[androdev]

For some reason, I end up in heavy rains too often with this car even though this is the least used car in the garage. Reminds me of this guy:

"And as he drove on, the rainclouds dragged down the sky after him, for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him."
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Crossing 27K km. Ethanol blending, potholes and flooded roads in the city, debris flying on the highways, HSRP plate drilling - it's like death by thousand cuts. Found love in a hopeless place!

[Rahul Munjal]

Originally Posted by Pancham

Dont bother about PPF. Apart from the fact that it can turn yellow, PPF also works best when the car is new with factory finish paint. Given that your 911 is old, PPF might not stick that well and can have bubbles, etc. I say, let it slide.

Sir! Gone are those days when PPF used to turn yellow, now brands like Llumar/Kavaca/Stek are offering PPF with 10years replacement warranty for yellowing or any defects.

And why do you think that PPF will not be able to stick properly on an old car plus have bubbles?

I have myself been using PPF on my cars since the past 6 years - without any issue. One car being white and other being navy blue. On my white car - PPF was installed after 1 year of delivery and the other direct from showroom to the PPF parlor.

PPFs are a boon and have saved me countless amount of times from major paint damage. Yes if its a big accident then you need to renew everything otherwise the self healing PPF does its Job perfectly. Costing comes around 1.5Lto2L for a car size of Seltos with 10years warranty.

[androdev]

Today is the RHD version of 9/11 (Nov 11). The day began with an early morning email from DHL informing me that the Porsche parts I ordered would be delivered today. Awesome!



eBay also joined the party and sent me an email to let me know that they've shipped the parts!



In the spirit of Diwali, I have decided to give the lights of my Porsche a makeover. Some irresponsible detailer during the previous ownership had run the polisher on the lights resulting in horrible scratches on the lenses. I tried to get them corrected but it was of no use - plus the front lenses also developed weather/age related fade and cracks - due, I'm sure, to outdoor parking. Porsche parts are so uncomfortably expensive to buy and I am sure, except for me, nobody notices or cares about the scratches and fading. Eventually I decided to pull the trigger as I couldn't put up with the sight much longer and did not wish to be reminded of that donkey who ran the polisher over the lights.

Tail lights and floor mats have arrived - pretty smooth delivery experience including customs, just took 3 days end to end.







For the front headlights, which are insanely expensive, I am going to attempt the lens replacement alone. Have read a few success stories on the internet and decided to order replica lenses from eBay. Hope to update this thread once the full sparkling new look is achieved.

Other than this "Diwali" makeover plans, it's been business as usual.

Painful darshan every six months:



Had a good Dasara break (@Sri Lanka, our first visit)



Happy Diwali to everyone - have a blast (or not!)

[androdev]

At the time of buying this 911, I was in two minds whether to buy 997 or 991. Even though 991 is more expensive, it has much better quality and materials. 991 cars in the market were also in much better condition (some in almost showroom condition) with very less wear and tear. On the other hand, 997 choices were very limited. Quality of materials was one step lower and lot of bits with dated design.

Dated look doesn't bother me much, it's just a preference for classic/legacy look. The difficult pill to swallow was the below average cosmetic condition of the car. You know, it's very hard to find an owner who manages to keep a car in a great condition for 10 long years. The thing irritated me the most was the condition of lights - somebody ran a polisher on the lights. Grrrr... And the lights also have a faded look. They still look just fine as you can see from the pics.



Only upon close examination at some specific angles, you will see this.





And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Getting back to the 997 vs 991 dilemma, I am very happy with my decision to go with 997. With the introduction of gorgeous 992, it has become evident that 991 was a work-in-progress design. These is a subjective opinion, but I feel 993, 997, 992 look more appealing than 996 and 991 (especially pre-facelift which was in my shortlist).

After owning the 997 for a few years and seeing the overall landscape of current and future cars, I am convinced that I should hold on to this 997 as long as the government allows it on the road.

