The Art of Luxury: A Journey with My Porsche Spider and Bentley Azure

As I sit here, reflecting on my recent adventures with my Porsche Spider, I am reminded of the incredible journey that has brought me to this point. It all started with the acquisition of a beautiful 1990s-era Porsche Spider, which I had the pleasure of purchasing for a mere three thousand dollars. As I soon discovered, this car was not just a sleek and stylish ride, but also a reliable companion on my journey.

The Spider's Reliability

As I delved deeper into the world of classic Porsche ownership, I realized that maintenance and repairs were an integral part of owning such a unique vehicle. My initial thoughts were that acquiring a high-performance car like the Spider would be expensive, and that it would require significant investment in maintenance and repairs. However, as I soon discovered, this was not entirely true.

I recently had the opportunity to take my Azure, another luxury vehicle, out for a spin, which offered me an interesting experience driving both cars side by side. The Azure has more modern features such as coil-over ignition and electronic fuel injection making it better in its performance aspect compared to the Spider's non-modern setup

The Importance of Modern Equipment

When I got my Porsche Spyder there was no computerized engine management system; everything was done mechanically. However with this car being older than computers, trying to diagnose issues became quite a challenge because it lacked all modern diagnostic tools and equipment. The dealer told me they would be sending the parts that needed to be replaced back to them once I finished with the work.

The Dealer's Advice

The dealer advised me that I had invested in some new equipment that was going to pay for itself when working on this car since we were about to put the dash back in and all of that. As a result, I would be able to receive parts from the dealership that came as trade-ins, which meant that they were willing to send them my way if everything turned out well.

My Current Projects

At the moment I'm working on completing the interior of my 1993 Bentley Azure that has been under renovation for quite some time. The car needs a paint job and is also in need of some repairs with its brake system. After completing the work, I have plans to purchase another car as an addition to my collection.

The Deal with My Car

As it turned out, when dealing with automotive technicians like CIS flow tech the old cars can't be fixed easily since they lack the modern systems that most technicians use today. With this car I had issues like a fuel system and distributor head rebuild but ultimately received professional assistance from a specialist in such matters.

The Azure's Unique Features

One of the unique features of my Bentley Azure is its nostrils, which are actually vents for the brakes. These vents can't be removed without damaging the surrounding area, making it difficult to access the brake lines. This design feature adds an air of elegance to the car while also highlighting its practicality.

As I continue on this journey with my cars, I am reminded of the importance of embracing the unique qualities that each vehicle brings to the table. While modern luxury cars may prioritize performance and handling, there is a certain charm to owning a classic car like the Porsche Spider or Bentley Azure.

The Murcielago's Nose Job

In a recent development, my Murcielago has undergone a nose job, which has left me feeling both relieved and anxious about the project's progress. As I await the final touches on this transformation, I am reminded that even the most intricate repairs require patience and dedication.

A Final Word

As I conclude my article, I want to express my gratitude for the opportunity to share my experiences with you. Owning luxury vehicles like my Porsche Spider and Bentley Azure has been a journey of discovery, one that has taught me about the importance of reliability, maintenance, and embracing the unique qualities of each vehicle. Whether it's the thrill of driving a classic car or the satisfaction of completing a complex repair job, I am reminded that there is beauty in every aspect of car ownership.

