IS-SV

Again, to keep the facts coming here, modern Porsche water-cooled engines are not overhauled or rebuilt by the dealers, they are replaced with remanufactured engines. So there is no price difference for comparison (since they are not rebuilt or overhauled).

My references are not to Porsches of the good ole days, I am referring to the modern Porsche engines (water-cooled) beginning with model year 1997. The issues with engine failures are not due to hard usage and are mainly due to known design flaws. Many of the engine failures of the last decade are on cars that have been pampered.

mmarshall

OK, we'll drop this issue.....no need to go on with it. In the sense you are using it (what is actually done at dealerships) you're pretty much correct. Porsche dealerships don't do half-a**ed rebuilds....they pretty much go all the way. But that, of course, is expensive.


Just a side note......don't want to get too far off-topic, but an interesting tidbit. Porsche didn't really want to go the liquid-cooled route. After all, except for the front-engined 928/944, they were pretty much upholding an air-cooled tradition since the 1940s. But ever-increasing emission rules pretty much forced them into it. Air-cooled engines not only had super-long warm-up times, especially in cold weather, with poor heat/defrost in the cabin, but the uneven combustion temperatures in each cylinder that are more or less interent with air-cooling made precise air-fuel mixtures (air density varies with temperature) and a precise emission level hard to achieve. In addition, air-cooled engines are loud, and unless the exhaust system/seals are prefectly maintained, and all the parts are in perfect condition with no leaks, air-cooled engines had a reputation for exhaust/carbon monoxide mixing in with the air-cabin heat.....I'm sure you'll remember that from air-cooled VWs. So, for all these reasons (and more), Porsche decided to join everyone else with liquid cooling.

The air-cooled Chevy Corvair (I'm sure you remember it) tried to get around the slow warm-up and weak heat/defrost problem by a separate gasoline-burning heater for the cabin, but that was just one of several potentially dangerous features on the car that Ralph Nader had a field day with.

IS-SV

Side note, to be at the leading edge of high-performance Porsche had no choice but to go water-cooled (besides the emissions and noise reasons you already mentioned). In short, DOHC configuration runs too hot with air-cooling, therefore watercooling was required with the modern high-output DOHC config.

IS-SV

Any knowledgeable poster on CL could have easily come up with a list like this one.

mmarshall

You mean, like the thread title, a list of potential lemons, poorly-performing, and risky-buy vehicles? I totally agree. You, me, and Mike (1SICKLEX) alone could come up with at least several dozen, even without consulting reliability charts. And others, like lobuxracer, lexmenow, bitkahuna, Threxx, Trexus, spwolf, FKL, etc.....could probably add many more.

IS-SV

Exactly and even with use of reliability charts which would just be further evidence.

Megafast13

Hmm.. Don't see any Japanese based cars hehe

Pursue Perfection Baby...

Not surprised by Jaguar. My Father had one, might as well have tow truck follow you!
Not surprised by the American companies...

MB and BMW is surprise but they will obviously be expensive to repair.