When I was a kid I loved Porsches as well as Vettes and Mustangs. I purchased a brand new Porsche and even went to Stuttgart to see the factory. This was of course before kids or a mortgage! Just last week I had the chance to purchase a gorgeous mid-nite blue w/ deerskin leather 911 Carrera at $5000 below book, which almost made it affordable! It was not quite as gorgeous as a C3 but the reason I decided to pass was the extreme maintainance cost. The engine on this particular year had a problem that could potentialy cost 15 thousand dollars.The prices for parts and regular maintainance were about 500% of what my '77 C3 cost! Most of the parts are on the shelf at Napa, Advance , Autozone, etc. for my C3. We all complain about parts prices on our C3's but we forget how good we really have it !

 

I was (and still am to some degree) a Jaguar E-Type fan...Porsche too, but not so much. Yes, any part sold as a Corvette part has a premium, but there are OTS options for a lot of them. Very few parts I replaced on my '80 are original replacement parts. In hindsight, our decision to buy an '80 Corvette instead of a '69 E-Type was well made.

 

i curumba 15k to repair!i don't complain about the parts,i complain that you don't know the quality of the part these days.the better hub/bearing assembly(b c a) came from the better part of korea.

 

Series 1 and 2 E-Types are in the running for the most gorgeous car EVER built so I'll trade my 1977 C3 straight across for a like condition Jag any time. Even the exhaust note is Opera to the Vette's Rock and Roll. Yes parts are more dear, but I would shoulder that burden gladly.

 

Hi bphg,
The dealer that I bought my Audi from is also a Porsche dealer. ALWAYS some GREAT looking cars to check out.
How did the salesmen know IMMEDIATELY that I wasn't even a POSSIBLE customer???
Regards,
Alan

 

My wife has a Mercedes SL500. Beautiful car but the maint costs are outragous! Everything is electronically controlled and priced accordingly. When I call to make an appt for her car, I always start out with "I'm not your average Mercedes owner and I do use a checkbook ledger." I could have bought a complete suspension system for the Vette for what it cost to replace a throttle control module on her car last year. Oh well, it was her dream car when we were younger so I just grin when something goes wrong with it.

Terry

 

Alan, Thats funny, when I went to the left coast I stopped in BEVERLY HILLS. Being a car nut I stopped in at the local ROLLS ROYCE dealer, the salesmen never even got out of their chairs! When I stopped at the FERRARI dealership, the salesman politely answered a few questions then went back to his desk! At the PORSCHE dealership they swamped me and almost talked me into cashing in my airline ticket and driving cross country home in a new PORSCHE. The deal breaker was that it was a California car and they could not sell me a 49 state car! Later when I got home I did buy a new Porsche, but all those salesmen had me sized up perfectly!!

 

I was casually shopping for a Porsche 928 until I learned the timing chain was 5' long.

 

Deerskin?

 

Not only foreign cars, but check the price on a water pump for a C-6 Vette! Love that iron motor cost and reliability.

 

I meant deerskin color, it was regular leather, sorry.

 

Wouldn't a California car be street legal in all other 49 states?

 

Yes, but it is smogged down to pass cali's smog rules. So the HP is down a little from the other 49. (Am I correct in this?)

 

Depends on the year, now most new cars sold around the country are Cal legal. Not many models have a Cal specific option anymore.

 

This trip happened quite a while ago when they were making California cars and 49 state cars. Absolutely it would have been street legal back east but down about 20hp. It also had extra emission parts and tuning specs that my local dealer would not have immediate access to. And at resale time it would be difficult to sell due to the above reasons. When I got home I purchased a 49 state car thus avoiding all of these issues!

 

The Italians, Germans, and British build some great cars but if I wanted to own a car I couldn't afford to repair and maintane I would own a C5 or C6 Z06.

 

Ahhhh, you just made me think of that old joke about why the English drink warm beer............


Scott

 

In 1985 I sold one of my vettes and bought a Porsche 944. It was a great car until it blew a head gasket. I had to take out a loan to get the car repaired, and then I had to sell the car to pay off the loan.

Now I am back to cars I can work on in my garage. 72,73,75,86 Vettes.


kdf

 

Actually the newer Corvettes like the C5 and C6 are pretty inexpensive to maintain. For instance, the service required for my C5 ZO6 besides the oil/filter change was to replace the air filter at 15K and 30K miles. My C6 ZO6 maintenance costs have only been ~$100 oil/filter changes at 7,000 to 8,000 intervals - based on the the oil life monitor that advises % oil life remaining. I don't go below 40%, which equates to annual oil changes. Also consider the cars (2007 and onward) have a 100,000/5 year power train warranty, so if something in the power train breaks and the car is still under warranty (no tunes allowed) there is no cost to the owner.

Tires, OTOH, are a pretty big expense, but it comes with the territory of owning a very high performance car.

Overall, modern Corvettes are inexpensive to maintain compared to the exotic machinery from Europe and Japan.

 

I'm probably going to get banned forever for what I'm about to say, but after 12 years I sold my '75 last week. I liked the car originally but as the years went on I began to despise it. Always loved to wrench on vehicles since I was a kid and the C3 ruined me to the point I dreaded doing even regular maintenance. It's the first car I had ZERO sellers remorse for as it left the driveway last Thursday.
Yes, the parts were plentiful whether I wanted new or used and are dirt cheap. On the other hand GM seemed to take a heater core and then build the car around it as inexpensively as possible. I always thought simple things like wire and hose paths were poorly thought out...individual colored wires hanging out here and there, high speed blower relay mounted near a hot exhaust manifold, A/C belt rides a fraction of an inch from the radiator hose etc. Interior quality was no better than my old Vega, plastic that warps or cracks if you look at it wrong and wants to self destruct no matter how gently you try to take it apart. A/C setup tuned to perfection was nothing to brag about. Just wrong for a flagship GM product with such a beautiful look.

Saturday I picked up the Vette's replacement, a Porsche 928 Weissach #153 with 45K miles. Price of parts are scarey expensive and there will be a wait time but it's not a daily commuter either. This is my first German car and I always thought the claims of quality and well thought out design were highly overrated. I now see it really is built like a Swiss watch...drive train layout, doors that sound like a vault door slamming shut and interior that's nicer than any furniture I've ever owned.

If I do return to a Vette one day, it'll most likely be a C2 or a C5+. GM intelligence and quality seemed to be much better in the 60s vs. 70s to mid 80s.