Running Report 1 - November 2001

Why write a running report?

Before I bought my car, I spent a lot of time lurking on various Porsche Internet forums. The decision to write this running report was made partly so I could give something back to the virtual Porsche community who helped me achieve my dream.

 Buying my dream Car

For as long as I can remember, the 911 has transfixed me. It was never a question of whether I’d own one, just when and which model. Eventually, I settled on the 964 model because:

 Unfortunately, settling on a 964 as my model of choice was the easy part:

After multiple false starts I started to become very frustrated, the chances of finding my ideal car seemed very remote. However, then a quirk of fate occurred; I saw a 1993 Midnight Blue Turbo 3.6 with 38,000 km advertised for sale at the equivalent of £28,865. Perhaps, surprisingly to many of you, the turbo wasn’t the attraction, I loved it because the car was just drop-dead gorgeous, and the price jump from the N/A 964 wasn’t too bad (I figured a good unmodified N/A 1991 964 would cost me about £22,000, and I would need to spend a further £2,000 to modify it). Unfortunately, the PPI revealed it was a dog – no service history, evidence of deferred maintenance everywhere, and worst of all, apparently it had spun and rolled on the motorway when only three days old; repairs were estimated to have cost £28,865. My mechanic said run, and I did. Later on, I chided myself on falling for the low price trick; nothing good in my experience is ever sold at bargain prices.

Three weeks later, I got a call from the same mechanic saying that one of his clients had spotted a 1993 Silver Turbo 3.6 with 71,000 km on sale for £33,600. He said his client was only interested in buying a “100-pointer”, but it could be the car for me. I was initially reluctant, because I’d retreated back to my expected budget of £22,000 for a N/A 1991 964, but somehow things started to find a momentum of their own; a PPI was done, a price of £31,319 was settled on, and to my amazement, on the 1^st of October 2001, I had bought my dream car - without even seeing it in the metal. By this stage some of you may think that I was nuts, but my method had its advantages:

What is a Turbo 3.6?

It was only after I’d settled the purchase that I started to do some in-depth research, and came to realise what I’d bought. Basically, the Turbo 3.6 was one of the last iterations of the 964 model, and they are rare beasts, especially right hand drive models. According to www.911turbo.com there were 1,437 Turbo 3.6s produced worldwide. Other sources indicate that only 46 right hand drives were produced in 1993, and a further 17 in 1994. To the best of my knowledge, 15 originally went to Australia and two Midnight Blue models came to New Zealand; my car came to New Zealand from Singapore in 1999 and boosted the number to three.

Looking from the outside there are three distinguishing features that set the Turbo 3.6 apart from the earlier Turbo 2:

1. The 18” 3-piece Speedline alloy wheels – an American recently paid £1,065 for one used rear wheel.
2. The red brake callipers.
3. The script on the rear which reads “Turbo 3.6”.

Hidden under the engine cover is a 3.6 litre engine with a single turbocharger that produces 360 hp, and will propel the car from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 4.8 seconds.

Driving impressions.

Initially, the car’s reputation scared me somewhat. The prospect of all 360 hp coming on tap at the wrong time in a corner was a real concern. However, I shouldn’t have been worried, the car has a controllable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of personality; off-boost below 3,000 rpm, your grandmother could drive it to the shops, but if she put her foot down the acceleration would pin her to the seat and probably leave her teeth in the back seat. Unfortunately, I can’t say much more about the driving experience, as I’ve only had 2 ½ days in the car; it’s in New Zealand, and I’m in Vanuatu due to work. I hope to give it a good workout at Christmas time.

Running report # 1.

In anyone’s book, two and one half days don’t count as the basis for a real running report, so I’ve decided to detail the car’s service history (that I know of), and what I’ve had done to the car in my short time of ownership.

Pre purchase service history

 Unfortunately, the car’s service history until it came to New Zealand is rather basic; I know that scheduled services were done on time, but I have no idea of its relative reliability during that period. Interestingly, the odometer readings show that this car covered close to 40% of its total mileage in the first 18-months of its life.