The Azure's Price Tag

As for my Bentley Azure, which was purchased for under thirty thousand dollars, its price tag has been steadily rising as I continue to work on it. However, with the costs of repairs and maintenance factored into consideration, I remain committed to preserving this vehicle's unique charm and character.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to movies garage the dumbest automotive channel in all of youtube and you are looking at a very happy hoovy because this bentley azure that i bought for only 25 000 that was formerly owned by jean-claude van tam you all found the pictures and confirmed it with photos on the internet this car is sorted not only is it sorted but it was sorted for cheap which never happens usually when you buy something like this that costs four hundred thousand dollars new for twenty five thousand dollars it is a massive basket case that's not the case with this azure 25 000 and i got an incredible beautiful convertible land yacht and it only cost 1 788 to fix i know now we'll start with the most expensive item and that was the mineral oil fluid leak which if you owned any of these bentleys around them you know they always leak mineral oil but this one had a pig leak coming from the main pumps on these things which are located in the v of the 6.75 liter turbocharged v8 and it was leaking a lot they're actually powered by a push rod that runs this pump and the seals will leak it happened on my turbo r and it happened on this and that was 720 to fix now it's a little more labor intensive than turbo r because the intake with the intercooler and the modern ignition system was a little more complicated to get out of the way but once you got to it is really straightforward only 720 dollars my hvac system which wasn't working it was just a switch that had come loose they charged up the air conditioning that all worked only 340 to fix that my seat belt tensioner rebuild service that was the one thing that's kind of a letdown here 250 dollars to do that to take out the seats send the seat belts off but only 155 to rebuild them the letdown is the seat belt pretensioner warning light is still on so maybe it'll go off on its own eventually because there's no codes for the airbag light or it could need some reprogramming with the airbag module itself because well when that stuff kind of breaks the airbag module gets confused or it could be the one thing that i leave broken because when you buy a car like this you always leave one thing broken the superstitious wise because when you fix that one thing then something else will break so i always try to leave one little thing broken so i am absolutely thrilled to have this thing sorted for 1 788 which means i'm way under 30 000 into this beautiful bentley azure um anyway when i bought this thing i figured it would hold me over until i found the right phantom drop head because i sold my rolls-royce phantom planning to buy a drop head but this has completely cured me of that for only 25 000 i basically have 80 of a phantom drop head right here which would cost 125 000 the cheapest one so there's no way in my mind i could justify going to buy one of those and these are much cheaper to keep running yes they're expensive to keep running way more expensive than a normal german or modern european car but still not nearly as bad as a rolls royce phantom now my ownership was pretty blessed with my phantom but there was the one thing that made me mad and that was the parts distribution it's all done by bmw and anybody with a bmw parts account like johnny the car ninja can see exactly how much these rolls-royce parts cost and the rolls-royce the phantom right before i sold it had a little bitty clunk in the suspension i mean really the lightest squeak ever and it had to be really cold outside for you to hear it and it came from a certain bushing that you would replace on both sides and the cost on this part according to his bmw website thing was only five hundred and fifty dollars but rolls royce wanted one thousand eight hundred dollars for them and despite him having a bmw account and being able to order or buy any bmw part and this rolls royce is owned by bmw it's the same parts distribution he wasn't allowed to buy rolls-royce parts you have to go through a rolls-royce dealer the part only costs 500 at the bmw distribution center but rolls-royce wants one thousand eight hundred dollars per side for the part that's incredible mark-up and with rolls-royce the modern rolls-royce cars the markup on all the parts is just absolutely insane and it's so ridiculous that i really think they're doing a disservice to the owners where they're going to crash the value of these cars these ones 400 000 rolls royces are not going to be worthless 20 30 000 cars because people aren't going to want to pay the money to keep them going you have to be really careful with that mclaren is another big example of this in my mind where they want ten thousand dollars for a steering rack or forty thousand dollars for a transmission that's made of glass it just doesn't make any sense the values of their cars will crash because as they go off warranty nobody's gonna want to pay to keep them running with this azure it's not really the case because it's the same parts they've been using in bentley's for the most part for decades and it's a lot of part spin special match up mix and match things to where you can keep these going for pretty reasonably but they do they do break a lot so normally i'm the guy that tells you to never ever buy something and then i show from first-hand experience how horrible it is to own it uh with one of these you could actually get away with a decent ownership experience if you have realistic expectations now there's my other car here my other bentley that hasn't been quite a rewarding experience but that's for a very good reason so we'll check in on that and the other cars in the hooptie fleet the mercy logo is actually up here and another azure owned by a dealer that's for sale where they're doing some some other work you'll see how big of a parts been special these cars