OT: Considering buying a 944 turbo for daily driver, any advice on what to look for, or avoid? Options

[Doug Leggins]

I have been lusting over 944's for about a year. I have been doing some research and have started test driving some cars that are for sale. The first was an 88 non S. It had far too many mods and a rough interior. But, WOW when the turbo kicked in I couldn't help but smile! Today I drove an 87. Guards red with black leather interior. Not optioned real well but a nice 82,000 mile 2 owner car. Looks good, runs good and fairly well maintained. The price on this one is $7500. Seems like a good deal based on the condition of the car. Since I am considering buying this one, I took this one onto the interstate. WOW!!! I can now relate to all of the accolades that these cars get when the turbo kicks in at 75 mph (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) . This car felt great! Strong, well mannered, smile inducing fun.

Based on my research so far, I was really looking for an 88S or an 89. But haven't found one close enough yet to test drive.

Should I hold out for an 88S or an 89?

Am I crazy thinking that a 944 turbo will be a good "daily driver", no snow driving.

Any advice on the 944, 944 turbo is greatly appreciated.

[dgw]

We had an 86 944 turbo. Loved it. We bought it used with 27,000 and put over 100,000 more miles on it. It was pretty near a daily driver for us.

The biggest drawback is what Rusty said, it rips $1000 holes in your wallet. That is pretty much what it cost us for every service. That doesn't count the extra trips to the shop for other weird stuff that happened. We followed the recommended maintenance on the belts and didn't have a problem. I don't remember that we had a problem with the turbo either.

But for example, some coolant hose had the come aparts one day, garage floor covered with coolant. We had to have it towed in, and about $1000 later is was fixed.

One other data point, we sold the car in 1994.