Faults identified by the pre purchase inspection

I can’t speak highly enough of the quality of the pre purchase inspection, they found the following things, some of which I’d probably only discover after months of ownership:

1. Rear boot lid light not working.
2. Noisy rear wheel area.
3. Tachometer gauge foggy.
4. Right rear taillight reflector cracked.
5. Glove box lid loose.
6. Battery vent not hooked up.
7. No tyre compressor.
8. All alloy wheels showing signs of corrosion on face.
9. Left front fog light lens cracked.
10. Front “smile” crooked (grill bent).
11. Oil weeping from left cam chain housing, front crank seal, left cam box oil scavenge pump, and turbo oil feed pipe.
12. Scratches on rear bumper.
13. Steering stiff - does not self-centre.
14. Front disc rotors undersized.

Out of 14 faults only two were ultimately deemed as material (the oil weepage was very minor and the “noisy rear wheel area was due to worn tyres – Bridgestone SO2’s):

1. The stiff steering was traced to a bodged steering rack seal leak repair, and the purchase was made conditional on it being fixed. The dealer sent it back to the repairer and it was done properly this time.
2. I priced replacement front disc rotors into my bid.

 Post purchase service history.

 The mechanic suggested that he fix some of the faults found in the PPI, and then that I fly down and drive the car for a few days before giving him a final list. A fatal mistake for my wallet. I’m an “A-type” owner, and as you can see I went a little bit overboard with the cosmetics. I rationalise the expense by saying I’ll never sell the car.

The only thing that really had to be done was the clutch pedal problem; after 700 km of driving the pedal wasn’t returning fully, and I couldn’t leave it like that. Looking at the service history, I noted that this had happened twice before and had no hesitation in accepting the mechanic’s diagnosis that the slave cylinder was faulty. I also took his advice to replace the master cylinder at the same time; he figured £118 was cheap insurance considering it was as old as the slave cylinder and would cost extra labour and hassle to replace later on, if it failed.

What’s next?

Well, two normal costs are looming:

1. The rear tyres have 2 ½ millimetres of useable tread left, and
2. The rear brake disc rotors have only one millimetre to go before they’re undersized.

Apart from that I can’t think of anything to spend on this car; I guess I’ll just have to get out on the road and drive it!

Running Report 2 - May 2002

Since my last report, I have driven 3,673 km [2,270 miles]. That was done in two concentrated driving spells, one in December 2001, for three weeks, and another in April 2002, for two weeks. The fact that I work in a small South Pacific country, Vanuatu, while the car is in New Zealand accounts for my rather strange pattern of usage.

Most of that driving was done on the open road, where the speed limit is 100 km/hr, and the Police are armed with all of the latest radar gadgets. Given those driving conditions, a logical person would question why you’d bother owning a Turbo 3.6 that can [theoretically] reach a top speed of 280 km/hr. Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that the car is actually perfectly suited to New Zealand’s windy roads. In particular, I love its effortless performance in third gear; if you sit on the legal speed limit at 100 km/hr, you’re perfectly positioned to ride a wave of torque that doesn’t let up until you hit the red line, at approximately 170 km/hr. In practice this means that you can spend almost all of your time driving in one gear, with instantaneous access to the power needed to blast out of corners and/or despatch slower traffic with sublime ease. Used with a bit of common sense, I go as far as to say that the power is a form of passive safety, in that it allows you to spend less time exposed to danger while overtaking, a real plus on New Zealand’s truck-laden two-lane roads.

The following table of figures give you some idea of the Turbo 3.6’s acceleration performance in comparison to a few modern contenders. To me they confirm what my butt meter has been telling me, i.e. the Turbo 3.6 has towering performance in third gear. The source of the data is as follows: Turbo 3.6 – Owners manual; others – Australian Wheels Magazine February 2002.

 
As you can probably gather, after seven-months of ownership I’m still rather besotted by the car. It could be the calm before the storm, but so far the Porsche Turbo 3.6 ownership experience has been overwhelmingly positive; more specifically my thoughts/experiences are as follows:

With so many positive comments, the readers of this report could accuse me of being a little bit ‘car struck’, so to show you that I’m still capable of being objective, I’ll detail some of the very minor negatives I’ve encountered to date:

On that note I’ll finish my report. Until the next one, I’ll leave you with an image of one of my favourite views of the car.
 

