Your fleet running reports

[JonMad]

Fabia passenger window not winding back up. Motor looks fine. I take it this wire from the mechanism shouldn’t be visible here or would round near where the motor connects?

IMG_4504.jpeg (23.03 KiB) Viewed 1983 times

[JonMad]

Or.. if it is supposed to be would round, as that’s what pulls the glass up and down, I assume it’s not supposed to be twisted?

[Beany]

As he has already made up his mind

About 66% this @Matty but also the Cayman is a bit outside my comfort zone in terms of maintenance costs from what people who run Porsches have told me lately (higher OE quality parts costs, higher labour rates - noticeably so than my local BMW specialist), and as my budget restricts me to 987.1 I can't look at an S because I don't want to be kept up at night worrying about bore score on the 3.4 lump. That was enough of an issue with the ZF8 gearbox (which are quite reliable, but when they're not, they're expensive to fix), I'd rather not repeat that...

However, the Z4 also appears to have a significantly more usable boot space - I reckon I could get a suitcase and a couple of servers in there, easy. Looking at the dimensions, I don't think I could manage that in a Cayman because there is, er, an engine in the way that hugely restricts the practical load space.

I'm quite familiar with what my storage requirements are, and I'm actually a bit grumpy that I'm pretty confident an MX5 RF won't fit the bill because otherwise it's right up my street - light and zingy, which I've missed lately. They're second cars to me but obviously they wouldn't be for everyone.

Edit: I do keep looking at Cayman 2.7s though

[mik]

Or.. if it is supposed to be would round, as that’s what pulls the glass up and down, I assume it’s not supposed to be twisted?

Yeah - looks like something has come adrift in the mech to me....

Hopefully yours has screws instead of a millionty rivits.....

[Sundayjumper]

Or.. if it is supposed to be would round, as that’s what pulls the glass up and down, I assume it’s not supposed to be twisted?

Yeah, likely meant to be wrapped around the white bit inside the door. It's likely snapped and got mashed up. Can you drag the glass up & down by hand ? If so the cable is broken. Repair kits should be pretty cheap it's just a bit of a faff of a job.

[Sundayjumper]

About 66% this @Matty but also the Cayman is a bit outside my comfort zone in terms of maintenance costs from what people who run Porsches have told me lately...

My 996 has been incredibly reliable in the 13½ years (!!) I've had it. So that's the obvious answer. Hop in your time machine back to 2011 and buy it before I do. Did. Before I did. Or something.

Dumb question - is the 3.4 Cayman engine the same as the 3.4 996 engine ?

And as for the ZF8, I've two of them here right now (530d & Disco) and I've had a couple before, and they're emphatically one thing I don't worry about. They're really very good.

Z4 fits your needs, stick to that. Cayman (or impossible time travel 911) doesn't have enough useful space.

[Carlos]

An E81 LE would be a nice usable fun car as well. I was fancying one last year before I got back on the lease train.

[16vCento]

Dark metallic green 996?

I think he's after about 12k.

'There is an extensive history file with the car for many thousands of pounds spent/invested in it's future.
Further waffle will no doubt be added later. I would be interested in a px/swap of an ideally standard MK1 Golf GTI, 205GTI, MK1 Mini, basically plus 30 for easy import. (These were the other ones on the list for my birthday.)
Where do I see it valued? Dunno I paid 12.5k
I spent £1.5k on paint on both bumpers.
Recent new rear tyres, Front disks and pads. £1k
New bosch battery a hobby of mine.
M030 suspension, most of this has been refreshed in last couple of years (See s2000 on RR) I will add a link. Not a standard exhaust from the glorious sound it makes when warmed up of course.
It currently has a small water leak traced to a hose connection on the header tank which will be replaced when I get back to the UK late October.
Clean MOT pass, fresh MOT upon sale if you wish. Y791RWR'

[16vCento]

It is a tiptronic though

[16vCento]

I hope someone buys it, it's making faces at me currently

[Beany]

About 66% this @Matty but also the Cayman is a bit outside my comfort zone in terms of maintenance costs from what people who run Porsches have told me lately...

My 996 has been incredibly reliable in the 13½ years (!!) I've had it. So that's the obvious answer. Hop in your time machine back to 2011 and buy it before I do. Did. Before I did. Or something.

Dumb question - is the 3.4 Cayman engine the same as the 3.4 996 engine ?

And as for the ZF8, I've two of them here right now (530d & Disco) and I've had a couple before, and they're emphatically one thing I don't worry about. They're really very good.

Z4 fits your needs, stick to that. Cayman (or impossible time travel 911) doesn't have enough useful space.

