Topic: Mrs Gurgie's New Ride

[Gurgie]

Yep, great buy for the $$. Congrats on a quick purchase and keeping the gf happy

Thanks, she was starting to get a bit stressed after the 1st few cars we went to look at turned out to be duds    She was daily commuting in the Grand Cherokee, while I slummed it in the old Porsche, so her life wasn't too bad, but she wanted her own car & was scared she'd have to settle for something boring 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Congratulations! 

[Noto]

She was daily commuting in the Grand Cherokee, while I slummed it in the old Porsche,

I could just imagine the search going on for a while and you "slumming" it in the Porsche through the winter 

[Gurgie]

She was daily commuting in the Grand Cherokee, while I slummed it in the old Porsche,

I could just imagine the search going on for a while and you "slumming" it in the Porsche through the winter 

My buddy drives this one during Toronto winters with a set of X-ice on it. The winters are actually installed in this pic.



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[Noto]

Yeah, much about that pic doesn't sit right with me

...from the Porsche in a make-shift "garage", to the mid-point single lift (or is that the proper lift point on that model?) with the axle stand sitting not under the car, to the jack being partially off the wooden plank, to the airhose doing...something (?) and left unattended.

I'm sure it's all legit, but all I see is a FGC being worked on

[Gurgie]

Yeah, much about that pic doesn't sit right with me

...from the Porsche in a make-shift "garage", to the mid-point single lift (or is that the proper lift point on that model?) with the axle stand sitting not under the car, to the jack being partially off the wooden plank, to the airhose doing...something (?) and left unattended.

I'm sure it's all legit, but all I see is a FGC being worked on

    

Car actually has a mid-point single lift jack location... there's even an arrow stamped into the rocker panel to show you where it is. I think this pic was when he was power bleeding the brakes, hence the air hose on the brake reservoir. Oh & he's got no front plate on it, so he had just installed a new bumper as well in this pic... he was backed into at Church for a wedding & later found out it was the groom's parents who did it & were in Mississauga for the wedding, but hail from Chicago... what an ordeal that was to get the money outta them to replace the front bumper!

[Noto]

Bummer for him!  At least he gets to ride around in a Porsche otherwise

[Firm]

Actually, a lot of 944 still see daily service here in Toronto, likely folks who live/work in the city, but I see plenty of them all year around. Same goes for older (80s,90s) Mercedes SLs.

[johngenx]

944s and even 944 Turbos are shockingly well made cars for coming from the 1980s.  Of course, they were also pretty expensive, but the Germans made some damned good stuff then.  A turbo model can burn up your bank account fast if you don't care for it, but with some care, those are really robust cars.

On track days 911 owners were always surprised by the front engined cars.  Easier to drive than a 911, they often made up for their power deficit in the bends.  The turbo model was almost 80hp down from my car, and they usually posted similar lap times.  The great thing about the 944 Turbo compared to the 911 was it's super stable initial understeer - then it had the juice to power out of the bend.  The 911s needed a lower entrance speed and then you needed to try to catch up on the exit and straight.

[Gurgie]

944s and even 944 Turbos are shockingly well made cars for coming from the 1980s.  Of course, they were also pretty expensive, but the Germans made some damned good stuff then.  A turbo model can burn up your bank account fast if you don't care for it, but with some care, those are really robust cars.

On track days 911 owners were always surprised by the front engined cars.  Easier to drive than a 911, they often made up for their power deficit in the bends.  The turbo model was almost 80hp down from my car, and they usually posted similar lap times.  The great thing about the 944 Turbo compared to the 911 was it's super stable initial understeer - then it had the juice to power out of the bend.  The 911s needed a lower entrance speed and then you needed to try to catch up on the exit and straight.

During a lapping day this past July I had a guy in a 2009 911 C2S following me for a few laps, he'd get close on the straights, but then after a few corners I would pull away on him. This went on for a few laps & he was pointing faster cars by him & then I'd point them by as well... finally I figured he had enough of following me, so I pointed him by as well. Got into the pits after the session & I stopped to speak to him & apologize if I was holding him up at all. He said he was enjoying trying to keep pace with me, said he thought he'd catch me more on the straights, but even full flat out he wasn't gaining on me that fast. He was surprised that my 31yr old car was so capable compared to his... and my car has just really minimal mods on it, just a chip, boost enhancer & 3BAR fuel pressure regulator. So much more I could do to it with the stock turbo even & be able to get ~270hp to the ground! I figure I'm only ~240 - 250ish hp at the crank right now... so ~200ish to the wheels only!!

[Noto]

I can attest that Gurgie's 944 has plenty of smiles to the gallon left

[carcrazed]

What a great find. I wish your GF years of happy, trouble-free motoring!

