To wade into this mess for a minute, I think the distinction needs to be made as to whether a car is cruising, with no intent to change speeds, or being driven on a winding road, or an undulating one, where the speed might vary a little.

If a car like yours is being driven at a constant speed (limited for example, by a posted speed limit) there's absolutely no point in keeping the engine revs above 3k. The car will do fine in a higher gear, any time your at at least 2,500 rpms in the higher gears. In 2nd or 3rd, it can be driven at slightly lower revs. You can use the CASIS light, or just judge it on the feel of the engine, the responsivenes to very slight throttle inputs, if you will. A 3.2 is a fairly robust engine, with decent torque above 2,000 rpm and there's not much horsepower needed to move one of these cars down the road at city speeds. At highway speeds, say 70 mph, you'll be near 3,000 revs in 5th anyway and 4th gear is absolutely not required.

If you plan on accelerating, then higher revs are a good idea. On a winding road, or one with hills, or if you vary your speed, higher revs are a good idea.

I would agree that shifting at 3,000 rpm is a decent idea, for normal (flowing with traffic) acceleration. I wouldn't shift at any rpm under that, if I were expecting to increase speed after the shift.

Back on topic...

JR

This car has no *extra leather* option, as per the window sticker displayed. "Interior to Sample" was simply a color option, like "Color to Sample". The original buyer paid ~$2300 extra to have the car painted in a color from the year before. Not sure what the interior is, it looks like regular old Champaign leather, which was Porsche's light tan at the time. Slate Blue was a regular production color and fairly common in 1983 and '84.

Not my favorite combo, Slate Blue should have black guts, IMO. It's a very grey color in person. Dark blue leather would be a distant second place to most people. I never liked the color and grey/blues are among my favorites. Color to sample was a great option that allowed a factory order in any color of the rainbow including other car company's colors, (past or present), out of production Porsche colors, etc. It could be painted to your provided sample, hence the name. Kind of a waste to use it for Slate Blue, when he could have just bought a new '84 for a lot less. We once ordered a 930 in Slate Grey for someone, that was the Steve McQueen 911S color from "LeMans".

So this car has partial leather seats only. Upgraded leather, (extra leather), would have been a separate option in 2 stages, "full leather seats" and "full leather interior", which had the leather dash. Porsche completely discontinued leather dashes in 911s in 1986 because every last one of them was warping and shrinking in the hot climate of the western U.S., (where the lion's share of 911s were sold), before the warranty was up. They were not supposed to self-destruct until after that time, like every other interior part on cars. Full leather became everything but the dash in '86. The "special wishes" dept. would still cover dashes in leather, (or snake skin for that matter), past that time.

As for condition and use, that car seems awesome. A concours car for the first 20 years, it got treated better than we did when we were in the womb. It probably sat off the ground in a climate-controlled garage. It's true that improper storage is not good for a car but proper storage and occasional use doesn't hurt them. 911s are stout cars and are not hurt by being driven, but the whole "high miles are better" horse schit you hear around here is just that. It's a machine with a service life, even if that life is potentially long. The guy who had a car for the first 50 or 100k miles got the best miles from it. Cindy Crawford is still beautiful but the guy who had her at 20 got the best miles. I know him. ;)

I'd rather have a mint, low miles car with possibly a dried seal somewhere than some worn-out donkey with every part changed 3 times any day of the week. Even the dried seal thing is mostly a myth, unless the car truly sat still for ages. The market agrees with me.

SO there is my opinionated opinion on that car. The price is right in line with todays market for a flawless, low miles car. PPI anything you buy and get the true price of it. Many high-miles $17k Carreras will be $27k cars in the first year. :cool:

I apologize and did not mean to come off as such a dick. Of course it makes a difference what kind of roads you are on. I can't imagine anyone owning a 911 and never taking any kind of road trip in it or getting on the freeway but then I don't know some of these other parts of the country.

