Model 996 Turbo Year 2003 Acquired April 2014

I was getting ready to list my Turbo; in fact, I was driving back having had the car polished, thinking about exactly what my sales advert might say, when I started to wonder if I was hearing something…

No, sadly I was not. I thought the ticking was emanating from the front left, but as happens when you are driving above 30mph it was quite difficult to pinpoint – it gets quicker and louder with speed. It’s also more prominent when turning left.

I got under the car to have a closer look and lo and behold some of my plastic undertray was hanging down, clearly catching the wind. Some scissors and a bit of a hack later and the offending area was no longer present. After a test drive the sound remained – not ideal when you have just lobbed off a chunk of undertray for seemingly no apparent reason!

Once again I called Porschacare, my trusted specialist, who even over the phone told me it sounded like one of my driveshafts may be on the way out. After taking my car in that diagnosis was confirmed. Matt, the owner and greatest Porsche mechanic I have ever come across, was kind enough to point me away from an OEM replacement from Porsche at £700+VAT and toward an ebay listing for two drive shafts from a 996 C4, which work across the C4/ C4s/turbo range.

Listed at £100 for the pair, I enquired what the buy it now price was and £90 later they were mine! Funny story, the chap selling them turned out to be the owner of Race Technology, a company I know as it has timed a few events for me over the years! We had a nice chat and it turns out he is currently building a 900bhp 996 Turbo with a rear-wheeldrive conversion and a track-focused C4 – from which the drive shafts I needed emanated.

Matt whipped out the old unit and in his words said that it was “falling to bits”, so we have certainly found the offending item. As I had hoped, the car is now whisper quiet. It turns out that the clicking was one of a number of aural symptoms I must have gotten used to, as the cabin is considerably quieter than it was.

The irony is that in the last two months, after deciding to sell, I have spent the most I ever have on the car. With the current downturn in market values now is not really the best time to sell, but unless I take the plunge I may never do it, and I want to experience a host of other cars.

If anyone is looking for a manual 996 Turbo and has followed my monthly reports, please pop me a message.