DaveMo

I have an '04 turbo and when my friend and I were changing our oil, I noticed his car has a rubber noise insulator attached to the upper edge of the hood. The part was missing on my car. It is part number 996 512 711 00. I ordered the part and it looks like it just has a sticky strip to attach it. Has anyone replaced this? Any hints?

Thanks,

Dave

Dmosesson@ymail.com

How many miles on the car?

That sounds like a normal usage to me. If you are really concerned by a 3rd party warranty.

The car has 27K miles and is through a dealer, so it has the additional 2 year CPO warranty which will run until 09/09.

Thanks for the quick response.

Dave

I am looking at an '04 TT CAB with the X50 package. The car is a CPO at a dealer and I spoke to the prior owner who informed me that the car uses about 1 qt of oil every 1-1.2K miles - which he felt was normal. Although many say that this is within Porsche specs, some feel that this is an engine that is trouble waiting to happen - particularly if I decide to chip it. Everything about the car says that it was well maintained and since I only drive about 5K miles a year, I am not all that worried.....or should I be.

Thoughts?

Dave

If you do a quick search here and on rennlist.com this has been discussed a bunch. But here are the highlights:

1) Get a pre-purchase inspection (PPI). If you use a Porsche dealer they can run the VIN and tell you what factory options the car came with, where it was purchased, and the warranty/TSB repair history.

2) Get a CarFax

3) Look for signs of crash repair e.g. overspray around the interior of the trunk, engine bay, door latches, alignment problems etc.

4) Check for flood/water damage e.g. wire harnesses under the seats, seat rail rust

5) Check for all the manuals, tools, air compressor, spare, hard top. IIRC there should be a car manual, radio manual, service log book, tool bag, jack, air compressor, inflatable spare, headlight tool, hard top tool, security lug tool.

You're going to love it. I drive mine all year round in the torrential rain and through the snow.

Thanks guys... Seen the carfax for it (the owner has one, and yes, just to be sure I matched the vins and made sure the date was recent) and it shows totally clean. It has been dented or in some sort of accident because it has been repainted in one spot. The owner said he had it appraised and they said it had frame damage though two different Porsche places here say that it is totally fine other than the paint job. (As a side note... they tried to tell me one place that my Evo had frame damage though it simply had a dent in the sub-frame... stupid dealers and their low-ball trade-in scams).

I'm excited, it already has nav/bluetooth/ipod/dvd built in the dash and comes with a matching hard top... Plus if I get the Porsche instead of the Acura TL-S I'll still be able to track it once in awhile and not feel like an idiot.

Sent you a PM. I have an '02 C4 cab for sale in SoCAL

One thing to be aware of when buying a Porsche is that these cars are option driven. Virtually nothing is standard and everything is an option. Make sure that you understand what options are important for you to have on the car so that you find the right one. As an example, the base cost of my car was $83K, but as delivered was $103K - $20K in options. There should be a white sticker under the front hood that lists the options that the car has.

I put a Turbo bumper on my C4 CAB. You have to add some sheet metal extensions to the middle to entend to where it attaches. And remove the eyebrows (under the headlights) carefully so that you can re-attach them. Otherwise they are about $75 each.

They just came out with upgrades if you have the PCM II system. So I sent a letter to Navteq asking why those of us with PCM I systems were not receiving upgrades. They responded back within 24 hours and informed me that this was a Porsche decision. I sent an email to Porsche ands asked them the question. That was almost two weeks ago and I have yet to get an answer. Just another example of Porsche wanting their dealers to try to be first rate for service, but not following the same rules from the top levels of the corporation.

The RMS issue is a known manufacturing defect on these engines. I would try to contact the DSM and get it covered as a warranty item. After all, your car only has 23K miles.

The charges on my car for the factory authorized repair ran about $800. $1,800 is WAY out of line. If they know what they are doing, it's a 4-5 hour job. If they are not familiar with this repair, find another dealer who is.

Loren,

I have an '02 with the 7 disk system. Are you saying that I can upgrade to version 3/PCM 2 that uses the 2 disk system?

Is this something that would be covered under the warranty or the "one free upgrade" plan?

Thanks,

Go to bumperplugs.com. I believe that Eric will paint yours and send them back to you.

Yes, there were support brackets that were supplied with the kit. They take about 5 minutes to install and you can do it yourself. You just have to take out the rear lights.