I've driven 911s, and other cars with sweet engines, around on the street at 4k rpm or more in 3rd just to hear the engine note, or when going up a canyon, etc. It was just the idea that someone has never put their car in 5th gear that made me type all that WTF stuff. But it's your cars and your fuel bills, so I'm out of it and sorry again for any offense. :cool:

Denis, further proof that opinions are like a-holes - I like the Slate Blue.:) Though I do like my Diamond Blue better.

Interesting.

I rarely go over 75 unless the speed limit is posted higher. I no longer have to contend with Houston traffic though yes, I did drive 80 in it because I did not wish to be run over and fourth gear was perfect.

I went into fifth when I went over 80 (and I am not saying how fast it was). My SC "feels" better driving in fourth. 60-65? If just cruising on a blank highway at 60-65 I'll do 4th. If moving around stuff, third.

Personally, I have only once felt the car needed fourth.

This reminds me of a woman with a 300zx I used to know. She would be in fifth by the time we were going 20. Did not wish to overrev the engine and have problems with it later on. I also know an engineer who destroyed her toyota prius. Fifth gear by 25/30. She was in third gear before crossing two lanes of traffic from a stop light.

The cars seem to drive better at higher RPMs and my engines are lasting just fine with no transmission problems.


And yup, lots of tractors on the road SmileWavy and I do give them right of way and wide berth for it is sometimes me on that tractor on the road! I run my tractor in 12th on the road using cruise control (throttle) :rolleyes:

Yep, and yours stinks. ;)

None of those later colors had enough blue in them, IMO. I've seen a lot of beautiful grey/blues from other manufacturers over the years, (Ford had a particularly great one that is on a lot of Explorers and F-series trucks), Porsche for some reason went down a rabbit hole with their blues after Pacific Blue, which is a stunning color. It was the entire reason I bought my SC that had a lot of issues and should have been passed on. It knocked me out like a hot girl with a steamer trunk full of baggage. Come to think of it, I've fallen for my share of those as well. :)

Only one person has to like a car, or a woman. That's the bottom line. But the rest of us can stand around and judge it. :D

Ummm, maybe it was a different Toyota. Prii don't have transmissions with gears, and you can't manually "shift" them. They're CVTs. Even if it were a traditional automatic with selectable gears it wouldn't upshift on command, nor lock the torque converter. It would have to be a manual transmission. A Yaris maybe?

Sigh... here we go...

I can read the sticker, too. I think you'll find that, in that era, if you specified "color to sample" you got leather, as it was easy to get leather hides in any color but not easy to get vinyl in any color. It's hard to tell from the small photos but the dash looks like a leather dash to me, as it appears to have the beading between the front and the top that a leather dash has and a vinyl dash does not. As I said, it would be a quick matter to determine whether it is vinyl or leather. My vote is on leather. It's definitely not Champagne, although the carpet looks similar to the carpet used in a Champagne interior, which never quite matched the Champagne leather. I had a Carrera with a full Champagne leather interior, so I know the color well.

Porsche was still putting leather dashes in cars in 1986. I bought two '86 cars and both had leather dashes. You are correct in that leather seat faces were standard. There were more than a couple options after that, though. You could get a partial leather interior, a full leather interior and a special leather interior. Also, leather was available in conjunction with various fabrics. There were literally hundreds of combinations available, if you looked at a dealer order sheet. There was also an option for vinyl to be used on the upper surfaces of a full leather interior, for cars intended for use in sunny climates. The leather dashes always warped but it was usually after the warranty was long gone.

I agree with all of your other comments.

JR

Eric,

I would have to defer to expertise. Small, four doors, hatchback, maybe 2008?, 5-spd manual, econobox, she always bragged on the fuel economy, I thought it was a prius, rode in it once, would not let her drive me around again...

Electrical Engineer, if that matters.

Hey, maybe she had the world's only manual trans Prius. This is the internet and anything is possible. :)

When I first drove a 997 coupe with a PDK, it would be in fourth gear by that point. I absolutely hated it...

They say the newer ones are better.