That's the long backstory to justify why I spent a considerable amount of money to replace perfectly working (decent looking as well) parts.

Now the prices:

Tail lights:
MRP $900 apiece.
Dealer price typically tends to be 2.5-3X of MRP
Best online discounted price I found and what I paid finally: around $600 apiece
Shipping & duties: Roughly works out to be 50% extra



Headlights:
MRP $2600 apiece (yes!)
Dealer price typically tends to be 2.5-3X of MRP
Even finding a discounted price and importing them would be super expensive, especially given that my lights don't need replacement.

I found just the lens (typical eBay China stuff) and purchased them for $200 + shipping and duty. This is a pretty advanced DYI (for me) and you can still mess up the bond/sealing between the housing and lens - as usual Porsche designed the lights to be hard to repair.

I came across LED aftermarket lights with 992 styling. Here is a comparison of OE on the left and new LED on the right.


They look great and are made by a fairly reputed aftermarket light company called Morimoto. $1800 for a pair. Only problem is they make only for LHD cars (US market). All my attempts to find if these fit RHD cars did not yield any useful info - always got the standard reply "tested only with cars sold in USA, no clue about other markets". I looked up some videos and images online and tried to compare with my car and I felt it will work. So here they are after $1800 + shipping and duties.



LHD lights, apart from physical fitment, also require headlight beam pattern adjustment to match the RHD traffic. I was able to manage this as the lights come with a provision to adjust the beam height. OEM lights have dynamic cornering feature which is lacking in these aftermarket lights resulting an error "Headlight beam adjustment failure" - this needs some coding changes which I hope to take care of during next service visit.

After some elbow grease and cuss words, I managed to put everything together and the makeover is really impressive.

[Naman_Ferrari]

Congratulations on those lights. Absolutely drool worthy. Makes me want to get a pair for my car too some day. Might look even better if you smoke it?

[d3mon]

Originally Posted by androdev

LHD lights, apart from physical fitment, also require headlight beam pattern adjustment to match the RHD traffic. I was able to manage this as the lights come with a provision to adjust the beam height.[/ATTACH]

The lights look great with the iconic Porsche DRL signature, but the LHD pattern should mean that the step up in beam height is on the wrong side, right?
The left side of the beam will be lower than the right one, and while lowering the entire beam height will avoid blinding the traffic on the right, you'll lose a lot of the visibility on your left side too.

[androdev]

Originally Posted by Naman_Ferrari

Congratulations on those lights. Absolutely drool worthy. Makes me want to get a pair for my car too some day. Might look even better if you smoke it?

Worth considering if you ever plan to replace the lights - much cheaper compared to OEM and better looking. The overall design of these cars doesn't change much with each new launch - so these don't look out of place or whacky. These lights already have a slight darker tint compared to the OEM, they look great in person.

Originally Posted by d3mon

The lights look great with the iconic Porsche DRL signature, but the LHD pattern should mean that the step up in beam height is on the wrong side, right?
The left side of the beam will be lower than the right one, and while lowering the entire beam height will avoid blinding the traffic on the right, you'll lose a lot of the visibility on your left side too.

Well, I hesitated a lot to buy these LHD lights as I was worried they may not fit (connectors and housing differences) and the beam pattern might be totally messed up for RHD traffic. It was a huge risk to import them but it was just too temping given all the scratched up looks of my current lights and the cost of OE replacement. Thankfully the physical fitment was perfect which was something I was too tensed about. Or I would have ended up with an expensive unusable glassware.

You are right about the LDH cars having raised right side throw which would blind the RHD oncoming traffic. Both the lights can be independently adjusted and I have settled for a setting where I don't blind the oncoming traffic at the cost of losing some light throw on the left. As long as I am not blinding others, I can live with a slightly shorter throw of the light ahead of me. As such I don't drive much in the night.

The main attractions are the DRLs - they look really awesome on this car - and can easily fool people into believing a 992 just passed by them.

