1986 Porsche 944 from North America - Comments

Clutch.

Oil leak.

Power steering leak.

A/C, and a rear transaxle seal leak.

I bought this car as a toy to work on, but soon found out that anything that goes wrong is nothing I can fix.

I love the looks and the feel of the car, but I wish I could repaint it. Handling is awesome and power is okay. I know that it's not a beast on the road, but it will glide through the curves.

I love my car and even with $3,500 repair bills, it is still a pleasure to own.

I do not agree with th above comment about repair. I am a semi-serious home mechanic, and have had no problems maintaining and repairing my 1986 (Type II) 944. Dealership prices for parts are expensive, but I've gone for good OEM parts. No problems at all. Prices are on par with other exclusive performance cars. It's the shop time that costs the money!

Rob.

Rob is right.

I have an 87 and they are easy cars to work on. Very straight forward and well thought out. I have changed out the belts, water pump, rollers, A arms and the clutch without any problem. The clutch looks like a bear to change, since you have to pull the trans out, but its not that bad. Do it once and you could do it again in an easy days time. All you need is a good manual like Chilton and follow the directions to the letter.

I do not work on my own car and have yet to experience a single repair bill that was $3500. (Although that might be about to change because I just wasted the transmission and am awaiting an estimate.) For example, a timing belt and water pump, which I consider a major repair and something that needs done about every 30,000 miles, runs about $850 with a rebuilt water pump. I've made this repair twice in the 8 years I've owned my 944.

But I agree that regardless of the repair bills, the 944 is a joy to own. It's fast and sleek, and never fails to turn heads. It's worth the $$ to maintain. I'd rather dump a few thousand a year into my 944 than be saddled with $800/mo. payments for something less satisfying. I love being the only mom in the school parking lot with a Porsche.

I must be the unlucky one here. I purchases a single owner 1986 Turbo in 1998 and was hit with repair bills of $3000, $2500, $2300, and several others over $1000. Some of this was routine maintenance - like a clutch, timing belt, tires, and water pump. But there was also a dead computer, a fuel injector problem, leaky steering rack, major oil pressure problem (no oil pressure). Several people have commented that this car is easy to work on. For the 944 Turbo, this is not the case. There is a lot of additional plumbing due to the turbocharger/intercooler. A friend and I replaced the radiator and it took several hours - mainly because you had to remove a lot of hoses to be able to get to the radiator. Be aware that if you happen to be unlucky, you can end up with some huge repair bills.

Surprisingly, your experience can only be attributed in small part too bad luck. The 944 Turbo is immensely more complex than the naturally aspirated cars. Engine work on an ordinary 944 is fairly straightforward. Engine work on the Turbo version, however, can involve lots of tedious and mind-numbingly complex proceedures.

So the complexity opens up the possbility for more problems, because there's more stuff. Then you have the sensitivity of the Turbo car to minor problems. Vacuum leak in an N/A car, well, not so bad generally speaking. In a Turbo car it can drastically reduce performance or even blow up your engine (wastegate hose ever slip off on a chipped car, anyone?). Then you have the fact that it's much more difficult to service. Finally you have the age. Eeek, that's a lot of rubber to be going bad!

I have a 1987 944 Porsche. The only major problem to work on is the electrics. It has fuses and relays for everything, they also work through each other. This will drive you up a wall, even with a shop book.