best year 928 for moderately skilled mechanic

[Landseer]

The hours can crush you if you own a shop. Too many hours to bill. Too many hours needed to climb the learning curve. Take it apart and it will take you forever to get it all back together. Its a nightmare car for an independent shop owner who's business model is to provide value service, which is what most of their business models are based upon.

I think the learning curve is mainly due to a high concentration of interlaced parts and subsystems, not the complexity of any single system. The arm bone isn't really connected to the ankle bone, but it seems like it because you have to disassemble crazy unrelated stuff to get to what you want to fix. Repetition is helpful. Like metal tavern puzzles. I like that, too.

[Maleficio]

Originally Posted by Danglerb

Oh its pretty founded, major weakness of the 928 is high under hood temps and that hardens and makes brittle insulation on wiring and rubber hoses. Very common for a 928 to come in with a minor gripe, and as wires and hoses get moved around the problems grow and multiply. Fix one thing, two others break, and two more get noticed, etc.

Here in Socal one of the popular Porsche only AC places tells 928 owners to go away.

Ever heard of an engine bay mod that would allow the excessive heat to escape?
Like altering the grill to allow more air in, and also modding the aft bay to allow heat to be pushed out? Like raising up the hood mounts a couple of inches. It would look weird, but.......

My Volvo XC70's engine bay gets super hot, and stays hot for a very long time because the engine is basically sealed in by the big plastic belly pan. I took the belly pan off, and now the engine bay has no problem evacuating the excessive heat.

The engine gets dirty faster now, but that's okay, I can clean it up real quick.

By the way, I'm a hopeful future 928 owner.

[Landseer]

Welcome to the 928's! Where are you located?

[Maleficio]

Originally Posted by Landseer

Welcome to the 928's! Where are you located?

Hi. I'm in Virginia Beach, VA.

[Roy928tt]

I think the secret to maintaining a 928 is to not be daunted by it, I think if you can carry this ethos into the job, you will soon discover that your confidence is boosted as you successfully complete job after job, and you realise that the 928 is a superbly engineered, quite simple vehicle.

Who has discovered that you can disassemble an early transaxle with only a couple of spanners and sockets and a pin punch and hammer?

Some say they were built simple to be sold in the American market.

My vote for a starter 928 would obviously be an OB, worry less about the mechanical side of things more about trim and interior.

Cheers Roy

[Danglerb]

Porsche did not design this car to be easy to fix, or tolerant of poor repairs. They made it the fastest car in the world, with a design few if any cars have improved on in thirty years.

BUT

My old Volvo had triple redundant brake circuits. The 928 has a single brake circuit, as in if any line leaks you will have no brakes except the emergency brake.

[RKDinOKC]

As with ANY Porsche model, the best year of the model for you is the newest you can afford.

If you are planning to wrench yourself, two words, Workshop Manual. Esplains it real good.