[Gurgie]

Looking at Solstice's thread on buying a sub $10k car made me think of Bella's 323i... and since we've had it for over a year now I realized I never posted an update on it. So far the car has been reliable for her and trouble free. She has enjoyed how it drives and the comfort level of it. It's shod with the X-ice 3's for the winter now & being RWD only it's getting her around with ease still, we added a 40lb bag of sand to the trunk last winter and it helped get some more weight over the rear wheels & made a difference. I take it for a rip once in a while & just love how solid & put together the car feels, it's just gotta cohesive feeling about it. She has put just over 20k kms on it as of right now and is quite happy with it.

So far the maintenance items on it have been as follows:

- changing the plugs (which should have been done much earlier because they were worn out badly, the gap was huge on them causing extra strain on the coils, so much so that it had a misfire on cylinder #2) and the coils, which I did for ~$270 (Rockauto) in parts & shipping. Did this in July.
- oil change done at home, ~$90 in parts, done in September.
- rear pads & rotors, and front pads, ~$235 in parts & shipping from Rockauto. Put on Zimmerman coated rotors and Bosch pads, done in November.
- changing out the coolant (computer was asking for this service & I figured it's better to get it done as preventative maintenance), done by my indy ~$230, done in December.

Non-maintenance items have been as follows:

- exhaust leak on the connection between the downpipe & the cat, done at Speedy for ~$330 (which I thought was pretty good considering they had to source the parts from BMW and that was $160 alone). Done in November.

So aside from the exhaust issue, the rest of the items were maintenance on wear & tear items. Total cost is ~$1155 and now she should be good for another 3 - 4 years on the maintenance side. The winter tires have at least one more winter in them & the summers should be good for 3 more. Not quite the FGC story that gets ragged on here 

[Ex-airbalancer]

But if you could not do the work yourself , you would be looking at a lot more money


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[tortoise]

Nice update!

And yeah, if you were paying dealer parts and labour that would probably be 3x more.  Still, that list of maintenance isn't bad at all. 

And they really are nice cars.

[Gurgie]

Yeah, lotsa savings doing the work myself, that's for sure!! Not sure I'd be servicing at the dealership though, maybe my indy... and then if you don't have an indy, maybe go to Canadian Tire, or something like that which would be cheaper than the dealership. It's the part prices that are killer at the dealer & even thru my indy, he was quoting me prices on the coils and they were much higher than Rockauto. Even for my 951 he was having trouble getting parts thru his supplier, so I just ordered it thru Rockauto.

[johngenx]

Not every German car is a nightmare, of course. And buying a more simple model is one way of mitigating your risk.

[ArticSteve]

Not every German car is a nightmare, of course. And buying a more simple model is one way of mitigating your risk.

They are when the HVACs take a dump or the windows stop working.  Just horrible. 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Looking at Solstice's thread on buying a sub $10k car made me think of Bella's 323i... and since we've had it for over a year now I realized I never posted an update on it. So far the car has been reliable for her and trouble free. She has enjoyed how it drives and the comfort level of it. It's shod with the X-ice 3's for the winter now & being RWD only it's getting her around with ease still, we added a 40lb bag of sand to the trunk last winter and it helped get some more weight over the rear wheels & made a difference. I take it for a rip once in a while & just love how solid & put together the car feels, it's just gotta cohesive feeling about it. She has put just over 20k kms on it as of right now and is quite happy with it.

So far the maintenance items on it have been as follows:

- changing the plugs (which should have been done much earlier because they were worn out badly, the gap was huge on them causing extra strain on the coils, so much so that it had a misfire on cylinder #2) and the coils, which I did for ~$270 (Rockauto) in parts & shipping. Did this in July.
- oil change done at home, ~$90 in parts, done in September.
- rear pads & rotors, and front pads, ~$235 in parts & shipping from Rockauto. Put on Zimmerman coated rotors and Bosch pads, done in November.
- changing out the coolant (computer was asking for this service & I figured it's better to get it done as preventative maintenance), done by my indy ~$230, done in December.

Non-maintenance items have been as follows:

- exhaust leak on the connection between the downpipe & the cat, done at Speedy for ~$330 (which I thought was pretty good considering they had to source the parts from BMW and that was $160 alone). Done in November.

So aside from the exhaust issue, the rest of the items were maintenance on wear & tear items. Total cost is ~$1155 and now she should be good for another 3 - 4 years on the maintenance side. The winter tires have at least one more winter in them & the summers should be good for 3 more. Not quite the FGC story that gets ragged on here 

Sounds like it's worked out well. Nice!

[carcrazed]

Thanks for the update! I'm glad some people have good luck with used FGCs.

My friend who bought a last-gen C300 is quite happy with hers enough to take it with her to Calgary from Toronto.  Another friend who bought a used 2015 X3 is happy with his as well. No unscheduled maintenance for the X3 for the 2+ years he owned it.