actually are wizard come look at this craziness here hovie this is a v8 turbo mercedes i haven't messed with these at all what's going on valve covers that's it valve cover gaskets okay how much is valve covers all those steel lines is high pressure fuel fuel lines have to come off how much eighteen hundred dollars eighteen hundred dollars fifteen hours of labor fifteen hours of labor for valve cover gaskets yes all these injectors have to come out the fuel rail has to come out hill no hell no i'll take the non-turbo ones that's why the sls is so much better to me wizard nice job on the azure wonderful mm-hmm 1700 that's very reasonable to fix a bentley as well thank you yeah you want to see what i spent it on already you spent did you buy shoes or yeah only bought a biat already no rolex i expected on things that can make me money i did something wise oh okay let's go take a look buy magic mike bye tyler and i see you're selling your alante huh yes four thousand dollars contact crazy d in the office really please buy my elante please get it out of here okay you got the plug so what did you buy here this is a beautiful azure 1997 or eight early one 96 yeah it's an early one look at this red interior it's absolutely wild it's a local dealership here in town that uh need you to fix the top right 8 000 miles on this thing 8 000 miles wow so my cars had two top failures in the service records one was like eight thousand dollars the other one was seven so it was uh uh pretty pricey to fix it but uh i guess you've figured it out with with what a heart monitor it looks kind of like an ekg monitor doesn't it this is the actual that's specifically for the convertible top on these azures yeah but it looks very mercedes i would say yes it is this the whole convertible top system is r129 parts so we know this you can set off all the parts to get rebuilts and all that so that's what we're doing here actually have a bunch of the cylinders out we're going to send them off to get rebuilt so when mine fails again what's the full tamale rebuild you think going to be for you probably five or six grand but probably more like eight for somebody else wow okay well so you bought this actually i rented that from flying spares that's i had to put up four grand just to rent really yeah okay so if i don't send it back they get to keep the money i think you'll be sending this back four thousand dollars for something that looks like it belongs in uh like a value center a goodwill yeah you could totally see that in goodwill right so that's not what you bought what did you buy i bought the scan tool for 1990 to 2010 bentley rolls-royce omnitech i see well has the round cable the ride height cable obd2 cable and the laptop with every service manual for every model okay so how much does that set you back three thousand dollars three thousand dollars so double my bill you just invested in equipment yes because i'm going to get it back from working on that oh you're anticipating so i better keep it then i guess yeah i think so actually with with this here with the dealership they take in trade-ins and they say they'll be sending them my way if they're happy with this work so yeah we get more of these i need that okay well you're still working off and on on the woody yes we're about to put the dash back in yes the dash is close the spider we are waiting my beautiful porsche spider we're waiting to get some other things done like the azure and a few other cars oh wizard i can't wait i can't wait but uh light at the end of the tunnel on the turbo r yes so you found a leak in the intake somewhere this is just for a little stumble a little bitty misfire that i noticed it's been six months six months ago and poor wizard has been digging into this car it's too old to have the modern computers to really go and diagnose it like that that thing you just bought uh so you've been fighting a little bit yes yeah there was a leak on the seal that goes around this throttle basically a throttle body there we smoke tested it and it was just pouring out smoke out of there these systems cannot have any vacuum leaks they totally don't like it also i tried to do a rebuild on this fuel distributor head with no success and i understand that most shops don't have success on this right i'm going to be sending this to cis flow tech that's all they do they are really really good at these okay no more guess work on this we'll get it done right yeah well so you like the azure better because of the modern ignition and electronic fuel injection and all that stuff that's coil unplug ignition and this is a good car it will be i'm not sure what i'm going to do with it when it's done though i already have one yeah and the murcielago well it's having a nose job i'll do another video on the murcielago we're doing the final things that uh uh need to fix after getting the transmission in and driving for a while there's some leaks there's some light some other things that need to get sorted out so this is like the buttoning up of the mercy logo but the one thing i need to fix is this bumper which is just torn up to heck so i was gonna pick it up to uh take it to the paint job you're gonna put that in your azure yeah i'm just realizing this thing has nostrils going somewhere somewhere yes to the brakes oh they vent the brakes those don't come off they're part of the molding on it yeah once you peel back the beautiful facade of the mercy log you kind of see the italian craftsmanship here of this uh oh my um so i guess i'm hauling this in the azure uh good luck i hope it doesn't tear your seats or something i guess we could put down some mats or something for you yeah all right ella wizard didn't want the liability of doing this so no i got it this far you can take it from here all right oh it's okay we need to probably put that seat recline a little bit if it flies out how much is the front murcielago bumper probably 10 or 15 000 yeah all right send it well what a nice practical utility vehicle this bentley azure is it is just continuing to amaze me now it's definitely not an athletic car by any means they gave it plenty of power