Looking at a '90 C2 with 26K miles...

[billh1963]

and the car is all original including the flywheel. I am new to the 911 and have read about the poblems with flywheels and the cylinders. Should I pass on it or is it really an issue?

[Don Haney]

If the price is right AND leaves you room to put some $$ into the car, get it. I have the early heads with no problems. I have 107K miles and I drive my car hard and regularly run it at speeds I can not speak about, but attached a pic : )
Yeah kinda slow...
Good Luck and let us know,
Don

[billh1963]

Does $26K sound right?

[Don Haney]

That's the middle of the road price, when I was looking 8 months ago. I would check Kelly Blue book and search out every C2 for sale on the net and get an average. Also look at the past Excellence for the market updates.
The low miles will add to the price.
My car was from a friend of the family and also had 100K at the time of purchase. It was also 10K less than this one.
Make sure you have another shop check the car out, and you might want to also get a "Car Fax" since it has such low miles.
BTW--I have owned several early 911, and other than upgrading to a 993, I hope to have this Porsche a long long time. Its a driving experience!
Good Luck,
Don

[Planter91C2]

Don is incorrect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!

26k for a C2 with only 26,000 miles is absolutely not "middle of the road"

it is a great price!!!!!!!!

do a little comparing and i'm sure you will find i'm right.

[JonSeigel]

Warning: very low mileage cars such as this one have their share of problems such as dried out or cracked seals. Usually nothing major, but budget for it. Otherwise, the price is good if the car has been well maintained and there have been no accidents.

[Bill Wagner]

A '90 with 26K on it selling for $26K would be DIRT CHEAP where I live (Metro Washington DC), even in a recession ridden economy.

I bought a '91 C4 w/18K on the clock in January of 2001. I paid more than your seller is asking, but on the other hand I had the mileage confirmed, had a detailed PPI done, and took it to two auto body shops to make sure the car wasn't a wreck. Had I bought the car in todays economy I certainly could have gotten a better deal, but probably not by much.

In this area, that price would be CHEAP, but ONLY if you can confirm that there is nothing really wrong with the car. The cylinder head leakage problem is over blown statistically (usually by people who don't know what the odds of it occuring are), but try telling that to one of the people who buys one of these and ends up facing an $8000 repair bill. I would not have paid the money I did for my car had it not had the updated cylinders/gaskets installed in it. I have a Freudenberg flywheel (i.e. the one that's known to be less reliable) but that was a risk I was willing to take.

I was able, with some effort, to track down previous owners and why the car had so few miles on it. Everything checked out, so I bought the car.

An old car with low miles, regardless of make, is a rarity. If I were you I would make an effort to get ALL records possible on the car, have it inspected for collision at a shop familar with 911s, and have a PPI done. Checking CarFax is certainly worth doing, but I wouldn't rely on them for a 100% confirmation of the cars history (just another source of info).

Typically, the Freudenberg, if it's a bad unit, will go before you hit 50K miles, and the cylinder heads will usually not rear their ugly heads (if they do at all) until the car has high miles (like 100K or more) on it, but both CAN occur earlier. The odds of a Freudenberg DMF failing on a 964 are much higher than the odds of the car developing the infamous cylinder leak, but like I said before, try telling that to someone who has to pay for the major rebuild.

As far as natural aging goes, you likely will have to deal with some issues of one form or another. These can include corrosion/oxidization of connectors, and gaskets becoming brittle leading to leaks. These sound like trivial problems, and in fact they are, but they cost money to fix, and in some cases the cost may be surprisingly high. This is a characteristic of ALL old cars, not just the 964.

Hope this helped,

Bill Wagner