I was looking at getting a 996 basically because they are a cheap porka.
When i looked into it i found out the reasons why which have already been mentioned on here. (toyota showed them how to do mass production to save the company)
My eldest said why worry just buy it, run it for a while and then sell it.
Thing is i usually buy and plan to keep for a long time so didn`t feel like i wanted to do that hence i felt i wanted to have something i could enjoy and not worry about.
The deciding factor was a report i read on the net where an owner said ` its like driving along with a live hand grenade behind you and you never know when its going to go off`
I think the honest answer for me was i could afford to buy one but not afford to fix it if it went bang so stayed clear.
Each to their own just ask yourself if you can sleep at night dreaming about. IMS bearings, porus blocks and cracked cylinder liners.
The failure rate is meant to be about 5% which in production terms is huge..........be careful.