My PO stripped the chrome on the passenger
window frames to a black out but never finished it! The right quarter window is black,the passenger window is stripped and the left side in great shape chrome. Quite upsetting.

Bill

My p.o. used a body shop that obviously forgot to get the paint code for my car -- my two front guards and my left rear guard are different shades of Sahara Beige than the rest of the car.

I guess I'm lucky it's only noticeable under fluorescent lights, but then, if the body shop couldn't be bothered to get the paint code, then did they repair the (minor) surface rust properly? I guess I'll just have to wait until I have the means for a bare-metal respray to find out!

Idiots.




[This message has been edited by Matt Holcomb (edited 05-03-2001).]

MY PO DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO THE CAR IN 6 YEARS OF OWNERSHIP. SO DIRTY I DID NOT KNOW THE FLOOR MATS WERE SILVER. DID AN OIL CHANGE & THE DINO LOOKED LIKE IT HAD JUST BEEN BROUGHT IN FROM THE WELL. THE OIL FILTER WEIGHED 10-12 LBS.. TOOK A FULL SERVICE TO REALIZE THAT THE GUY MIGHT HAVE USED THIS THING AS A DIRT TRACK RACER!!!!
HE TOLD ME THE CD STACKER DID NOT WORK. OF COURSE IT WASN'T ELECTRICALLY CONNECTED TO ANYTHING AT ALL.
WHEW!!

My '74 Beetle came with a generous helping of undercoating on the bottom of the engine, including the pushrod tubes and cylinders. Okay, so it's not a 911, but Porsche guys can sympathise with such mistreatment of an air-cooled engine.

PO made the 993 Miglia replicas "fit" by raising the front end up to max. on the adjusting levers. Tires were cut up and flipped to the inside to hide the BIG damage. Good thing the original 16 in. fuchs on like new Dunlop 4000 A/S's were included in the sale or I would have been pissed. Thanks go out to Kiwior for remembering to ask the fella to call and see if the tire shop still had the fuchs in storage.

Alarm system was a piece of crap that would not disarm. Wiring splicing was classic butcher job. Siren screwed into the firewall in the engine bay.

Delco Battery just floating around in the front trunk.

Some kind of oil filter called "Champ" brand. My buddy calls it the "Shemp" and now everything that's not OEM is "Shemp" quality.

Instead of replacing/adjusting fan belt, spray belt dressing on it and keep the can in the car in case you need it. Nice.

Sticks his parking garage sticker in the rear window on the defroster lines. Hair dryer and a steady hand did the trick.

Decided to try to paint something black in the engine bay and got paint all over all sorts of things on the motor.

Nothing too major, just a bunch of small stupid things that make you start to wonder what else is on the horizon.

Bring it on!


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Kevin
87 Carrera

Gunther's two previous US owners changed the oil every 6 months or 3,000 miles and saved every receipt for even the tiniest part and repair since the car was imported in '85. The file is about 4" thick. Some of the 6 month oil changes are 200 miles apart. My immediate predessor put many thousands of $$ into corret upgrades, put him on jackstands, pulled motor, powder coated engine bay, replaced almost every piece of old rubber on the car and detailed the underbody with Q-tips.

Needless to say, we're still on very friendly terms...

Thomas
'81 930 'Gunther'

Previous owners, dontcha just love 'em?

OK, well I guess my PO (or several, I have no records prior to 1980) did the following:

Installed a really cheap and nasty air-conditioning system which involved butchering the carpet, the front luggage compartment carpet, ruining the bottom of the dashboard, running hoses under the passenger side sill and hacking crude holes just above the passenger side footwell into the "smugglers compartment" Oh yeah, the "extra" pulley also makes valve timing and fanbelt replacement a nightmare.

Ditched the original 6" Fuchs and replaced them with cheap 8" copies that are all out of true, and rub against the shocks unless you install spacers (this idiot didn't, of course).

Added wheel locks and a few steel wheel nuts but forgot to provide me with the key. Thanks!

Installed a hopelessly cheap stereo system (wiring nightmare, butchered door panels).

Installed an alarm system that didn't work (wiring nightmare).

Added a $3.99 plastic tan steering wheel cover when the original leather rim cracked up - just the thing to add real class to the interior, eh?

Replaced the carpeting on the back of the rear "jump seats" with cheap nylon stuff.