JR

The market also prefers Justin Bieber, WalMart, McDonalds, Nickelback, and NASCAR

I disagree with your "pay a premium for low miles alone" view. You know I do. I've seen very nice 200K mile 911s for $10K and ratty 50K mile 911s for $25K. Buying miles on a thirty year old car is simply one facet, and it wouldn't be my top-weighted criteria.

Denis is from California which is one of the ONLY states that still keeps odometer statements on cars that are more than 10 years old. Buying a California car that has been in California its whole life? Okay, fine. But buying most other places, the odometer spot on your title will read "exempt" or "N/REQD". Know how easy it is to spin a VDO mechanical odometer?

And seals and everything else do weather with TIME, not miles. I could take a brand new car with zero miles and sit it in the Arizona sun for a few years and every seal, gasket, rubber, and plastic bit on that car would be crap. Paint too. Tires dry rot. Rotors rust. Pads melt and/or dry out. Things seize. Things oxidize.

Okay that's the extreme. The other? Take an inland North Carolina car. Garaged at home, driven 30 miles expressway to the office and parked in a covered parking garage. Then home again, plus an errand. 70 miles a day, five days a week. Then another 50 miles on the weekends. 400 miles per week, 21,000 miles per year. Five years later, it's got over 100K miles. The car may look like new and it's had a pretty easy life mechanically too.

Or buy one with really low miles because it was "just a toy". You know, from the guy who took it autocrossing and to track days, or just canyon carving with the local club. Maybe the guy who never took it out of 3rd gear. But it's a low mile car. And you get to pay a lot more for it. Lucky you.

It's like paying a premium for a four year old car with 48K miles and everything is original. I'd rather buy a 68K mile car that had the 60K service and has had brakes and tires within the last year. And it's CHEAPER than the 48K mile car. Go figure. You get to pay the premium for the 48K mile car, AND pay for the 60K, the tires, and the brakes.

As always, YMMV

I gotta agree with Speeder on the low miles issue. I've owned a bunch of low mileage cars and the issue of them automatically having more problems just isn't true. Think about it this way... all cars spend the vast majority of their life sitting still. If you look at a 25 year old car with 100,000 miles, it will have spent 98% of it's life sitting still. Not a big difference to the low mileage car that spent 99%...

A low mileage car is usually garaged, not left out in the weather. A normal mileage car is more likely to be used as a daily driver, which also means it sees more rain. Those cars are easy to spot.

The other thing is that the market usually doesn't allow as much of a premium for low mileage as you'd think. Getting a high mileage car back into the same shape as a low mileage one is usually more expensive than the premium you'd pay. Been there, done that.

JR

No apology necessary (as I've had my "passionate moments" too), but I do appreciate it! BTW, the only thing I've found offensive in this thread are your comments about Diamond Blue Metallic :). I love "da blues"...virtually all of them, and most have to be seen in person, in different lighting to appreciate them imo (especially all of the metallic colors). Now let's help Steve find his "new baby"....sorry about the drifting again.

I agree with *most of this* and not sure what the dispute is. Also, CA. does not record miles on old cars, or at least it's not required. Maybe voluntary(?). I'd buy that clean North Carolina car all day long and agree about the AZ. sun, etc. I specifically said, "proper storage" in my post. My Dad's old SL would be in perfect condition if it was never driven in winter when it was new. It hasn't aged sitting in the garage at all.

You cannot lump new, dime-a-dozen cars together with collectible older 911s. One fender repainted on a 2008 Ford Edge? Who gives a schit? The 60k service cost probably matters more. On the 1986 911, it's the other way around. By a factor of 10.

With collectible, rare or even rare-ish cars, their point along their life-span is everything. And originality trumps everything else, if in good condition. With more run-of-the-mill driver cars, I'd still prefer lower miles with other things being somewhat equal. But I'd buy a good, high-miles car for the right $$ all day long as well. My difference is with people who think that miles on a rolling machine mean nothing and that higher is somehow better. That's idiotic. :cool:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/700424-250k-milestone.html

Yet buying a 120K mile 25 year old Carrera isn't a smart idea..... better to buy one with 60K and pay double

Who said that??