something like 400 plus horsepower and when this turbo hits well i'm not going to go too fast because of the bumper uh it has a lot of power but the braking and the the handling well not so much it's better than a rolls-royce in a lot of cars it seems slightly athletic but no sports car but i mentioned this plenty of times with land yachts modern bentleys are just well too athletic any modern luxury car is too athletic and too sporty now because that's what automotive journalists want they want a car that will go fast around a track so they can say oh it handles amazingly it can show off how good of a race car driver they are when really that's not really what you want in a luxury vehicle you want this you want smoothness you want quality you want presence and this bentley azure has all of it and i own it for less than thirty thousand dollars just absolutely astounding look at this bumper dropped off at the paint shop and then i think it's the beginning of a beautiful long expensive friendship with this thing but since the cost of entry was so low i can handle some big repairs here and there thank you for watchingwelcome to movies garage the dumbest automotive channel in all of youtube and you are looking at a very happy hoovy because this bentley azure that i bought for only 25 000 that was formerly owned by jean-claude van tam you all found the pictures and confirmed it with photos on the internet this car is sorted not only is it sorted but it was sorted for cheap which never happens usually when you buy something like this that costs four hundred thousand dollars new for twenty five thousand dollars it is a massive basket case that's not the case with this azure 25 000 and i got an incredible beautiful convertible land yacht and it only cost 1 788 to fix i know now we'll start with the most expensive item and that was the mineral oil fluid leak which if you owned any of these bentleys around them you know they always leak mineral oil but this one had a pig leak coming from the main pumps on these things which are located in the v of the 6.75 liter turbocharged v8 and it was leaking a lot they're actually powered by a push rod that runs this pump and the seals will leak it happened on my turbo r and it happened on this and that was 720 to fix now it's a little more labor intensive than turbo r because the intake with the intercooler and the modern ignition system was a little more complicated to get out of the way but once you got to it is really straightforward only 720 dollars my hvac system which wasn't working it was just a switch that had come loose they charged up the air conditioning that all worked only 340 to fix that my seat belt tensioner rebuild service that was the one thing that's kind of a letdown here 250 dollars to do that to take out the seats send the seat belts off but only 155 to rebuild them the letdown is the seat belt pretensioner warning light is still on so maybe it'll go off on its own eventually because there's no codes for the airbag light or it could need some reprogramming with the airbag module itself because well when that stuff kind of breaks the airbag module gets confused or it could be the one thing that i leave broken because when you buy a car like this you always leave one thing broken the superstitious wise because when you fix that one thing then something else will break so i always try to leave one little thing broken so i am absolutely thrilled to have this thing sorted for 1 788 which means i'm way under 30 000 into this beautiful bentley azure um anyway when i bought this thing i figured it would hold me over until i found the right phantom drop head because i sold my rolls-royce phantom planning to buy a drop head but this has completely cured me of that for only 25 000 i basically have 80 of a phantom drop head right here which would cost 125 000 the cheapest one so there's no way in my mind i could justify going to buy one of those and these are much cheaper to keep running yes they're expensive to keep running way more expensive than a normal german or modern european car but still not nearly as bad as a rolls royce phantom now my ownership was pretty blessed with my phantom but there was the one thing that made me mad and that was the parts distribution it's all done by bmw and anybody with a bmw parts account like johnny the car ninja can see exactly how much these rolls-royce parts cost and the rolls-royce the phantom right before i sold it had a little bitty clunk in the suspension i mean really the lightest squeak ever and it had to be really cold outside for you to hear it and it came from a certain bushing that you would replace on both sides and the cost on this part according to his bmw website thing was only five hundred and fifty dollars but rolls royce wanted one thousand eight hundred dollars for them and despite him having a bmw account and being able to order or buy any bmw part and this rolls royce is owned by bmw it's the same parts distribution he wasn't allowed to buy rolls-royce parts you have to go through a rolls-royce dealer the part only costs 500 at the bmw distribution center but rolls-royce wants one thousand eight hundred dollars per side for the part that's incredible mark-up and with rolls-royce the modern rolls-royce cars the markup on all the parts is just absolutely insane and it's so ridiculous that i really think they're doing a disservice to the owners where they're going to crash the value of these cars these ones 400 000 rolls royces are not going to be worthless 20 30 000 cars because people aren't going to want to pay the money to keep them going you have to be really careful with that mclaren is another big example of this in my mind where they want ten thousand dollars for a steering rack or forty thousand dollars for a transmission that's made of glass it just doesn't make any sense the values of their cars will crash because as they go off warranty nobody's gonna want to pay to keep them running with this azure it's not really the case because it's the same parts they've been using in bentley's for the most part for decades and it's a lot of part spin