Regarding the engines, I don't think they're the same - Cayman S uses M97.21, 996 uses M96.01 and M96.02 engines (all 3.4L). They might have shared tech but I don't know if they, say, share the same cylinder blocks etc - but they all seem to suffer from 'excessive' bore score (compared to engines before and after), seemingly related to them using "Lokasil" cylinder lining rather than Nikasil or Alusil apparently - from what I can tell, they went back to Alusil (I think) afterwards and the problems mysteriously stopped being a thing.

I could just austically splurge what I've learned today from a lot of reading (and a porsche nerd could correct me on some of it), but the short version is:
2.7 seems fine
3.4 in Cayman S are basically russian roulette, everyone basically agrees on this. What they disagree on is how many empty chambers the revolver has, but being randomly unlucky, even if the car shows no signs of problems when you buy it, is non-zero possibility that it'll appear down the line and there's not a lot you can really do about it.

Avoiding it seems to involve not labouring it when hot (when the lining is at it's weakest/most stressed due to heat soak ; 2.7s don't have the problem as they have thicker cylinder walls than the 3.4) so if you have, say, a fast thrash across a backroad then come into a town with lots of stop start traffic, for example, that could cause it there and then. And it's game over, as it will never just 'stay a little scored' - once it's taken a chunk out of the lining, it'll just get worse and worse.

Re ZF8s, thinking about it, I saw many a post in the FaceyB groups about bottom end failures on M135i's (from doing donuts or trackdays etc without a baffled sump - oil starvation is a bitch) but I don't think I ever saw a 'my gearbox has failed' post, and those cars get *thrashed* which is probably a pretty good sign of them being solid boxes.

And once warm, I never noticed any clonks or jerkiness (it'd be a bit recalcitrant when cold, especially 1st to 2nd and 3rd to 2nd but that goes away after 10 miles at speed once it's warmed through) so yeah, I think if anything, I've learned they're really not worth worrying about, and certainly not in anything that isn't popular with Max Power Muppets where people aren't regularly hard launching them, etc.

[16vCento]

You can talk yourself out of any car if you really want to, all cars have their common faults, two of my friends have Boxster S', one from new (2010 car) and neither have had anything other than expected maintenance.

Just buy what you want, get it from a dealer with a warranty, life is too short.

I'll buy any old shite

[Carlos]

I scraped the door on my wife's Sportage last summer. Proper job down to the metal as it was a chipping rendered post!

I touched it in at the time to protect it with the intention of wet sanding it back at a later date. After watching a few YouTube videos I put a load of touch up on to give plenty of meat to sand back.

This was probably a year ago and the car is going back to lease company Wednesday so I really needed to have a crack at it.

Being the dildo I am I thought what's better than wet sanding paint, wet sanding with a pad on a drill! Straight through the touch up on the edge of door down to bare metal

I'll do it by hand next time. On a positive note Meguiars Scratch X and then Autoglym Super resin polish did a good job of bringing the surrounding paint back to life after my butchering with sanding pads.

I expect a couple of hundred bill for that one

[Beany]

You can talk yourself out of any car if you really want to, all cars have their common faults, two of my friends have Boxster S', one from new (2010 car) and neither have had anything other than expected maintenance.

Just buy what you want, get it from a dealer with a warranty, life is too short.

I'll buy any old shite

I mean what I should really do is buy a £1500 Focus Titanium, use that while I spend months umming and aahing, use the focus to go view cars, buy something (probably a Z4 Coupe ) then sell the Focus for £1500.

A 1.0 Ecoboost is the obvious choice, right?

[16vCento]

I'd buy a 1.0 Ecoboost, if it had a proper documented service history, 100%.

It's not a bad engine, it just needs care more than most normal people would give it.

My XF never put a foot wrong engine wise, lots of stories about snapped crankshafts, spun main bearings etcs.

Its luck of the draw with any second hand car.

My R56 Cooper S seemed to have issues after issue, but again, ive seen them do big mileage and not have the issues mine had.

You'd never buy a car if you believed everything the internet told you, I see a LOT of issues regarding all sorts of cars, and I'd still just buy whatever I fancy.

[16vCento]

Anyway, have you bought a Z4 Coupe yet

[Beany]

M135is spin bearings, don't you know?

[jamcg]

Mk4 focus ecoboost doesn’t have wet belt cams, not sure you’d get one for 1500 yet

[Beany]

Mk4 focus ecoboost doesn’t have wet belt cams, not sure you’d get one for 1500 yet

In all seriousness, I think the only Focus's with wet belts are the 1.0s, the rest are fine.

I have of course started looking at Mondeo Tit X wagons

[integrale_evo]

Oh god, I’d somehow completely erased the mondeo from my memory of your car history