Thoughts on "preemptive maintenance"?
 

Before I got my '95 993, I drove an '88 Targa for 7 years.

The Targa was a reliable car, and left me on the side of the road only twice in all that time: the fuel pump went at 97K miles, and the alternator's voltage regulator went at 105K.

Now I'm commuting in my 993 every day about 50 miles per day, and mileage on the car is almost 70K. I'm starting to think about replacing the fuel pump and alternator (and any other suggested parts) "preemptively," before they start to fail. I'm already done the DME relay, distributor belt, and LWF updates, and of course all the routine maintenance.

I guess asking for MTBF data on these big items like alternator and fuel pump is a bit much, but have any of you guys replaced these or other parts before they actually start humming/whining/smoking/overcharging, just for peace of mind?

I'm definitely in the "don't fix it until it's broken" school. If the part shows no sign of failure leave it alone. If your luck is like most of ours when you decide to change the fuel pump preemptively you will likely cross thread a fitting or crack a line that will lead to lots more headaches. Just my 2 cents.

As a reliability engineer by profession I would go about it this way.
It's somewhere inbetween " If it ain't broke don't fix it" and not ever wanting to be surpsrised.

Touching stuff is bad for it ( not including your John Thomas of course!)
I would...
Stay in tune with the message boards. Make a list of what people mention as failure items and get a feel for when they occur. Then email out to the group on each one that is off interest and see if there are any wear indicators you can monitor.
When you get to the major mileage marks that you want us as PM time go through and check out this list you have created. It's not a 100% guranteee but I bet that a high percentage of failures have some wear indicator.

I've got 104k miles on my 90 C2, and the fuel pump started whining a month ago. It's $230 or so for a fuel pump, versus probably a good chunk of that for a flatbead tow home........ I'm on the fence for the alternator....... over 100k miles on it, I'm thinking the $150 to rebuild it locally might be worth it.........

-Eric
90 C2
NER/PCA

The little belt connecting the distributors can fail with expensive consequences. I think between 50-60K is the time to replace it. I did mine at 68,500.

Chris
95 C2 Midnight/Cashmere Coupe