[mike944]

have the variocam mechanism inspected!!!!. It's not part of the regular PPI, and it will require removal of the valve cover, so you'll pay for a new gasket (not expensive). This variocam mechanism is a problem on 968's, and failures are very expensive. Of course, the person inspecting it has to know what they're looking for too. Your best bet, if you call some porsche specialty shops in your area, find someone who specifically reccomends this inspection for a 968. If the shop knows about it, and reccomends, that should mean the shop is familiar with 968's. The variocam mechanism gives absolutely no warning signs before it lets go, so inspection is the only to prevent problems.

The variocam system will probably need a new chain, and tensioner pads around 100-125K, but it's been known have problems as early as 55K miles, but it seems primairly due to poor quality oil, and improper viscosity. Of course, with any used car, you have no way of knowing the history, so have it checked. check 968.net, or 968forums.com. The latter one is better, but requires registration to even view the forums.

The only other 968 specific problem, and it's been mentioned in a prior post, is the pinion bearing problem. Unless the car is currently having bad pinion bearing symptoms (a whine, like a jet engine spooling down, while decelerating from about 65 to 45). If the car has no symptoms of pinion bearing problem, don't worry about it, that car is probably fine. Even if it seems fine, the pinion bearing gives no early warning signs, so you won't necessarily be able to tell. At least the pinion bearing problem seems to affect only about 10-15% of manual transmission 968's, where the variocam wear affects them all.

Beyond the variocam and pinion bearing, the same things affect the 968, as affect the 944's.

Don't let this scare you off though, the 968 is a great car. I like mine very much.

Good luck!