Tatty Arctic Silver ‘99 996 C4
Discussion
Last week I picked up this 1999 Carrera 4…
Arctic Silver, Turbo Twists, Metropole Blue interior, ruffled leather, heated memory seats, sunroof… the opposite of what I set out to buy, but really pleased with the spec now I’ve got it home!
It had 101700 miles when I picked it up and has been barely driven for the best part of 4 years, but it came with a folder of receipts and an excel spreadsheet of all the maintenance from new so seemed like a good punt… we’ll see how I feel about that decision after it goes in for a service and an inspection this week!
I’ve got lots of plans for this car, namely a trip to Italy towards the back end of the year which I planned and dreamed about during long nights in lockdown, but will hopefully get it out on track and on some more local road trips before then!
I’m hoping to keep the car for a long time so will be spending some money on it to get it just the way I want it, this thread will hopefully help me document its transformation and the many trips and experiences I have in it!
Arctic Silver, Turbo Twists, Metropole Blue interior, ruffled leather, heated memory seats, sunroof… the opposite of what I set out to buy, but really pleased with the spec now I’ve got it home!
It had 101700 miles when I picked it up and has been barely driven for the best part of 4 years, but it came with a folder of receipts and an excel spreadsheet of all the maintenance from new so seemed like a good punt… we’ll see how I feel about that decision after it goes in for a service and an inspection this week!
I’ve got lots of plans for this car, namely a trip to Italy towards the back end of the year which I planned and dreamed about during long nights in lockdown, but will hopefully get it out on track and on some more local road trips before then!
I’m hoping to keep the car for a long time so will be spending some money on it to get it just the way I want it, this thread will hopefully help me document its transformation and the many trips and experiences I have in it!
MonacoBlues said:
Last week I picked up this 1999 Carrera 4…
Arctic Silver, Turbo Twists, Metropole Blue interior, ruffled leather, heated memory seats, sunroof… the opposite of what I set out to buy, but really pleased with the spec now I’ve got it home!
It had 101700 miles when I picked it up and has been barely driven for the best part of 4 years, but it came with a folder of receipts and an excel spreadsheet of all the maintenance from new so seemed like a good punt… we’ll see how I feel about that decision after it goes in for a service and an inspection this week!
I’ve got lots of plans for this car, namely a trip to Italy towards the back end of the year which I planned and dreamed about during long nights in lockdown, but will hopefully get it out on track and on some more local road trips before then!
I’m hoping to keep the car for a long time so will be spending some money on it to get it just the way I want it, this thread will hopefully help me document its transformation and the many trips and experiences I have in it!
That looks really nice. The lines on this era 911 are lovely. Arctic Silver, Turbo Twists, Metropole Blue interior, ruffled leather, heated memory seats, sunroof… the opposite of what I set out to buy, but really pleased with the spec now I’ve got it home!
It had 101700 miles when I picked it up and has been barely driven for the best part of 4 years, but it came with a folder of receipts and an excel spreadsheet of all the maintenance from new so seemed like a good punt… we’ll see how I feel about that decision after it goes in for a service and an inspection this week!
I’ve got lots of plans for this car, namely a trip to Italy towards the back end of the year which I planned and dreamed about during long nights in lockdown, but will hopefully get it out on track and on some more local road trips before then!
I’m hoping to keep the car for a long time so will be spending some money on it to get it just the way I want it, this thread will hopefully help me document its transformation and the many trips and experiences I have in it!
r1ch said:
What was the spec you set out to buy out of interest? I really like it, I think silver is under rated, kind of timeless. You'll have to post some more photo's of the interior etc.
I was looking for black/dark blue paint, black interior, 3.6, Carrera 2, sports seats, no sunroof… I will do soon, once I’ve given it a clean and a vacuum
I was too busy driving it last weekend to make it look pretty!It’s been a bit of an expensive first few weeks of ownership with the C4!
I booked it in for a service shortly after picking it up with my local specialist as I knew the car had been sitting for a while, after sending them the maintenance history we decided it only needed a minor service and a new belt, happy days, I thought. Before i’d had a chance to take it in for the service I noticed the engine mounts were leaking, so decided whilst it was in there I’d get them to replace the engine mounts at the same time, and I might as well upgrade to RSS Tarmac mounts as I’d heard good things. Great, a bit more than I’d originally planned but nice to know it’s in good shape…
I dropped it off on Thursday 10th March, and got a phone call the same day saying they had finished the service and engine mounts, but the brake pipes under the car were corroded and needed replacing ‘soon’… they couldn’t give me a reliable quote because the time needed to remove the gearbox can vary depending on how corroded everything is, and the callipers might need replacing (at around £500 each!) if the bleed nipple is stuck. I did some quick maths based on the conversation and it came to £300 parts + 16h labour at £100/h + £0-£2000 depending on how lucky I get with the callipers!!! As you can imagine I had to lay on the floor for a while to recover from the shock!
