How reliable are porsche 944 turbos?

Not reliable and rather slow in a straight line. But they can be bought for cheap and it's RWD and light(I think). Remember it's still a Porsche so it's still going to be rather pricy when something breaks. Something will break when you buy one of these almost guaranteed. I'm sure it's fun to drive and if you have a daily driver, it should be fine to own if you can afford the upkeep. What I'm thinking is that if you can pay for it when it breaks, you should have one of the best entery level RWD sports cars for the money.
 
This thread caught my eye... in about two years (and $5000 to spend) I will buy a car and I had my eye on a nice 1984 porsche 944. :indiff: any other sporty cars out there you guys might recommend?
 
944s were made just at the beginning of the electrical age, which makes that side of things EXTREMELY unreliable.
However, it's pretty common for people to drop Chevy V8s and all that sort of crap in them if you're into that sort of stuff.

GTMail
Not reliable and rather slow in a straight line. But they can be bought for cheap and it's RWD and light(I think). Remember it's still a Porsche so it's still going to be rather pricy when something breaks. Something will break when you buy one of these almost guaranteed. I'm sure it's fun to drive and if you have a daily driver, it should be fine to own if you can afford the upkeep. What I'm thinking is that if you can pay for it when it breaks, you should have one of the best entery level RWD sports cars for the money.
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If I'm not mistaken, it's the fastest road going Porsche of it's time top speed wise. Besides the 959 of course. But good luck getting one of those into the US.
 
Not, unfortunately.

gogatrs, you're confusing the 944 for the 928, which is far from slow, even by todays standards. I believe the 928 hit 189mph at Nardo? The 944 was much slower and nimble, but still had some punch to it and a pretty solid powerband from the 3.0 I4.
 
The 944 turbo has a pretty good 60-100 time because turbo but the 0-60 is not that amazing. That said it has amazing performance for the initial price. Thing is, they are generally not reliable and even if you pay the premium for a well maintained car (which you should, probably worth it) you might notice in the repair bills that a good amount of money has been put Into the car to keep it in good condition. What you should do if you haven't yet done is look for as much info as you can in the net and have a PPI done before you buy.
 
ShobThaBob
Not, unfortunately.

gogatrs, you're confusing the 944 for the 928, which is far from slow, even by todays standards. I believe the 928 hit 189mph at Nardo? The 944 was much slower and nimble, but still had some punch to it and a pretty solid powerband from the 3.0 I4.
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Ewwww.
Ugliest Porsche ever put into production.
 
How about...

I buy a porche 928 chassis and fit a porsche 944 body on it so I can get the best of both worlds? :dopey:
 
As long as you don't buy the Turbo version you will be ok. The electrics are a bit dodgy, but with some knowledge, and the wiring diagram in your garage you will be perfectly fine.
 
Not sure about how quick the Turbos are. The standard ones are dog gone slow. Nimble and fun, but slow.

Too bad they aren't very reliable either. My friend has one, and so much stuff has broken on it. When things break, they are expensive to fix too.

If you intend to strip everything out (a la Spec 944), then they are pretty decent. As a daily driver though (or the only driver), unless you have deep pockets and lots of patience, I would avoid it.
 
Kinda surprised about the reliability, I still see quite a few 944s on the road in the UK, more than the 924 which was more common back in the day. Rarely see the later shape 944s though, oddly (the more rounded-looking styling)

So are the problems specifically with the Turbo version?
 
Well, there's wide variety of things with 944 that can go wrong. The timing chain tensioner, waterpump.. And yes, the transmission if you insist on launching it hard. IMHO, best bet in case of 944 would be S or S2.. NA, 3l I4 with 16v head is bit unusual, but that's part of the charm. If you want more reliability, you could always hunt down Audi I5. Better reliability and epic soundtrack, if you know how to pull it off.



running1.jpg


As you can see, Audi's 2.2l 20v I5 fits in perfectly! :D
 
To to OP, first an RX7 now a 944? If you have to ask how "reliable" these historically "unreliable" cars are, you haven't done enough research.

Reliable = Honda. Parts are cheap, easy to repair even for the novice mechanic, there are millions of them everywhere.

/ Thread
 
?
944 parts are cheap. My 944 is reliable. The only time I drive it, is when I race 944Spec in it. Change the oil, make sure the timing belt is done properly, and you'll be fine. It's a 25+ year old car. Neglect it, and things go wrong. Treat it like a new car, and there's no problem.
 
MaliciousMD
To to OP, first an RX7 now a 944? If you have to ask how "reliable" these historically "unreliable" cars are, you haven't done enough research.
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Seriously? He is doing research, he is asking here, a trusted community of like-minded petrolheads. Are you suggesting everything should be researched elsewhere and no-one should ask questions here? Wouldn't be much of a forum left.
 
By asking about these specific two cars, he's already done his research and is wishing it all wasn't true.
 
Tyger
Seriously?
Click to expand...

Quite, thanks for asking...

Gumpertapollo12
Like the title says and thanks for the info in advance :D
Click to expand...
Shows little to no effort.

As diverse as the community is here, there are better places to do research and ask questions about the mentioned cars. NoPistons, 944Online, even the GrassRoots Motorsports forum has quite a a few 9XX owners, and for sure plenty of RX7 owners. I just see it more like this...

first-spoon-feedMVT.jpg


I'm not against offering advice, but there is very little response or constructive feedback from the OP to various peoples opinions or knowledge on both cars. "Porsche 944 is the MOST reliable car ever made, everyone needs one" is the response most of these types of posters are looking for.

Hence back to my point that reliable = Honda. That was my opinion for the OP after reading his 2 threads on reliability.
 

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