The mystery of Porsche part prices

I’ve had conversations with two Porsche owners recently which shows how random Porsche’s part pricing can appear.

First, there’s the gentleman with an 993 Carrera RS. He wanted to tidy up his car’s engine bay (below) and thought he’d have the cooling fan powder coated. This is a popular job people do as the alloy fan invariably corrodes and distracts from the engine’s appearance. One the off chance, however, the owner enquired as to the price of a new fan at his local Porsche Centre and was pleasantly surprised to find it was £130 including a new bearing. We both agreed that this was remarkably good value, especially considering the fan is unique to the RS’s 3.8-litre engine!

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Next up was the owner of a Porsche 964 Carrera 2. His car had been suffering from a noisy heater fan in front of the dash. This is a common – and annoying problem. The 964 (and 993) has an electric fan on each side of the dash, accessed (with difficulty) from inside the luggage compartment. These blow air into the cabin and over the years, their bearings wear out, leading to them squealing as they spin.

The only solution is to fit a brand-new fan (second-hand ones are a gamble as, often, they’re no better), and the owner of this car was shocked to find that they cost around £600 each. That’s a lot of money for an electric motor with a plastic squirrel-cage fan on the end. Especially as the car has two of the things!

With older Porsches, in particular, the pricing of such items seems a lottery but, often, you will be pleasantly surprised at how reasonable some parts at Official Porsche Centres are, so it’s worth enquiring there as well at independent suppliers.

 

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