Fat-bottomed girls make the world go round!
 

Running Report 3 - November 2002

This is a short report, as I have not personally driven the car since my last one; the car has spent most of its time sitting in my Parents’ garage awaiting my return to New Zealand, from Vanuatu.

As you can tell from the lack of kilometres travelled, my Parents haven’t used the car much in my absence. My Mother politely declines to even sit in it, and my Father has mainly taken it out every Thursday for a 30 km drive. I did manage to cajole him into taking at least one long trip, and he’s just done that with a 1,000 km run over a long weekend. According to him, “It ran like a dream and never skipped a beat”. He added that, “The only thing that seemed really different from any other car that I have driven is the time it takes to slow down when you pass someone. I'm used to cars slowing down when you take your foot off the accelerator, but the Porsche seems to hold on to its revs for quite a long time”. I’m not sure whether that’s a fault or not, I’ll check it out when I’m back in the driver’s seat.

In terms of maintenance/repairs, nothing has gone wrong so I’ve spent nothing since my last report; however, a 12,000 mile service is due, so I’m expecting some expense in the next month. I have no idea how much it will cost; I seem to be charged more for parts, and less for labour compared to other countries.

Hopefully, I’ll have driven the doors off the car, and have plenty to report next May.

PS: I’m glad I don’t live in a climate where I have to store the car over the winter. I’ve spent the last six-months poring over photos of the car and Porsche magazines to keep my sanity while I’ve been separated from the car. I couldn’t imagine doing this on an annual basis.

Running Report 4 - May 2003

When I wrote my last report, I was just about to return to New Zealand for good, and finally get to drive the car on a regular basis. Six-months later I can now write more authoratively about the day-to-day ownership experience of my 1993 Turbo 3.6.

The first thing I did upon my return was check the records to find out whether a 20,000 km [12,000 mile] service was due, as the car was close to reaching 80,000 km [48,000 miles]. The records showed that the previous owner had pre-empted the last service so it wasn't theoretically due until 88,000km [53,000 miles]. Given that situation, I had an annual service done instead, which comprised an oil and filter change, the addition of injector cleaner to the fuel, and a few basic checks [total cost £135].

I specifically asked to see underneath the car while it was up on the hoist, and the only noticeable problem was a small leak from the oil scavenge pump gasket at the forward facing part of the engine that was depositing oil on the nearby shock absorber. The mechanic said that it should be looked at when the engine next comes out. In the meantime, any possible damage to the strut is contained by cleaning it periodically.

Following the service, I drove the car 650km [400 miles] to my new home, Auckland. The trip was rather boring, as the car was packed to the gunwales with personal belongings, and I was too worried about possible damage to the interior by hard objects moving around, to drive it agressively. The first chance to drive it the way Dr. Porsche intended came early on Christmas Day 2002, as circumstances dictated that I would have to drive 350km [210 miles] to get to a family lunch.

For 190 miles the drive was glorious; empty twisting roads, a turbo-friendly nip in the air, Valentine One silent in its perch, and then it suddenly turned to custard - coming out of a slow downhill hairpin on a drizzle dampened road I found myself looking back the way I'd come...what the @#%! The immediate reaction was one of shock, then relief that I hadn't damaged myself or the car. Well actually, my first thought was for the car. In hindsight the fault was all driver error, and I can't wait to get onto the track and improve my driving skills to better match the car's capability.

