tips for buying a 930

[roofbolter]

A friend of mine is looking to buy a used, 84, low mileage 930. He said that it smokes for for a few seconds at start-up, (the car does not get run very often), is this a problem. Also wanted to know what the typical know problems would have been with this model.

thanks
90 C4

[JeremyD]

Originally Posted by roofbolter

Also wanted to know what the typical know problems would have been with this model.

thanks
90 C4

Owners screwing with the boost spring or installing an adjustable one. It's like giving an addict free *****.

[AngM018]

PPI PPI PPI. If its smoking it could be many things. Maybe its nothing (oil will get past rings while sitting, even the 09's). Maybe just needs a turbo rebuild (600-800 bucks), or it could need an engine rebuild (15-25 thousand). take it to a trusworthy shop, that the owner doesnt take it to. have them find out why its smoking, then go from there.

[MT930]

Originally Posted by AngM018

PPI PPI PPI. If its smoking it could be many things. Maybe its nothing (oil will get past rings while sitting, even the 09's). Maybe just needs a turbo rebuild (600-800 bucks), or it could need an engine rebuild (15-25 thousand). take it to a trusworthy shop, that the owner doesnt take it to. have them find out why its smoking, then go from there.

1+ PPI don't buy one with out one.

small puff smoke on start up is normal.

[spuggy]

Originally Posted by roofbolter

A friend of mine is looking to buy a used, 84, low mileage 930. He said that it smokes for for a few seconds at start-up, (the car does not get run very often), is this a problem. Also wanted to know what the typical know problems would have been with this model.

thanks
90 C4

With a 930, a small puff of blue/gray smoke from pooled oil in the turbo that collects overnight and then clears within a few (2-3) seconds at fast-idle as the (separate) turbo scavenge pump does its job is of no concern whatsoever. Mine does it most days.

Only minimal development went on for the most part; 78-88 turbo cars are almost identical, just slight changes year-to-year and more emissions junk/options. 89 on cars have the 5-speed, and the 90-91 have the 964 body style with the same 3.3 motor, different suspension and brakes.

A weak spot is the rod bolts, which can stretch and let go. The 3.2 motor shares the same crank/rods/bolts and can suffer from the same issue (aftermarket rod bolts are the fix for this). But you can't miss this issue when buying the car - it sounds like someone hitting the crankcase with a tire iron at engine speed. Don't ask me how I know.

Regular oil changes with high-quality oil (service records can tell a good story here), are extremely important as the turbo housing can get red hot and the motor shares the same oil as gets pumped through those bearings. Good fueling and ignition are absolutely critical for turbo cars.

PPI. Find a shop that works on a lot of 930's, especially if anything is modified. They resemble 911's, but there's a lot of additional complexity.

It's worth mentioning that, as a MY '84 car, this is certainly a RoW (Rest of World) vehicle as these weren't imported into the US between 80-86. So a big concern would be - how was this Federalized to meet US emissions?

It may have been a grey import and never federalized. Which means it will make more power. Much worse, it may not have been done correctly or completely.

Depending on your state and what was (or was not) done, this could cause issues with smog or registering - especially if the paperwork was mislaid. You might want to look into that, many threads here on the topics.

[beepbeep]

Originally Posted by spuggy

A weak spot is the rod bolts, which can stretch and let go. The 3.2 motor shares the same crank/rods/bolts and can suffer from the same issue (aftermarket rod bolts are the fix for this). But you can't miss this issue when buying the car - it sounds like someone hitting the crankcase with a tire iron at engine speed. Don't ask me how I know.

Yes, but 930 develops it's top power at lowly 5500 RPM. As 930's don't have to be revved to high heavens just to get going, rod bolt problems are highly unusual.

Also, forces on rod bolt are proportional to square of RPM. Thus, bolt will be subject to roughly 25% more force at 6200 RPM than at 5500 RPM.

Of course, there will always be a doofus who revs his 930 to 7000 RPM beacuse it "redlines there", "is ment to be driven hard"etc.

[sscates]

Be weary of any shifting issues. People tend to speed shift the 930, which is bad news. I have gotten a puff of smoke out of mine about 50% of the start ups. Only drive it maybe 2k per year, but no biggie.

You want to look for any signs of abuse on the car, interior, exterior, engine, etc. These cars had the best warranty records of any porsches of the time, but people tend to abuse them, which will take the reliability down to nil and cause huge mx bills.

By the way, I have had mine for over 5 years and zero problems, other than oil changes, cv boots, etc. I haven't had to fix anything. I don't drive that often, but that's even worse for them.


If your friend's not familiar with the porsches, have him take this car to a pca driving school. Not to race it, but figure out it's bad habits. It has a few. Have Fun.

[trader220]

One thing to be sure of on these ROW cars is trying to know how many KM's were on the old speedo before they switched it to one with MPH for US federalization. The odo may show mileage now but it had to have one showing km's before.