Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Well so far my low mileage immaculate car from Japan, inspected prior to purchase and given a clean bill of health by a well thought of Indie has needed the following since June:

Gearbox leak from improperly fitted plug (replace fluid)
New master and slave cylinders

and today -

New rear control arms
Water pump and whilst youre there...
belts and rollers!

and thats just off the top of my head, i'm sure more will come to me...

So i think i've probably spent nearly what i paid for the car - bugger! and needless to say the mrs is super pissed!

Sorry had to share my grief

Graham, confused by rear control arms
The restTBH is just the stuff I'd expect to pay on a car, I suspect the car has not been used a lot. This tends to kill water pumps etc.

isnt the water pump always a comes with belts and rollers job????

Water pumps an every 4 years job. (Every other timing belt.) Just got a new one for mine. Once done right you won't have to go there for a long time. Any car 20+ years old will break from time to time. Thats why the handful of cars that have been maintained regardless of cost are worth more than the others. It's all been done for you! No such thing as a cheap Porsche. But compared to a Ford Focus. Actually its not so bad! And a lot more fun to drive!

It depends who you talk to. Both the specialists local to me reckon that the pump doesn't need to be changed unless it's weeping as generally they make themselves known.

As for the rollers, PCT reckon to leave them until they give trouble. My other specialist insists on changing the rollers everything, believing that the belts (assuming they are Dayco or ContiTech) are strong enough, but that the tensioners normally fail (and he lives and breathes 80s watercooled Porsches). He does race them for a living though.

Well, if it helps you I just spent a bit on mine. Had a new engine fitted and the cams dialled in, and whilst I was at it, got the belts and rollers done as a matter of course, and also the clutch from Sachs. It drives lovely now (it did before bar the noise!) and I've enjoyed the 6,000 miles I have covered in it over 5 months. Yes it's cost me a bit now but I now have a car with a half decent shell and a tidy interior too, but to be honest any half decent car does (my Peugeot 306 cambelt change cost around as much and is trickier to do right with many garages getting them out by a teeth or two (£300 from most places), and they need doing every 3 years or 30,000 miles, a bit different to the Porsche, so the No such thing as a cheap Porker applies to a certain level IMO. Try changing an ESP sensor for £1k+ on an otherwise mint 54 plate Passat .

Sorry i'm not very technical - the triangle aluminium thingies...

I think you mean trailing arms (?)

Why did those need changed, was there corrosion on them. You usually only have to change the bushes on them. The guy probably broke them trying to get them off!
Alasdair

I'm not completely sure but did read somewhere that if the wear is not detected early enough then the aluminium starts to wear and weeken - i will get them when i collect the car and see. What annoys me is that the guy who inspected the car also lowered it in June, surely he would have checked them then? - i cant believe 4months of use has done this.

I feel slightly better knowing the pump was probably lack of use, that was also my thought on the other things that have needed replacement and may indicate that the low mileage is true when i was starting to think it had been clocked.

I tend to recommend that the water pump is ideally changed every second belt job.

The reasoning is that I have seen countless 944's where the waterpump has failed during the life of the second belt.

Sometimes the failure can be it leaking, sometimes it seizes and in a couple of occasions I have seen it actually sheer off the pulley.

The problem is that the cam belt runs across the waterpump, with the waterpump pulley being one of the main pulleys that the cam belt is routed across.. So this pulley failing can very quickly cause belt failure.

With the tensioners I have seen these seize up, stripping the teeth off of the belt in a fraction of a second, or the bearings fail, causing the belt to slacken off. In some cases they become noisey just before this happens, in others there is no warning.

While your in there its a good idea to change the front engine oil seals too.. even if they are not leaking.

All of these items are a lot cheaper to change at the same time as changing the belts, but if they fail after the belt is changed can either be a disaster or just expensive to rectify.

But then again, "you pays your money and takes your choice"

You would need to remove the aluminium brackets to move the torsion bars to lower it so i doubt they would have seized or worn in that time. I would be askign questions about them as I am sure they won't be cheap from an OPC!
Alasdair

Would i have any comeback with the car who inspected and lowered it, the parts have already been changed although i will have the old ones back.

I would certainly want to see the old ones and get a good explanation to why they changed them anyway. Post some pics if you can,
Alasdair