I have no problems at all with the X74. It is exactly the type of setup I was looking for. The car is extremely tight and handles like it is on rails. During high speed sweeper, the car used to float - almost to the point that I was very uncomfortable with it on high speed sweepers. That feeling is all gone, and in the canyons, the handling is fantastic. I had a Boxster S with 18" wheels before, and that car handled extremely well. Better that a stock 996. I could stay with the 996's in the corners, but they would loose me on the straights. Now I have the best of both worlds. Fantastic handling and power. One thing to keep in mind is that I have an '02 Cab, and the chassis is stiffer that the previous model.

RJ,

Yes, I am running 18's. The car was lowered 1 1/2 inches in the front and 1" in the rear. At high speeds, particularly on big sweepers, the car would feel floatly. That is all gone. On low speed/high rpm corners, the car feels like it's on rails. Clearly, it's firmer on the street, but that's OK with me because that's how I expect a sports car to handle.

If I lived in an area with really bad roads, I might think twice about the X74's and go with the M030's. But in socal, the roads are pretty good and it is a weekend car for me, so I wanted the handling to be very crisp.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need more info.

Dave

Item 1: The X74 is not different for the coupe and cab, but it is different for the C2 vs C4. Check out www.carnewal.com You can also send a question to Gert at gert@carnewal.com He's pretty quick about responding, just remember the time difference.

Item2: Again, no. I have it on my cab.

Item 3: Absolutely!!!! Huge improvement over stock and I don't track my car, but do drive it hard on weekends.

Item 4: I had the specs set to the recommended numbers for the X74 by my dealer when they did the alignment. Can't really comment on this item. Hopefully, someone else can give you more info.

I don't think they are in denial, I think they don't want to officially acknowledge that they have a manufacturing problem. It would just invite lawsuits. As to whether the new seals with the revised replacement method will work, only time will tell. No one knows how these seals will perform when the car has 60K + miles on it. The new seals haven't been in the cars long enough.

Loren - Thanks - I'll try this myself.

Dave

In August '02 there was a TSB issued for "Body - Noises From The Door Lock Area" Does anyone have any info on this. I had my '02 Cab in for a jingling sound coming from the door lock area when the top is down. The dealer was able to fix a number of rattles, but couldn't find this one. I'm wondering if this TSB specifically addresses the problem that I described.

Mark,

Make sure that the front wheels are straight and the old steering wheel is straight. When you put the old one on, you will know because the teeth are large enough that if you are off one way or the other it will be very apparent. By the way, you want to mark the nut to the housing so that when you retighten it, you know exactly how far to turn it.

Dave

That makes no sense. When I needed a disk for my region, my dealer sent me the order form for the disk. I filled it out and sent it to Navtech, paid them $140, and got my regional disk in the mail. I have my old disk in front of me. On the PCM disk, it says "Navtech on Board." Inside the box, their customer contact phone number is 1.888.628.6277 and web site is www.navtech.com.

Maybe you got someone who didn't know what they were talking about. I would try again - unless now they only want to take orders directly through the dealer (dealer mark-up???)

Navtech.com - tey are the company that supplies the disks

I haven't tracked my car (yet) but I just finished installing the X74 suspension. It is a huge improvement over the stock set-up. It dropped the car 1 1/2 inches in the front and 1 inch in the rear.

Sorry Hroussard, but I have to disagree. I have an '02 C4 Cab and I found the stock suspension to be too "floatly" particularly on long, undulating, sweepers. At higher speeds, I actually found it a bit un-nerving. I switched to the X74 and couldn't be happier. My driving is strictly weekend backroads fun stuff and this suspension makes the car so much more fun to drive. Just my opinion (and that's what's good about these discussion boards) but the X74 is a huge improvement over the stock set-up. I agree with testdrv321, PAG did their homework on this one. It's a "plug & play" suspension-and it works!

Does anyone know how the cable that holds the cab top on the back is removed. I need to access the carpeting back there and the only feasible way to do it is to start lowering the top, stop it, and undo the cable. It looks like it just pulls out, but I want to be sure. Don't want to break anything.

If your car in under warranty, and I don't care if it is the original factory warranty or the certified extended warranty, and something breaks, it should be covered. That should be the case as long as the item is not considered "normal wear & tear, i.e, brakes, tires, wipers, etc." I purchased a certified car from a dealer 2,500 miles away and brought it to my local dealer to fix a number of small items, including squeaks and rattles in the cab top and they fixed everything under warranty. They were a pleasure to deal with and followed up with me frequently to make sure that I was satisfied with the work performed.

If the clutch bleeder is not an item that wears out normally, then follow the escalation procedure in your owners manual until you get satisfaction from Porsche.

You have a certified car and the dealer said that they are not covered? BS! I just took mine in and had them eliminate a number of rattles and it was all covered under the certified warranty.