With the Porsche 911 Buyer's Guide, author Randy Leffingwell has created the most comprehensive resource ever available to guide you through the potential pitfalls of purchasing one of these fabulous automobiles. This year-by-year guide will help you select the model and year that is best for you, which features you need and which to avoid, and what flaws to watch out for.
Details: Very informative and useful. It provided just what I needed to zero in on the right used Porsche for me.
Review Summary: A good book if you're buying a 911.
Date: 2007-01-26
Details: But don't stop there. This book is only the start. You must still do much more research before plunking down your hard-earned cash on your dream machine. Visit technical forums on the net such as Pelican Parts and Rennlist and pick the minds of other Porsche enthusiasts. Many of them have owned several Porsches and are a great resource.
Review Summary: Must read for used 911 buyers
Date: 2005-09-17
Details: I'd suggest this is a must read if your going to be buying a used 911. It gives you everything you need to look for in each model year and a reasonable amount of history on the marque to boot. It could probably go into a little more detail on the faults and how they are rectified/managed so that you have a little more info if your actually buying a model that has a known fault. But a very good book that I would recommend.
Review Summary: Nice pictures but too repetitive
Date: 2005-06-11
Details: Compared to other 911 Buyer's guides on the shelf this one looks the nicest. The pictures are good but about half way through the happy feeling disappears:
- The model year descriptions in the 80s and 90s are too repetitive. Once you get this far into the book, there is very little new to learn and reading the same text again and again becomes tiresome. You get the feeling that this writer is not a true Porschefile.
- As was said by another reviewer, because of the repettion picking out the good points from the bad for a particular year is difficult because of the layout.
- Many obvious cut-and-paste errors that have not been fixed with later printings.
- Inaccuracies. Even for the model years that use LE-Jetronic, the author continues to mention K-Jetronic engine improvements that were already mentioned in previous models.
- no per model year color information
- The cost of ownership section for each model year, fails to provide any prices for common ignition parts.
- there is only one photo of each car. Some pages only show photos of the 911 speedster so if you aren't interested in that there is essential no body photo for that year. This is also a problem if you have no interest in the turbo for that year or vice versa.
In the end I found it difficult to decide which year model within a given style was better than the rest. The book is an ok introdection to Porsches but your research will have to continue with a better book.
Review Summary: Too dissuasive
Date: 2004-07-15
Details: I'm glad I started to read this book after I bought my 911, otherwise I would never have bought the car. The book's approach to buying is "If the car has problem x, then thank the seller and walk away". The car I bought had many of the problems which the book mentioned, but my local garage solved most of them in a day and for less than 1000 euros/600 pounds/1000 dollars. I found the book to be an excellent guide to the different models and their differences, but the buying recommendations seem too stringent.
out of 9 Reviews