[S1200]

What a coincidence!
Your car is on my phone's wallpaper.

[androdev]

Originally Posted by S1200

Attachment 2543603

What a coincidence!
Your car is on my phone's wallpaper.

Thanks for sharing this photo - it shows how the basic design of the car has been retained. I guess this is one of the reasons why Porsche has such a good brand loyalty. They don't make their old 911s look dated by coming up with radically new designs. Companies like Mercedes-Benz are trying to make even their latest cars look obsolete/dated with just a facelift - they really don't want their buyers to keep cars for long.

For those who are curious, Porsche offers the following two light options for the 992. First is their base LED light and second is their more expensive ($3K+) "matrix" LED light option. Both look great and instantly identifiable.

[S1200]

Absolutely lovely and thanks a ton for sharing these pics for the child inside me

Your car looks absolutely stunning with these fresh lights and your garage is highly delicious for the supreme tastes of enthusiasts including our country's reality pics

[androdev]

The headlight replacement has brought a new spring in its step! It's like a teenage girl woke up one fine morning with a clear face and lost all her acne overnight.

Apex predator of DRL food chain - at least to an untrained eye


I wish I could go on a long solo late night drives but unfortunately the only night drives allowed are family trips to the ice cream shop.

The most "sanskari" 911 in town:


How is the rear seat as a place to be in? It's as good as non existent - one of the reasons the car doesn't see much touring usage. However, it's a pretty useful thing for short distances.

Sometimes the right place is a person:


28K KM milestone and had its annual service:



The service involved only oil change but somehow there is a generous amount of padding with few labour jobs. This hasn't happened in the past before VST took over Porsche dealership in Bangalore. I don't mind a little bit of padding as this is a low volume business but I need to be more careful in future.

Total damage Rs 65K:

[Sk8r]

"Cleaning / Disinfectant" alone tallying up to 18K, wow! Someone has high monthly targets.

[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by androdev

Crossing 27K km. Ethanol blending, potholes and flooded roads in the city, debris flying on the highways, HSRP plate drilling - it's like death by thousand cuts. Found love in a hopeless place!
Attachment 2507169

I am a big fan your writing style.
Nobody would have said this better. It's so difficult to remain passionate about road trips and owning lovely cars in this country.

[androdev]

Got these on a recent flight - never felt so excited with a toothbrush kit to be repurposed as school stationery pouch. I couldn't wait to return home and give them to my kid. I don't understand why the car dealers give totally pointless gifts like sweets, chocolates and dry fruits. Simple brand merchandise like these would be so much more exciting and far cheaper.



To celebrate our new prized possessions, junior and I went for a long drive. In the middle of drive, out of the blue, I looked at him and said "this thing is amazing, there is a good chance it might kill us someday!" We both looked at each other and silently agreed to live a long life. I started paying attention to the fuel economy and pleased to see it was close to 10 kmpl.

On the way back, I saw something spectacular in the rear view mirror waiting to overtake me. It turned out the mighty big brother TurboS. Looked absolutely smashing from the front and rear. I drove right behind him for sometime as long as the traffic was not so light and then once the traffic cleared he took off and vanished. I felt let down - I was hoping we both could do a song and dance routine on the road. Damn, that car looked absolutely gorgeous! My son and I were hypnotised and mesmerised. Told him to study hard and buy me one in future, the new stationery pouch should come handy



Further down the journey, a red Octavia was following me all the way till I took the exit to get off the highway. He was not interested in overtaking, he just wanted to drive right behind me, always passing several cars to stay behind me. Later I noticed he too was traveling with a young boy as shotgun! We did some some song and dance routine for sometime till my exit came! We didn't see each other but if we did, we would have exchanged some nerd-dad-thumbs-ups! Saved ourselves the blushes.

[TheGearBox]

Originally Posted by androdev

Got these on a recent flight - never felt so excited with a toothbrush kit to be repurposed as school stationery pouch.

Wow. Which airline gives Porsche branded merchandise?