Surely you don't think that his 250k targa is worth the same as a low mileage car because it was owned by a cool guy and he always changed the oil? :)

It would not matter if EVERY SINGLE PART on the car was replaced, it would not be the same as low miles car.

Totally agree that low miles doesn't automatically mean more problems than high miles. But the opposite, that low miles automatically means less problems than high miles, likely isn't true either. It's all about condition.

We all freak out when a three year old car has 60K miles, that you should never buy a "high mile" car. But we'd love to pay a premium to find a eight year old car with "only" 60K miles!! Oh boy!!

In reality BOTH cars have 60K miles, and it's more likely that the eight year old 60K mile car isn't as nice as the three year old 60K mile car. But which one commands a huge premium? Why? Think about it.

So looking at this 28 year old Porsche with 52K miles on the clock is no idicator that it hasn't had paintwork, that it doesn't need tires, brakes, battery, belts, hoses, electrical components, filters, plug wires, etc, etc, etc. It certainly may, just due to age. So it depends on when those were done last, right?

If it were a 28 year old Porsche with 104K miles, I hate to say it.... that's still low miles. Only 3800 miles per year. So it has sat, and sat, and sat. It's sat for long periods of time without being started or run. So it may have exactly the same issues as that 52K mile car. And the 52K mile car may have the exact same issues as the 104K mile car. But yet the 104K mile car will sell for THOUSANDS less than the 52K mile car, simply because of the odometer. Even if it has spent its life in the garage. Even if it just had new Michelins, pads, battery, tune up, valve cover re-seal, etc. It could be very, very nice--- and still fetch much less.

The "marketplace" respods to miles because the average buyer (think about average...McDonald's) has to rely on an objective measurement of value -- the miles showing on the odometer. The rest is subjective (paint condition, interior condition, etc). We need something to hang our hat on.


You're making my point. You're saying that miles are a common indicator for a garaged car, because garaged cars are nicer. Why not just look for garaged cars, regardless of odometer?

As a previous Ferrari owner, you should know better. Even 10K mile cars can need $30,000 in deferred maintenance and cosmetics. So would the exact same car with 5K miles. Or 50K miles. It's all about condition and value. If the 5K mile car were "worth" $150K but needed $30K in work, you'd pay $120K. If the 10K mile car were "worth" #130K, you'd better pay $100K. And that 50K mile car might only be worth $80K, and you might not be able to buy it for $50K. But all three cars, when "corrected" and up-to-date are likely as nice as one another, and mechanically equal. Yet one car you had $150K tied up and the other, maybe $90K. Over the next five years, which will have been the better value?

To Speeder's point: You should know better too. People who buy late model (new) Porsches don't give a rat's azz about them. They are just cars.

You know from your 'hood that they drive them through Starbucks drive-thru, park them on the street overnight, let their little dogs hang out in the back seat, etc. They are just cars. Any given hour in the Beverly Hills area you will see a "new" Porsche parked off Rodeo with wheels black from brake dust, scraped front bumper from riding up on curb stops, deep door dings from the gym or nightclub, bird doo on the paint, and receipts and sunglasses strewn on the dash. These same cars will be sold two years old with 30K miles, the Porsche dealer will refinish the curb scuffed wheels, replace the worn tires, paint the front bumper, have the paintless dent removal guy straighten the panels, the leather guy patch and re-dye the back seat where Fifi dug in her claws when the owner took it too fast down Laurel, replace the broken knobs, refinish the peeling soft-touch switch surrounds, and detail the paint to a mirror. Then it's sold as "Certified Pre-Owned" and commands a premium.

Eventually, maybe an owner or two later, some "enthusiast" will buy it and wax on about how perfect and "original" the car is, rub it with egyptian cloth diapers before they go to bed each night, and not drive it more than a few miles each month to preserve its value.

LOL. I'm still trying to figure out why driving your car in the rain is a bad thing.