After I pulled myself up from the floor I did some googling and found you can get a flexible hose to go over the gearbox to save having to remove it! I phoned the specialist to ask them, and got a phone call back shortly after to say that they had found the part and could get it delivered next day (by this point Tuesday 15th). Tuesday comes and goes, no word from the specialist, I phone up and they tell me it’s not arrived, hopefully tomorrow. This goes on all week, over the weekend, until the part is finally delivered on Mon 21st!! The courier company (rhymes with Permes) which was used’s understanding of ‘next day delivery’ is obviously very different to mine!
I finally got the car back on Wed 23rd, which means the specialist had the car as long as I’d had it when I dropped it off! Luckily I didn’t have to replace any of the callipers so the bill wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could’ve been (it came to £1200 to replace the brake pipes if anyone’s interested). All was forgiven on the drive home though, sun shining, sunroof open, windows down, flat 6 howling to the red line…
Annoyingly all this had meant I had missed a weekend of beautiful weather over which I had planned a day of detailing the car with a friend, and a day of driving to Caffeine and Machine and back! To rub salt in the wounds there was a ‘Mezger Meet’ at C&M on the Sunday morning (which I didn’t know about until I turned up) so all manner of amazing Porsches were lined up in the car park
I’m itching to get out for a proper drive in it now, hopefully very soon!!
I booked it in for a service shortly after picking it up with my local specialist as I knew the car had been sitting for a while, after sending them the maintenance history we decided it only needed a minor service and a new belt, happy days, I thought. Before i’d had a chance to take it in for the service I noticed the engine mounts were leaking, so decided whilst it was in there I’d get them to replace the engine mounts at the same time, and I might as well upgrade to RSS Tarmac mounts as I’d heard good things. Great, a bit more than I’d originally planned but nice to know it’s in good shape…
I dropped it off on Thursday 10th March, and got a phone call the same day saying they had finished the service and engine mounts, but the brake pipes under the car were corroded and needed replacing ‘soon’… they couldn’t give me a reliable quote because the time needed to remove the gearbox can vary depending on how corroded everything is, and the callipers might need replacing (at around £500 each!) if the bleed nipple is stuck. I did some quick maths based on the conversation and it came to £300 parts + 16h labour at £100/h + £0-£2000 depending on how lucky I get with the callipers!!! As you can imagine I had to lay on the floor for a while to recover from the shock!
After I pulled myself up from the floor I did some googling and found you can get a flexible hose to go over the gearbox to save having to remove it! I phoned the specialist to ask them, and got a phone call back shortly after to say that they had found the part and could get it delivered next day (by this point Tuesday 15th). Tuesday comes and goes, no word from the specialist, I phone up and they tell me it’s not arrived, hopefully tomorrow. This goes on all week, over the weekend, until the part is finally delivered on Mon 21st!! The courier company (rhymes with Permes) which was used’s understanding of ‘next day delivery’ is obviously very different to mine!
I finally got the car back on Wed 23rd, which means the specialist had the car as long as I’d had it when I dropped it off! Luckily I didn’t have to replace any of the callipers so the bill wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could’ve been (it came to £1200 to replace the brake pipes if anyone’s interested). All was forgiven on the drive home though, sun shining, sunroof open, windows down, flat 6 howling to the red line…
Annoyingly all this had meant I had missed a weekend of beautiful weather over which I had planned a day of detailing the car with a friend, and a day of driving to Caffeine and Machine and back! To rub salt in the wounds there was a ‘Mezger Meet’ at C&M on the Sunday morning (which I didn’t know about until I turned up) so all manner of amazing Porsches were lined up in the car park
I’m itching to get out for a proper drive in it now, hopefully very soon!!
Edited by MonacoBlues on Thursday 24th March 23:59
Edited by MonacoBlues on Friday 25th March 00:00
I had a gearbox rebuild done on my C4 as the pinion bearing was whining. I've a really good techie (ex OPC) who looks after my car & he removed my gearbox in 12 minutes....I was shocked at how quickly it came out - of course it took a little longer to put it back in although it proves if you know what you are doing and motivated to get things done promptly!!
It’s been a couple of months since my last update, and I’ve been busy enjoying the C4 as the weathers been improving!
In April I joined Hagerty UK for ‘Drive it Day’ ‘22, it was a great route winding through Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire ending up at Bicester Heritage for the ‘Sunday Scramble’. There was some great cars both on the ‘Drive it Day’ event and at the ‘Sunday Scramble’, the car park at the latter was nearly as good as the cars on show in the event!
Also in April I went to a friends wedding, the reception of which was held at the beautiful Notley Abbey, I couldn’t resist taking this shot on the tree lined driveway!
