[Porsche-O-Phile]

In three years and over 30,000 miles of 944 driving I've been let down due to mechanical issues exactly three times. On one occasion a distributor rotor went bad and the car died a half mile from work. No biggie. I parked it, went to work and at the end of the day got a lift to the local auto parts store and bought a rotor. Installed it in about 10 minutes and drove it home. B.F.D. A total delay of about two hours out of my day.

The second time, I had the half-shafts on my 944 go "clunk" at about 5mph. If Porsche had used allen bolts instead of those infernal triple-squares (or if I'd had the presence of mind to swap them out or simply check the bolts more regularly, which I now have done and do) it wouldn't have been a big deal. I'd have reached under there with my trusty 6mm allen from the tool kit and driven it home. Oh well. So that was one AAA tow. Got it home and fixed it within 10 minutes with the proper tool. Total delay of about 2 hours versus what it would have normally taken me to get home.

The third time was when a cooling fan relay went bad causing the electric fans to run the whole day, killing the battery. I walked to Sears (two blocks from my office), bought a spare battery and drove home. When I got home I pulled the relay and fixed it. It's been fine since. I even ended up using the battery and use it in another car, so it was something I'd have needed to do eventually anyway. Very minor inconvenience. Took about 45 minutes and 150 bucks total.

All-in-all not too bad. I can live with that. It's no different than the amount of inconvenience I'd get with a new car and simply leaving the headlights on a couple of times or running out of gas or whatever. Hardly makes me feel like I'm on the brink of a breakdown all the time. Certainly not bad for 20-ish year-old sports cars driven 70+ miles a day in L.A. traffic.