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rpm996

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Everything posted by rpm996

  1. 14 is low - unless you are really enjoying your commute Might also clean the MAF (Mass Airflow Sensor).
  2. What do you consider to be 'absolutely terrible?' This is a high performance machine designed to go fast. Mileage, even for cars built just a few years ago, was a secondary consideration at best. Just look at the gearing, 6th is barely higher than 5th. It is no highway cruising/gas saving gear. Commuting around town with anything less than a feather foot is going to give you less than 19-20 mpg. Even a light foot won't gain you that much. I do wish the tank were larger. My old 968 held nearly 20 gallons.
  3. "But my main concern is the rear window..." I would think your main concern should probably be the idle problem and the check engine light. To be honest, that is a long list of 'small' problems. Several of them could turn out to be much more than small. One conclusion to draw from a car in this condition is that it has been through owners that have deferred necessary maintenance and repairs - not a good thing on a complex and expensive to repair car like the 996. Assuming you are not an experienced mechanic with access to Porsche specific diagnostic equipment and tools, my suggestion would be to take the car to a good independent Porsche shop and have them do the equivalent of a pre-purchase inspection (a post purchase inspection?). This will only cost you ~$100 and would give you a comprehensive list of problems (I suspect you have probably missed some things). A good shop will also help you to prioritize and price the different repairs needed. The you can decide what to fix yourself and what to have repaired professionally. If you are seriously considering using a car with this sort of maintenance history as a 2000 mile/month daily dirver, you are going to have to spend some money to make it right. Good luck!
  4. That would be a very good deal on a car that passed a thorough PPI.
  5. Patience. Good friends just picked up a 70k mile '01 cab with nice options for under $24k - from a dealer. My '02 C2 was under $28k just four months ago - with low miles and great options. One bit of advice: expand your search area. Use Autotrader, cars.com, the PCA Mart, and Craigslist to search nationally - or at least west of the Mississippi. I found my car in MA, had it PPI'd there and then shipped to NC. If it had not been winter I would have flown up and driven the car home. To search Craigslist across the country try using Search Tempest. I'll admit that I spent many hours online searching. This is where narrowing your parameters really pays off. I wanted a full leather 02/03 coupe with less than 50k miles and a good set of options. On top of that my wife wanted red. That made the search harder, but also more specific. It took me 6 weeks, but I found exactly what I wanted. It was on autotrader, but I also found it advertised locally in Boston on Craigslist for $1,000 less! Good luck!
  6. Generally, yes. Often what happens, subtly over time, an owner may adjust his/her clutch technique as the plate slowly degrades. A clutch that may seem fine to an owner can be clearly near its end to a tech. Now, that is not to say that the opinion is not self-serving... this is when having a mechanic that you trust really comes in handy. And having the clutch and DMF replaced when doing an RMS repair is a no-brainer.
  7. I get this question a lot from work colleagues that know me as the office 'car guy.' My answer is based on the individual asking. If the question comes from another car enthusiast type - I say there is no need to give your dealer (where this often comes from) another $45-60. Just keep checking your tire pressure as you normally do. But if the question comes from a non-enthusiast (particularly the working mother/minivan/soccer league type - yes, blatant sterotyping, I know...), then I ask them when was the last time they checked the air in their tires. Usually the answer is a quizzical look, or even a laugh. For these folks, nitrogen is a cheap insurance policy they should definitely go for. My performance tire shop uses nitrogen. But I am not fanatical about replacing with nitrogen and I check my pressure just as often.
  8. Correct. In the older Litronics system the low beam is Xenon and the high beam is a mix of both the low beam Xenon and high beam H4 bulbs. That was what I thought... but my high beams don't seem to have the same 'hue' - or intensity - of the lowbeams, which are clearly xenon.
  9. The "bi" in bi-xenon means that both the low and high beams are xenon.... right?
  10. Hard to compare the two. Not sure I would want a very base (low-option) 996 unless the car was going to be used primarily for the track. Porsches are all about options - and nice options do not significantly increase the cost of a used car in the way they do when new. That said, the '04 sounds like it could be a good deal after some negotiating... but you would really have to want the exterior GT3 Aero parts because that is influencing the price. (I assume that you will have a thorough PPI conducted before you negotiate) I just spent three months finding and buying an '02 C2. I ultimately found a great car with really nice options - that needed an RMS repair. The repair cost was negotiated into the final price (~$27.5k). One resource I found particularly helpful was www.searchtempest.com. This allows you to search Craigslist ads across the nation. It also helped to learn how to identify certain options from online photos. For instance, in '02 the Advanced Technic package included Bose and Bi-Xenon lights (like they go together...). As a result, if I saw the Bose logo on the door speakers I knew the car probably had Bi-xenon. In several instances the seller did not know this. Also get familiar with the option codes and ask for them up front from the seller (if the sticker with the codes is not affixed under the front hood, walk away). There are a lot of nice cars out there. I would hesitate at this point in your search to feel that you have to choose between these two specific cars. Good luck!
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