Hello All,

New to this forum. Great info here, looking forward to contributing.

Did a search and couldn't find any info. Please advise...

Looking to aquire a 996turbo, and luckily my aunt has her's for sale, (yes it's MT) and it's in great condition, 2001 with only 15k miles, all scheduled maintainence done by dealer, and the bonus is her driving style is well mannered, no track time. Full standard car.

I took it out on a test drive. The car is twitching in long corners at moderate speeds. Best I can describe it: whenever the car is pushed to a point where the driver needs to make a conscious effort from sliding to the side of standard seats, the cars front and rear appear to "disagree" sort of like a slithering motion. I felt this at 80kms per hour in both left and right corners. Feels like severly worn bushings or ****eyed alignment.

The new Rosso tires checked out at 34psi, rear 42psi. Front and rear lower arms have been replaced by dealer at which time I asume an alignment must have been done. Only other thing I can think of are bad suspension top mounts which were recommended for service but ignored. Asked the dealer if this could be it and he replied that shouldn't cause instability and that the dampers might be shot.

My hope is that this is the problem as it's an easy fix but in my experience, have never felt this condition occur when the car is so far from being pushed to the edge.

Would appreciate further diagnosis from forum members here so I can tackle the issue and buy the car next week.

Thanks!

 

that means one service..LOL
Dang...had to replace arms in less than 15K...Stock TP is 36/44.

Stock suspension is not that good especially at speeds...I'd go for new coilovers. Lots to choose from.

 

yes 9 years, 11 invoices... haha... it was litereally one oil change per year plus a minor and major

In regards to the arms, they said it was making "noise" rather than performance issues. They didn't use the car for it's performance. But after 9 years of sitting, not suprised the bushings would have degraded.

I agree the stock suspension needs replacement. Looking at Kw V3 or JIC cross but don't think it's normal for the car to wiggle like that, because the speed tested was slower than what i take the same corner with in the land rover (and countless other lesser performance cars).

Could it be something with the AWD system?

 

how fast are you going? 2x speed limit on curves will cause instability sometimes.

i am not entirely convinced your suspension is bad. trying accelerating out of corners slowly to improve stability.

 

You need 44 psi rear and 36 psi front. Not sure if it's reversed in your car. Anything under 40 PSI rear and the sidewalls flex under the load of the weight in rear. The rear end starts acting weird and wants to oversteer, especially mid corner when jumping off the gas (an old 911 quirk).

As stated above 911s have a unique character that allows planting the rear and rocketing out of corners. AKA Slow in, fast out. Unlike almost any other car in terms of grip. Really fun when you start getting the feel for it.

Either way stock suspension really sucks.

 

That's the thing, i was going 80 in a 50km/hr zone. It was not fast. throttle was steady but didnt try to power out because it felt that off. I'm a regular track driver and have owned several AWD turbo format cars, pretty sure this is not normal.

 

I'm thinking the symptom was not from throttle lift while entering/exiting the corner, because I didn't lift, was steady on throttle and tried slight increase on exit. (However, at this speed, the car should have been fine even if i had done the no no and slightly braked/lift off in the corner.) Quite familiar this issue in regards to RWD type FR/MR cars, as I've owned and tracked a few. While this is a pure Rear engine config, it's still AWD and reiterate it was not the type of driving that required powering out.

It didn't feel like the car was oversteering, rather it felt biased-understeer and couldn't decide whether it wanted to under or over at a constant wiggling rhythm. The twitchiness increased with throttle increase/speed so I held it there thru the corner. Same experience both left and right corners.

that said, i have sat in a 996, same corner, my buddy was driving his ATc2, and lets just say driving skills are less then par. He was showing off going faster than his ability varying throttle in mid corner going at about 100kms, as scared as i was, the car felt planted.

yes sorry my post was not clear. at the end of the test drive, i took the car to tire shop, they used a gauge and measured F-34psi. R-42psi which is more or less on spec.

 

hey guys. taking the car into the alignment shop tomorrow to see if that's the issue. Then to an ind. mech to assess what might be the cause.

please chime in your thoughts, don't want to waste the owners time as he's kind enough to come with me (my uncle).

I'm guessing alignment or bad shocks for now. but the car does track straight hands off wheel and as well as during hard braking. May be the dealer missed something when replaceing the F/R control arms.

assuming it's not driver error/nature of the car - what else may be the issue?

thanks

 

Rear end Bump Steer. That's my $.02. My car has it. Feels exactly like what you describe. Get use to it or get new suspension.

 

I had mine at the track earlier this year and it is completely stock suspension and it always felt predictable and solid. So probably something is bad with the suspension somewhere...

 

The alignment could easily be out of whack after 9 years, that's my guess. The dampers shouldn't be worn out, but you never know if it's been sitting a while.

 

Thanks everyone for the their inputs. The alignment was a bit off but nothing extreme. Took the car out again, this time I drove the car harder and pushed it to the point of screeching the tires into a bit of under steer and no issues, she felt a bit sloppy but planted and "normal" , to be expected for a standard car. Bit embarrassed to say but I believe I've over-thought and under drove this one. Good news is the car should be in my garage with in the week's end.