Are you still a car enthusiast?

[SiC]

The Porker 996 was pretty much the tin lid for me. It was grim to see this pile of Korean tat with that badge on it. If Porsche had turned shit then there was no hope left.

I don't understand you mentioning a Korean connection to the 996? What did the Koreans do for it?

Harm Lagaay who designed the 924 was also one of the designers for the 996. Afaik most of the 996 was designed in house and parts binned from VAG.

[JimH]

I can never look past the abysmal interior. Cheap, shiny and just downright nasty.

Like what the Koreans used to build.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

The 996 is when Porsche became a mass produced car. It's like when Volkswagens were really well made but then suddenly, they weren't and became junk that rusted, filled with rain water etc etc.

The biggest issue I have with the 996 is that the engine is a complete and utter pile of shit, sketchy, marginal junk that might be okay or might cost you ten grand to fix. The bore scoring, IMS, RMS, head gaskets. Just fucking rubbish.

"Oh but they don't all do it"

No, neither does a 1998 Mondeo.

The only 996 worth a candle is the Turbo because they based the engine on the old air cooled unit. They are strong, look good and are as fast as fuck.

[SiC]

I was at Haynes and have an old boy come over to chat about my Boxster. He owned a 993 that he bought along with him and I was chatting about how much more robust the previous air cooled generation was over the subsequent water cooled.

He chuckled and remarked that the 993 had just as much catastrophic engine failure potential and usually not mentioned when Porsche Enthusiasts gush over the air cooled generations. His even had a recent rebuild after internal engine failure (iirc a gudgeon pin let go). Apparently extremely common for valve guide failure to lead to horrific oil consumption too.

I suspect the 993 is helped by the fact that less were sold and never really dropped to the values that the 996 did/has. So got more caring owners.

My uncle had his 996 failed at 3 years old, that I think was 12k but Porsche picked up 8k of it. My neighbour sold his 996 to his brother when he bought an Audi R8. That suffered bore scoring shortly after his brother bought it (he wanted something to fix and it started having bad oil consumption) and his brother rebuilt the engine himself. Apparently wasn't a complicated lumps to work on at all.

There is this nice little bill in my Boxster service history for a partial engine rebuild. Looks like the owner had a lucky break before the IMS completely let go.

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[SiC]

Considering Porsche didn't have huge amounts of spare cash when they developed the 996/986, its not a bad thing they put all the money into making it drive well. Its very dated now but at the time it was pretty reasonable. 997/987 took it up a big notch but thats because the previous gen (and Cayenne) were a runaway success for the company and generated plenty of revenune for the gen after.

Speaking of interiors. The 993 interior was a very dated design even at the time.

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[Guest]

I'm another who grew up with it, my father and uncle ran a village garage that was first port of call to repair mechanical stuff from farm machinery to domestic appliances, via cars and buses.

I have always liked cars and motorcycles, learned how to drive on a tractor. Wasted a lot of time and money on cars over the years and have owned a lot of oddball ( but not particularly valuable/expensive) stuff.

Still interested in vehicles, don't enjoy the club/show stuff and rarely drive just for the fun of it these days

[Shoestring]

Angrydicky could have pretty much written my reply, I am probably car obsessed but with cars most people do not consider enthusiasts cars. I have no interest in modern cars or much after the mid eighties. Never had an interest in Porsche or Ferrari but get very excited over Cortina’s, Granada’s, Jag XJ’s and SD1’s. I have had a TVR Chimaera for over 20 years and still consider it my modern car, I also have a 51 plate Mercedes E320 estate which is surprisingly nice for a modern car. I have a brand new company car but it does not excite me at all. I have far more cars than I need but still want more. I drove around 2,500 miles last September in my mk4 Cortina Ghia estate through the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France and really enjoyed it far more than I would in a more modern car.
I have thought of buying a Ferrari 400, Rolls Royce Camargue or Lamborghini Espada but it would seem odd spending big money on a car and I know I would still prefer driving the Cortina, Granada or SD1. People think I am a bit odd but that doesn’t bother me.

[AMCrebel]

Or those fucking stupid acoustically-tuned modern "sports" exhausts that sound like they are dropping 3 gears at the Nurburgring instead of waiting for the lights to change on the Great West Road.

Those are particularly cunty. Diesel Audis with a fucking PA system in the exhaust (I am not making this up) - of course anything the Germans invent is considered genius.

[treehugger]

There was a porsche convertible in the co op car park this morning, no idea what model but a squashed down modern thing. Only noticed because of the awful noise it made. To say it sound like a bag of shit is an understatement, looked like it too.

[DodgeRover]

I just can't get enthusiastic over anything modern at all. Give me something old, the spare time and somewhere dry to work and I could happily work till my back cried enough.