Lee Sibley
Poole, UK @lee_sibs That Nine Eleven Guy
Well I’m very pleased to say I’m no longer embarrassed to drive what was my creaking, clunking 996 around! Truth be told, I’d not really spent much time on my 911 this year, so its condition began to spiral. You’ll remember last month I was handed a £3.6k estimate to replenish some chassis parts in addition to fitting the KW V3 coilovers. Well, I was extremely reluctant to spend that sort of cash in the current climate, so for the first time, I opted to go aftermarket.
In the end, I purchased four lower arms, four tuning forks, four control
arms for the rear plus two toe arms from MEYLE, all items being at least half the price of Porsche. The reason I went with MEYLE was because it currently offers a two-year, unlimited mileage guarantee. Given that it’s alleged bushes tend to fail sooner on aftermarket products, the guarantee gave me confidence to give it a punt. I’ll be very happy to report how I get on with the MEYLE chassis parts going forward, particularly if any of the parts need replacing within the next two years – though I hope they won’t! I also got two track rod ends from TRW, who were the original suppliers of these parts to Porsche. It’s well known a TRW part is exactly the same as Porsche, albeit without a Porsche part number – and the associated ‘Porsche tax’.
I took my 996 to Porsche specialists, Wrightune, to get the chassis replenished. Wrightune is a family business now 20 years strong consisting of Tony Wright, son Chris, and Joe Carter. I’ve called in to them many times before for a chat but this was the first time my car had been on the ramps. Chris said I should set aside up to two days for the 996’s chassis replenishment and geo, in case parts were seized (which on a 996 and 997 is highly likely). In the end, we had no such trouble: everything came off relatively easily, and the car was in and
out within a day. Inspecting the old parts as they came off was interesting: so many bushes were in different states of disrepair, ranging from perished to split to full-on delaminated. No wonder the 996 has been getting progressively more horrendous to drive.
I was so impressed with Wrightune’s knowledge and efficiency with ‘Little Irish’. The guys also replaced my driver’s side window mechanism as the cables had snapped so the window was stuck, and Chris also advised the slow cranking of my car on start-up was because the battery was on the way out. I subsequently bought a Bosch S4 110 battery on Chris’ advice and fitted it at home a few days later.
All told it was an expensive month but boy was it worth it. The 996 bursts to life on start-up, I have the luxury once again of being able to raise and lower my driver’s side window and, best of all, there’s no embarrassing croaking or clunking over bumps around town. The car is in better contact with the road and has more grip, so I’ve been enjoying pushing the car, confident that I know how it’s going to react to the road ahead of it. This was something I’d almost totally lost in the car this year and was probably why I hadn’t driven it much. I’m looking forward once again to driving the car on some good roads soon.