Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Cheers for putting me on to Harry's Garage, just watched a few - he just loves it doesn't he. Always liked him in Evo.

He drives a Shamal in one, coincidentally
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBTnsCUsbE

They all need lower arms. It's a service cost, so you don't even have to tell Mrs Dammit it's been done. You can just change the bushes, but I don't think it saves much.

Genuine Porsche ~£230+VAT per corner, Hartech recon's of genuine Porsche are £189+VAT/corner. I'll be going for the Hartech option here I think.

They did say that it looks, on the whole, to be an honest little car - not two different cars welded together, which is always a concern when you get that first phonecall.

welcome to the world of Porsche ownership!

@diable - you now know where to drop off the pink hairdresser's accessories!!

I was interested to note that Diable also drives (between washings) a soft top, I presume he is intending on giving me his spare set of curlers.

That fucking Shamal.

GANDINI EYE BONER.

Well, my hope was to avoid spending more than half the purchase price on maintenance in the first day - that's a fond dream now, £5,533.05 is the bill for the work needed.

Ouch.

fair play to stating on here the expense bill for first day of ownership

now, for the chortling... :P :P

Yes.

That makes me feel as sick as when ceremy jlarckson killed a porsche 911.

https://youtu.be/2qpvSCbovM0

Ouch indeed. Still, I'm assuming that after that it'll need very little doing for many years. Apart from the annual air-con pipe replacement.

Out of morbid curiosity and without wishing to rub it in - what does that cover @Dammit?

I've been toying with the idea of replacing my rs4 with a 996

• A/C Conderser replacement
  
• A/C lines replacement
  
• A/C system service inc. vac-test, re-gas etc
  
• Replace all four struts, topmounts, related ancillaries
  
• Replace all four control arms
  
• Replace engine mounts
  
• Four wheel alignment
  
• Replace exhaust gaskets and fasteners
  
• Replace near side rad
  
• Lots of little bits like front numberplate mount, handbrake, clutch booster spring etc
  
  

It's basically (glass half-full thinking) now a 15k car that's in A1 condition.

However- the fucking fag lighter is Euro-spec and all chargers are Yank-spec, there's a 0.5mm diameter difference between the two, anyone know where I can get a shim (Yank is smaller than Euro).

And that certainly seems to be on par with what decent ones are going for - at least from my cursory perusing in the classifieds

Cabs go for less than Coupe's - but none of the stuff on my list is model specific, so the bill would (potentially) be the same for a coupe.

The car I bought was advertised at £12,500, I had the PPI done, it revealed £4,000 of work, we negotiated and the seller met me at £9,500.

Unfortunately as the car has come apart at the garage more has been identified, so I'm now looking at £5,500.

Not to make light of this - it's serious money, and this is going to hurt a little, but my overall budget was £15,000 and I'm within touching distance of that with, as Danstuff said, a car that I know to be fully sorted, rather than the position I might have been in having spent £15,800 on a coupe that then needed the exact same work.

Overall I'm ok with this, just the thought of picking the car up and driving home in it has me smiling. So on that score, so far so good.

Sweet! Do the bug then. It's a nice mellow drive, 6hrs or so. Looks like a cool little runner.

Looks good with that lid on it...

I imagine the need for replacement is due to it being holed rather than rotting out. I got through 2 when I had the Cayman from errant stones. They're rather exposed on the modern Porsches.

This is always my dilemma when buying anything, buy older/higher mileage/known to be not in the best nick, but know that when you put x and y right (and then find z, and fix that too) you've gone and got the exact condition car you want for almost as much as that 'perfect, well kept, £££' example was that you thought you should have bought.

Looks good to me though.
Have you got a list of mod's in mind yet or enjoy it as factory as poss and make it into a very good one?

I just want this to be as close to 100% reliable "as it came from the factory" car, although that said turns out it has a good quality sports exhaust on there already, and the Bilstein B4's are a step up from Porsche OEM. But overall the Volvo can be the heavily modified flame spitting yob-chariot, the Porsche can be the mild mannered one of the pair.

Condensers need replacing so often they're actually only a few pence each as they're manufactured by the bazillion.

IME they rot as much as hole, there is no mesh to stop road grime going into the scoops and all the shit gets stuck between the rads and condensers.

You can buy mesh kits, or just remember to blast the pressure washer in there every now and then.

I'm hoping that that is ok. I really would like the current bill not to get any larger.

^on your London wage what's 10k here or there..?

I did take the bug in the end, was such a lovely drive. Took 9 hours total because we had a fair few stops for food, gas and photos. Also overheated once and had to stop. (Because I decided it'd be a good idea to try and overtake a school bus on a long hill in near 40 deg heat (oops)

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Hmm, well that didn't work.

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