The car was originally a rather wonderful early 1970s colour - "Royal Purple." Then someone painted the car brown (great choice), the lemon yellow (slightly better), then glossy black (its current colour). One of these resprays involved removing the doors and all lids - hence decidedly uneven gaps all around. They also sprayed the stainless steel Targa rollbar black and the chrome exterior mirror. Thanks guys, great job.

Someone jacked up the car under the driver's side rear foot well leaving a really nice dent and damaging the underbody seal.

Someone removed the jack, and the factory toolkit and the owners manual.

Removed the passenger side sunvisor and used the screw holes on the inner side to mount the interior mirror!

Errrrrr - that's it.

- roGER (1973 911T)

First owner only drove 8k in the first 9 years . I blame him for the main seal that deteriorated . These cars need to be driven. At the same time I also thank him for the TLC and low mileage on the car!

Not the PO, but the guys who made the DOT and EPA "mods" after I brought it here:

No door crash beams in German '79s, they welded up a black pipe to go across the middle, drilled holes into the front edge and back of the door with rusty screws to hold the pipe in place. Then, to solve the fit problem in one side, cut an arm off of the window scissor mechanism.


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Charlie Baer
'79 Euro 911SC

Mine had a trailor hitch attached to it. I don't even want to think about what he was towing.

Apart from doing obviously as little maintenance as possible in the 10 years (8000 miles) he owned, it very little.

I found something interesting the other day as I was fiddling with the headlamp seal. I took the headlamp out and inside the housing there was a 'magnetic key case'. It has a spare set of keys in it, one of which being the original ignition key, which I was very pleased to find.

The guy we bought it off obviously had no idea they were there or he would have told me. Quite an ingenious place to hide the spare set of keys!

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Phil Garner
'72 911E Sporto
'87 VW Golf CL 1.6 with Weber (x1!)

[This message has been edited by layzee (edited 05-03-2001).]

I feel a lot better about my '88 Carrera after reading some of these. My gripes:
1. Odometer replaced or rolled back, so 60K not genuine and real mileage unknown. But compression good.
2. Blaupunkt radio not working. Pulled it out and found nothing connected. PO had obviously removed aftermarket radio and just shoved old one back in the hole.
3. 1" diam rust hole in front suspension pan concealed with rubbery caulking
4. Most of tool kit missing, including fan belt pulley wrench.
5. No owners manual. I have had this back ordered from Tweeks for 6 months now ...
6. lots of different, mismatched and wrong size trim screws
7. no floor carpets, just mats

These are pretty funny. I had a *special* modification done to my car as well. Some jackass clipped my quarter panel flares while in a parking lot and kindly drove away without leaving a note. When I discovered this I was a little pissed to say the least, especially when I saw about a quarter inch of bondo flaking off where he hit me. Naturally I thought it must only be in that small spot as I went over the car with a magnet before buying it. So this little repair sno-balled into a whole bunch of things. I thought it was a great idea to get the car stripped, then get the whole car repainted, replace carpeting, extensive cleaning etc. So off to the bead blaster I went, dropped the car off and got a call the next day. "Sir, the price I qouted you earlier is going to double, the whole rear of the car is covered in bondo." Ok, now I am really pissed, I go to see the car when it was completed, expecting to see a bunch of holes, dents and wrinkles. Thankfully, this idiot decided he didn't like the brake vents, so he welded on two pieces of flat steel (no attempt to conform it to the opening) covering these vents, then covered the whole back in bondo to stay consistent. I just assumed all turbo bodied cars had the boxed brake vents, just some didn't have the cutout...I sure was wrong. It feels like my car is 3x faster, no bondo and no crazy alarm wiring. The alarm was one of those annoying talking ones with keyless entry, rolls up windows, puts up the cab top, sings to you stc. But removing that is a whole other story.
Dante Oliverio

The worst crime my PO did was use the car in California (Dana Point) for most of its life - I guess the rot free body is pretty big consilation for having cracked dash board, and perished rubbers :-)

In actual fact, mine was not in too bad shape. It had an RSR front bumper fitted, and the screen wash tank completely removed (as a result of 'minor' accident damage). Aside from this, the gold Porsche badge on the back, black RS recaro's (in a tan interior), a crappy rubber whip ariel (not connected, and in the wrong place for a Hurshmann) and an aftermarket wheel.

The only really unsafe feature was the tyres - speed rated to 105mph, and cracked as hell. When I took them off, I checked the date codes - they were made in '85!

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Marcus

'73 S Targa