I always found that odd, the 996 was known for some of the cylinder problems. It is not as if they had no experience with a water-cooled car before. The 968, 928 engines were rock solid from my experience. At least if we look at Porsche the chances of knowledge and parts are very good compared to most other marques. It's the knowledge bit that scares me. Ask someone about servicing a Monteverdi or Iso and you will get a quizzical stare never mind a recommendation. I do worry that the Aero is going that way.
Which is worrying since the service documents have mostly gone computer based now and the old pile of paper to review during the qualification is missing. I do see the benefit of it only being accessed by known partners but a requirement to be able to inspect the cars history is missing at a public level. It would be good if you could access this using a key provided on the V5 or dealer network in some way.
I used to like the pile of paper as it provided a guide to what the general upkeep of a car was. I looked at a Maserati once, only once as the out of warranty paperwork was a foot thick and the average bill had four figures without the decimals.
I always liked his other film "right turn clyde".
I think this will benefit the Trads a lot in the future. Some electronics but not rocket scientist level.
While Porsche were ever better engineered than Morgans, also that Porsche do have a considerable spares back-up for older cars and there seems to be independent Porsche expertise covering many large cities and towns, those who service and repair Porsches even outside the official dealership are likely to charge a rather high hourly rate... So much so that the term "Porsche tax" seems to be accepted relating to the price of any costs connected to the marque by those paying out of their own pocket to maintain their cars....
Cheap Porsche...? Yeah well no matter if the car might be an old 924 or a new 911 derivative, the hourly rate will likely be the same.
From 996 through to 997.1 there was ever the chance of bore scoring, which was perhaps in some part put down to enthusiastic driving before the engine was up to temperature, there were also potential IMS issues the interweb has plenty info on such things... Though it seems there may be some older regularly used high mileage water cooled 911 derivative Porsches still going strong... Lengthy lay-ups seem to be unkind to any ICE car..?
BTW, if looking for a cheap Porsche, Perhaps best not to go back to look at pre 996, as the prices of air cooled Porsches rise considerably, and by my judgement seem somewhat ... NUTS..? No point in arguing with the market though..?
At least it seems Porsche may still be prepared to look after their older products, whereas it seems JLR and perhaps others may not wish to work on older machinery, perhaps to avoid all the corrosion that can extend repair times considerably, let alone create piles of rust on the clean workshop floor...?
As for comparing a early water cooled Porsches to pre-digital (mid 80`s..?) carb fed Morgans with their pseudo vintage simplicity....Hmm..? I do understand that modern "technicians" may not like to get their hands dirty and may be somewhat lost in terms of understanding old tec issues given the lack of an OBD port, but I also suspect there will ever be those born with some collection of mechanical understanding chromosomes, a real interest in the way things might work, and with basic computer skills can beam up TM, GoMoG and other Morgan mechanical resources, where they will find answers to just about every Morgan question ever asked, though finding folk with those skills might become ever more difficult to the extent that they end up in time charging more than Porsche type tecs.... (-: ?
