[Hi_Fi_Guy]

Yes, Virginia, there is a Porsche tax... My 2¢

Porsche falls into this weird zone where it is not as exotic as Ferrari, Lamborghini, or McLaren but is considered much more exotic than most American, British, Japanese performance cars. Because of this the price of parts and service are much more expensive than similar cost on other cars.

New Porsches are rarely money pits and if they are, thank goodness for the warrantee. I've owned a handful of new models between 2000 and today and while they were not expensive to run when something did go wrong... rear main seal... it always seemed to happen just out of warrantee.

On the other end newer exotics, Lambo, F-Cars, etc. can actually be cheaper to run per year than new Porsches. At least it was for me and that's putting about 1500 miles per year on each.

When it comes to vintage Porsches the "Porsche Tax" is real. I'm constantly astounded at parts prices compared with other American and European cars. It's outrageous. Also, for all of the talk of Porsche's engineering prowess and reliability I have yet to purchase a vintage Porsche that doesn't need $10,000-$20,000 worth of parts and labor just to get the car back to the condition it should have been in when being sold. As the old joke goes the cheapest thing in a Porsche is the owner and deferred maintenance is the biggest battle we are fighting on these cars. It seems to be easier to find non-P-cars that have been maintained to a very high standard over many years. As an example, 30-50 year old American and Japanese cars I have purchased typically take $2500-$5000 for similar repairs so yes Virginia, there is a Porsche tax!

Add on top of that the engineering we love also makes some repairs more work than on other cars, alternator replacement as an example, and you can see how the expense adds up. If you can do some or all of the wrenching yourself it will save you a ton of $$$ and the more you learn about the car the better sense you will have for preventative maintenance to ensure fewer issues arise in the future.

After all of that I continue to buy, repair, and enjoy these cars. Maybe I'm a masochist, maybe the 911 and 914 are just that good. You'll have to judge for yourself.