had the original plugs, dirty air filter and wrong oil. I have no idea why the plugs are supposed to be good for almost an eternity of work. The left valve cover was leaking on the headers after goosing it and seems to off passed after tightening during the plugs change. So all in all I'm happy with my first porsche. One part of the matrix of used porsches floating out there is first time buyers trying the brand ending up sitting there thinking wow it sure is a nice car and why didn't I do this earlier. Money or not enough time to be playing the game. So I think there is a factor of guys and gals that experience the 911 and think.....darn I should of gotten a turbo....then do exactly that leaving the car to float on the market again. I figure a 5-10% at least chance of this. I know it is a 100% of them thinking they want to upgrade to a turbo of GT varient.

Wow, Pac996, you read my mind. I have been drooling on the turbos for sale in socal, and contemplating the upgrade. I have only owned my current first 911 for 60 days. And I have been dumping $ into it. Its in the shop now getting a new clutch and RMS. Now after reading this post , i'm in a quandry about the IMS. I hate to spend the $ I wont recover if I make the jump to a TT. Hard to complain either way as I love these cars, and feel blessed to own one.

Shark, I couldn't disagree with your point of view any more... You took out the bearing on an engine at over 100k miles, found absolutely nothing wrong with it, and yet continue to say these engines HAVE to get them, or you take a huge risk. You base this assumption on nothing more than what you're reading on internet message boards, and what the company selling the "upgrade" part is telling you. There's obviously many examples of these cars that have operated without failure to 200k miles and above. Of course mine is only opinion also, but as I've said, I've dealt with dozens of shops, including dealers that say that an IMS failure is certainly extremely rare - As in a tech having worked there for 5 years had yet to see one, who happens to be a personal friend of mine. This also goes hand in hand with other builders I've spoken to across the country (including the one working on the above mentioned JB welded motor), I've yet to have a student at PCA events tracking their Porsches who's seen one, not to mention my nearly half dozen friends with M96 motors, etc. I'm not claiming I know how often it occurs, just that throwing out a number like %10 failure rate seems absurd. I just think this is a shame, because the 996 is certainly THE most reliable platform I've been around both personally and professionally, and that includes everything from 944 turbos, to M3 track cars to turbo Volvos, AUDIs, etc. and all this talk (again in my opinion) is unduly scaring away owners, or owners to be.

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I am sorry we stand is disagreement. We are all entitled to our opinion. My bearing was in the early stage of failure. I did have oil in the IMS tube. The seals were compromised. It was only a matter of time. Yes I feel an investment of 1500 to protect 14000 is a good investment. Your information is enlightening, No doubt. I am please to hear you know so many people with out the issue. But again please see my above comment. I have spoken to dealer techs. I have YET TO TALK TO ONE THAT HASN'T SEEN IT. Again your thoughts are comforting. It pleases me to hear that you feel the 996 is the most reliable platform out there. I am also glad to hear your personal lack of experience with the issue. With all that said. I have well over 100 hours doing my homework before I bought the car and after I bought the car. I feel it is a legit concern.

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No doubt! But Porsche is the only one what the failure rates are... NO ONE knows the numbers besides them. They controlled the engine issues/quality by having the engines removed and noone was allowed to crack the motor.... it is impossible to know what the failure percentage rate is... maybe one day we'll know, but Porsche likes to keep secrets.