I've owned my 1991 944 S2 for six months now, and it never fails to start, stop or go round corners. Given its age, I am still surprised how quick it is, and in a way that more petrol modern cars aren't, in that there is plenty of torque low down the power band. There's lots of talk of them being light too, and this explaining the performance. The bad news is that this isn't a light car at all, being in the region of 1350kg, or about the same as a current Audi TT. The good news then is that a 944 S2 is quick because it's got a great engine. Mine's done 150k miles and shows no sign of wanting to hang up it's running shoes just yet.
Of course, contrary to popular belief this hasn't come cheap. Don't believe anyody that says you can run a 944 on a budget. They were by the end nearly £40,000 new and so servicing costs are commensurate. You can of course keep costs down by using indepent specialists, and in fact Porscheprices are from my experience good value, but they are just not simple cars to maintain. Remember what a previous owner hasn't spent, is money that you will have to once the V5 is signed over to you.
I fell for this myself and this is partly why I am writing this review. My own car has cost me £2000 to get it to where it today for the simple reason that the previous owners have been more interested in looking good in it than ensuring it is mechanically roadworthy. As a result, although it had been regularly serviced, some major mechanical assemblies that should have been replaced sooner have been ignored. Most notably, the previous owner drove it for 18 months without a functioning handbrake. And I made the (incorrect) assumption that this would be a cheap fix. I do now have almost completely new rear brakes though, which has to be a good thing. Additionally, all 944s from mid 1985 onwards have a lower front wishbone with an integral ball joint. This ball joint is not replaceable and wears during use. Until fairly recently the only option to deal with a worn ball joint was to replace the whole arm, at a cost of £350 for the part alone, EACH SIDE! Thankfully some enterprising people have taken on the job of rebuilding arms, or selling kits to allow you do this at home. Perhaps, not surprisingly my own car needed new ball joints, since for the previous owner replacing them wouldn't have made the car any shinier. In the end I went for rebuilt units and they have restored my faith in the car.
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I used to work with a male teacher that owned one of these and he would wait until a group of us ladies were gathered in the car park at school to make his grand entrance and have full poser impact. It all went very wrong one day when our librarian whispered in our ears a saying about men who drive Porsches. We were all rolling around laughing and he was so upset by this that he grazed the car on a wall. I will never forget the scene. Lovely review and you are obviously passionate about your car. Thanks. J.
Jul 31st, 2008
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