As if to really sink my Christmas, further problems were to arise due to water that day - the family lunch was held in an area with no covered parking, and the car sat in torrential rain for five hours, which ultimately led to a breakdown. Right after the lunch, the car took a bit longer to start than normal and then died. When I restarted it, I noticed that it needed revs to keep it going, and on the open road found out that I couldn't get the car on boost; it just wouldn't rev past 3,000 rpm when under load. When I got to my local destination, I found that the car would rev to the redline when motionless, so I figured that it was a temporary problem. Wrong. The car sat out in the same type of rain all night and the next morning it wouldn't start at all. I had breakdown insurance and called the Automobile Association to order a flat bed trailer to take the car a further 350km [210 miles] to my own mechanic. They refused to do that until the breakdown mechanic had had a look at it. Despite my protestations about only wanting a Porsche mechanic to touch the car, the AA mechanic took off the distributor cap, sprayed some CRC 556 on it, replaced the cap, and the car started first time. It has yet to repeat the problem. The incident taught me two things:

1. It may be a Porsche, but it is still a car, and you don't need 20-years of 911 experience to fix everything on it;

2. Don't search for complicated solutions until you've exhausted the more obvious possibilities. In hindsight the distributor was the first place to look, as the problem only appeared when the engine was soaking wet and the it is the most exposed electrical part, being sited right under the intercooler [I had variously thought it was a bad batch of gas, a faulty Warm Up Regulator and possibly a dodgy fuel pump].

Once back in Auckland I felt an urge to erase the negative vibes by doing some minor work on the car, and decided on three things: 1. Replace the worn driver door seal [see fig 1. - scuffed by lazy feet being dragged across it]; 2. Fit a child seat, and 3. Fit the new SO2 rear tyres that I had bought in early 2002.

The new door seal cost £72 from an OPC, and fitting it was very easy; I just gently pulled the old one out of its channel and fitted the new one in its place. The old one had been sparingly glued in place, but the new one fitted so precisely that I decided to fit it without glue, and see whether it stayed in place. Five months later, it hasn't moved, and is obviously doing its job, as the car's so airtight that it's difficult to close the door without a solid push.
 

Fig 1. The area inside the circle is where the seal was worn.
 

The baby seat fitment was more of an adventure, and I have to say that it was ultimately a flop, even though I did get it all in place, and manage to go on a Porsche Club run with my wife, one year old and six year old in the car. I judge it as a failure, because getting everyone in the car was such a tight fit that it was akin to swimming with shoes on i.e. you can do it, but would you want to for any length of time? For those of you willing to give it a go you can find instructions on www.p-car.com . To do mine I undid the four screws holding the rear shelf on [see Fig 2. for the what's underneath the parcel shelf] changed one of my retracting rear seat belts for a lap belt [£40 from an OPC], cut an aperture in the rear trim and covered it with a trim plug - part number 911.555.627.00.01C [£1], and then fixed the tether to a drill hole that I made in the seat belt mount, as there is no prepared attachment point in my car [believe me, I looked]. The car seat I used was a Babylove. The base wasn't a perfect fit, but was acceptable after protecting the leather seat surfaces with an old piece of Porsche carpet.

Fig 2. This is what's under my rear parcel shelf.
 

The replacement of the rear tyres turned out to be another adventure. Initially, I was rather dismayed to find that no-one mentioned by the Porsche fraternity was remotely interested in fitting my pre-purchased SO2 rears. One shop owner even told me flat out to take a hike. In the end, I went to a local Firestone dealer and they told me they'd fit the rears, but that I should rethink my strategy, as they had only one pair of the correct SO2s fronts left in the country, and I should buy them now as my fronts were closer to needing replacement than I thought.

To cut a long story short, I took a different approach and jumped at a deal they offered me; basically, they did a no-cost swap of my new SO2 rears for a set of new SO3 rears, if I would purchase a set of SO3 fronts. I now have four new SO3s that will be fitted after a Porsche Club drivers education run in July. The old SO2s are still legal, but common sense precludes aggressive driving on wet windy roads until the new tyres are fitted. I should be able to report back on any differences between the SO2/SO3s in my November report.

That brings me to the close of this running report. Apart from it's evident dislike of very long showers, the car is proving to be a practical and reliable supercar that is just as much at home cruising around the local harbour front as it is barrelling down the highway. Not bad for a car that will be ten-years old in just over one month.

PS: One of many great things about being back in NZ is seeing lots of other Porsches. There are apparently eight Turbo 3.6s in New Zealand; all of them in Auckland, not bad for a city of just over one million people! Cou