Greetings and felicitations; my first post. A very brief summary by way of an intro. I work in the Oil and Gas/Petrochemocal industry and have been bitten by Petrolheadary relatively late in life. My fun car is a Caterham R300; which is absolutely wonderful and which I am going to be tracking this year. I am thinking (and it is only thinking at the moment) of buying a 2002/3 996. My reasoning for this is: (a) They are so cheap! (b) It's an everyday performance alternative to my weekend Caterham. So here are a couple of questions: How reliable are these cars? I have heard horror stor,ies of RMS issues, amongst others. Are they intrinsically less reliable than their air cooled predecessors? Would I stand a risk of big bills? Is the 3.6 more reliable than the 3.4? As I live in South Herts, where should I be searching? Am currently trawling through PH and will visit Portiacraft in Mill Hill tommorow, but any other sources of the right car would be welcome. Would I be well advised to get a Porsche specialist look at a car (if I get that far) even if it's being sold by an independant?
Discussion summary
YOUR RESEARCHNew Member With Couple of Queries
1 matching discussions were examined; no attributable action/outcome evidence was detected. No consensus or repair conclusion is claimed.
Source reports, not a diagnosis or a success probability. Counts refer to discussions and can overlap.
Read captured repliesInsufficient extracted evidence does not mean there is no answer in the original discussions.
1 matching discussions · 4 captured posts examined · 0 partial discussions
Coverage and how to read this overview
Counts describe captured discussions, not unique people or a diagnosis. Author identities are not reliably stored. Exact duplicate evidence is counted once across matching discussions; one discussion counts at most once per action/state. Multiple repairs reported together remain a combination. Suggestions and failed attempts do not establish a fix. Matches cover whole discussions and can include related faults, model variants and incomplete threads.
4 eligible posts · 0 unverified posts · 1 discussions match the subject in their title or opening post.
- Porsche Club GB: 1 discussions
0 evidence records excluded for query context · 0 excluded by outcome qualification · 0 adjusted by outcome qualification.
0 acknowledgements have no verified action link; they do not establish a repair result.
Generation: 20261027T022239Z · outcome-qualification-6. Deterministic extraction; no AI model inference. How we use sources
Ok here goes! Reliability is oh so played on! They are very reliable. RMS is a tiny oil leak that can be dealt with at an appropriate time if the worst comes to the worst .. BUT it really is a scare story on the whole! My E class merc had amazingly bad bodywork. I found out these were built in South Africa!!!! But thats another story! Shows what misconceptions can be held about a quality brand! On the whole as everyone says BUY ON CONDITION! Get a good one and all you'll spend money on is a yearly oil change and obviously tyres!! Mine has never let me down has been an absolute joy. Has cost me very little. Is a thrill, to say the least, to drive .. I could wax lyrical for ages!! Look everywhere and be prepared to travel for the right car. Its worth it! I bought mine from Mark Pearce at www.stirlings.co.uk Because I knew very little then! Now I know lots more and am so glad I did as there are some cars out there that just haven't been looked after properly! ps. Blatent plug but ... my cars up for sale!!! Ask Richard Hamilton on here about his similar car. He had one like it and loved it!!!! Welcome to the forum and hopefully Porsche ownership!
Hi I've owned a 996 3.4 from new and coverd only 25000 miles, but she's been as relaible as clockwork, baring in mind it does spend a considerable time under cover, always starts, and goes fresh as a daisy. This alone was what persuaded me not to buy ano with a horsey emblem ! yep I've had a RMS failure, but easily fixed and no ongoing issue. The only thing I've had to change is the rear tyres, am still on the original fronts....Have also been through a couple of batteries, over an 8 year period. My impression through other members is that engineering wise, they are pretty bullet proof, and will serve you through low mileage (heresy I know ! ) or high mileage fun. But whatever, they do make you smile
Ditto Ditto Ditto!! But HUGE HUGE smile really!! [ ] Mine hasn't had any RMS problems or any other though!
This is a source reference. Confirm exact model applicability in the original material.