Giving serious consideration to buying my first Porsche and am looking for some "real world" opinions as to the economic reality of keeping a 99 or
2000 mint carrera coupe on the road.I'm certainly not expecting upkeep to be aligned with the wife's Avalon but I would love to convince myself that one can put 10,000 miles a year on a
911 without spending more time and money at the shop than I do at home.Thanks for opinions. Brad snipped-for-privacy@insightbb.com
We have a 2002 coupe. Mileage 20 - 26 mpg depending on nature of driving; on trips without A/C running the car will get 28 MPG.
Recommended service/oil change intervals 15K miles. On cars that travel less than 9K miles per year Porsche recommends an annual service. The cars take 11 quarts of Mobil 1 at oil change. Our dealer gives us free oil and filter changes as long as we own the car and when we had the annual service done the first year it ran about $175 as I recall. The
15K service was a little more (but again, I'm getting free oil and filters). Dealer labor rates can run $80 -$95/hr. Haven't had to buy parts, but you will pay more than for a Toyota, no question.Insurance on our 911 is actually less than for our Civic Si (the Porsche doesn't commute like the Honda does, and has a mandatory $1000 deductible).
Depending on how hard you drive rear tires will last as little as 8 -
10K miles, or as much as 18 - 20K. Fronts will usually go twice as long (replace rears one time, complete set the next, rears again). You're in the $700 - $800 range for a set of rears, $500 - $600 for fronts.If you can manage to, get a 2002 or later 911. Engine was upped to 320 HP over 296/300 of earlier cars, better torque curve, better mileage. All the cars require premium fuel and the car is optimized for 93 octane. Here in California 91 is the highest widely available grade and the car's systems will compensate for the lower stuff. If you can find
100 unleaded and add a few gallons to raise the tank level to 93 or 94 octane, the car has a little more punch. I've started doing that with ours.The liquid cooled 911s were designed to require less ongoing maintenence than their air cooled predecessor. There have been instances of rear main seal leaks, but Porsche has produced a new seal and that has handled most of the problems. Our car had a two drop a day leak at 8K miles that hasn't returned since the installation of the new seal.
We have 19,250 miles on our 6 speed coupe since we took delivery new on December 11, 2001. Replaced the rear tires at 18,500 and could have probably gone another 1000 miles. Our car has Pirelli P Zero Rossos but I'll switch to Michelin next time. Besides the seal fixed under warranty (car was turned around the same day and I was given a Boxter loaner) our car has required only scheduled maintenance since we've had it.
While we haven't averaged the 10K annual miles you envision, our car has been trouble free and well worth the higher costs.
You might try Rennlist.com for more info. They have forums devoted to various model Porsches, and the 996 group is particularly active. You can pick up a lot of opinions there from folks who actually drive the car you're considering.
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