In May I took it to Caffeine and Machine for the first time, as always a good selection of things in the yard!
I also got a couple of opportunities in May to get a few small jobs done on the car which have been bothering me. Firstly I replaced the nearside wing mirror glass, for some reason it had a concave mirror when I picked it up which meant it was like looking through a pair of binoculars, great if you wanted to count how many flies the car on the inside lane had on their bumper, but a lorry could fit in the blind spot it created! Replaced it with a genuine convex mirror, much much better!
Second job was to adjust the exhaust tips as they were hitting the bumper after the new engine mounts were fitted. This turned into a right pain to do for two reasons, firstly 4 out of 6 of the bumper ‘speed nuts’ and screws were corroded together so they had to be drilled out, and secondly because adjusting the exhaust tips means sliding the bumper on and off about 100 times until you have the alignment ‘just so’!
Third job was to get the valved exhaust working and fit the new speed nuts and screws whilst the bumper was off (again!). This was quite easy compared to the exhaust tips job, it’s possibly to get the bumper and heat shields off in about 10 mins when there’s no corroded nuts! The valved exhaust uses engine vacuum to actuate the solenoids on the exhaust, where these sit means they get covered in road grime so it’s very common for them to seize up if they aren’t regularly used. It was quite easy to get them moving again, the solenoids themselves just needed a bit of penetrant and some ‘mechanical persuasion’ to free them. A bit of high temp PTFE on the solenoid and mechanism should hopefully stop it corroding together again next time it rains…
This month should see more miles and smiles for the C4 and I, as I’ve got a trip out to the peaks and the North York Moors planned with some friends! But first, the MOT is due…
In April I joined Hagerty UK for ‘Drive it Day’ ‘22, it was a great route winding through Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire ending up at Bicester Heritage for the ‘Sunday Scramble’. There was some great cars both on the ‘Drive it Day’ event and at the ‘Sunday Scramble’, the car park at the latter was nearly as good as the cars on show in the event!
Also in April I went to a friends wedding, the reception of which was held at the beautiful Notley Abbey, I couldn’t resist taking this shot on the tree lined driveway!
In May I took it to Caffeine and Machine for the first time, as always a good selection of things in the yard!
I also got a couple of opportunities in May to get a few small jobs done on the car which have been bothering me. Firstly I replaced the nearside wing mirror glass, for some reason it had a concave mirror when I picked it up which meant it was like looking through a pair of binoculars, great if you wanted to count how many flies the car on the inside lane had on their bumper, but a lorry could fit in the blind spot it created! Replaced it with a genuine convex mirror, much much better!
Second job was to adjust the exhaust tips as they were hitting the bumper after the new engine mounts were fitted. This turned into a right pain to do for two reasons, firstly 4 out of 6 of the bumper ‘speed nuts’ and screws were corroded together so they had to be drilled out, and secondly because adjusting the exhaust tips means sliding the bumper on and off about 100 times until you have the alignment ‘just so’!
Third job was to get the valved exhaust working and fit the new speed nuts and screws whilst the bumper was off (again!). This was quite easy compared to the exhaust tips job, it’s possibly to get the bumper and heat shields off in about 10 mins when there’s no corroded nuts! The valved exhaust uses engine vacuum to actuate the solenoids on the exhaust, where these sit means they get covered in road grime so it’s very common for them to seize up if they aren’t regularly used. It was quite easy to get them moving again, the solenoids themselves just needed a bit of penetrant and some ‘mechanical persuasion’ to free them. A bit of high temp PTFE on the solenoid and mechanism should hopefully stop it corroding together again next time it rains…
This month should see more miles and smiles for the C4 and I, as I’ve got a trip out to the peaks and the North York Moors planned with some friends! But first, the MOT is due…
In my last update I was joking about being worried about the upcoming MOT… well the car didn’t even make it to the MOT before having to visit the garage! The weekend before it was booked in for the MOT I got a stone through my radiator on my way home, luckily a friendly chap in a fiesta ST saw me stopped on the side of the road and had two 2 litre bottles of water in his boot, these got me home but it was obviously a pretty catastrophic leak as coolant was pouring out of the underside of the car!
The car went off to my local specialist to have two new radiators and the MOT done, which it promptly failed… So two new lower wishbones on the rear and a hefty bill stinging my wallet, and it was back with me for a 650 mile road trip that weekend!
(I’m on mobile and the image upload isn’t working, I’ll add some photos another time)
The car went off to my local specialist to have two new radiators and the MOT done, which it promptly failed… So two new lower wishbones on the rear and a hefty bill stinging my wallet, and it was back with me for a 650 mile road trip that weekend!
(I’m on mobile and the image upload isn’t working, I’ll add some photos another time)
Edited by MonacoBlues on Tuesday 26th July 08:39
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