special match up mix and match things to where you can keep these going for pretty reasonably but they do they do break a lot so normally i'm the guy that tells you to never ever buy something and then i show from first-hand experience how horrible it is to own it uh with one of these you could actually get away with a decent ownership experience if you have realistic expectations now there's my other car here my other bentley that hasn't been quite a rewarding experience but that's for a very good reason so we'll check in on that and the other cars in the hooptie fleet the mercy logo is actually up here and another azure owned by a dealer that's for sale where they're doing some some other work you'll see how big of a parts been special these cars actually are wizard come look at this craziness here hovie this is a v8 turbo mercedes i haven't messed with these at all what's going on valve covers that's it valve cover gaskets okay how much is valve covers all those steel lines is high pressure fuel fuel lines have to come off how much eighteen hundred dollars eighteen hundred dollars fifteen hours of labor fifteen hours of labor for valve cover gaskets yes all these injectors have to come out the fuel rail has to come out hill no hell no i'll take the non-turbo ones that's why the sls is so much better to me wizard nice job on the azure wonderful mm-hmm 1700 that's very reasonable to fix a bentley as well thank you yeah you want to see what i spent it on already you spent did you buy shoes or yeah only bought a biat already no rolex i expected on things that can make me money i did something wise oh okay let's go take a look buy magic mike bye tyler and i see you're selling your alante huh yes four thousand dollars contact crazy d in the office really please buy my elante please get it out of here okay you got the plug so what did you buy here this is a beautiful azure 1997 or eight early one 96 yeah it's an early one look at this red interior it's absolutely wild it's a local dealership here in town that uh need you to fix the top right 8 000 miles on this thing 8 000 miles wow so my cars had two top failures in the service records one was like eight thousand dollars the other one was seven so it was uh uh pretty pricey to fix it but uh i guess you've figured it out with with what a heart monitor it looks kind of like an ekg monitor doesn't it this is the actual that's specifically for the convertible top on these azures yeah but it looks very mercedes i would say yes it is this the whole convertible top system is r129 parts so we know this you can set off all the parts to get rebuilts and all that so that's what we're doing here actually have a bunch of the cylinders out we're going to send them off to get rebuilt so when mine fails again what's the full tamale rebuild you think going to be for you probably five or six grand but probably more like eight for somebody else wow okay well so you bought this actually i rented that from flying spares that's i had to put up four grand just to rent really yeah okay so if i don't send it back they get to keep the money i think you'll be sending this back four thousand dollars for something that looks like it belongs in uh like a value center a goodwill yeah you could totally see that in goodwill right so that's not what you bought what did you buy i bought the scan tool for 1990 to 2010 bentley rolls-royce omnitech i see well has the round cable the ride height cable obd2 cable and the laptop with every service manual for every model okay so how much does that set you back three thousand dollars three thousand dollars so double my bill you just invested in equipment yes because i'm going to get it back from working on that oh you're anticipating so i better keep it then i guess yeah i think so actually with with this here with the dealership they take in trade-ins and they say they'll be sending them my way if they're happy with this work so yeah we get more of these i need that okay well you're still working off and on on the woody yes we're about to put the dash back in yes the dash is close the spider we are waiting my beautiful porsche spider we're waiting to get some other things done like the azure and a few other cars oh wizard i can't wait i can't wait but uh light at the end of the tunnel on the turbo r yes so you found a leak in the intake somewhere this is just for a little stumble a little bitty misfire that i noticed it's been six months six months ago and poor wizard has been digging into this car it's too old to have the modern computers to really go and diagnose it like that that thing you just bought uh so you've been fighting a little bit yes yeah there was a leak on the seal that goes around this throttle basically a throttle body there we smoke tested it and it was just pouring out smoke out of there these systems cannot have any vacuum leaks they totally don't like it also i tried to do a rebuild on this fuel distributor head with no success and i understand that most shops don't have success on this right i'm going to be sending this to cis flow tech that's all they do they are really really good at these okay no more guess work on this we'll get it done right yeah well so you like the azure better because of the modern ignition and electronic fuel injection and all that stuff that's coil unplug ignition and this is a good car it will be i'm not sure what i'm going to do with it when it's done though i already have one yeah and the murcielago well it's having a nose job i'll do another video on the murcielago we're doing the final things that uh uh need to fix after getting the transmission in and driving for a while there's some leaks there's some light some other things that need to get sorted out so this is like the buttoning up of the mercy logo but the one thing i need to fix is this bumper which is just torn up to heck so i was gonna pick it up to uh take it to the paint job you're gonna put that in your azure yeah i'm just realizing this thing has nostrils going somewhere somewhere yes to the brakes oh they vent the brakes those don't come off they're part of the molding on it yeah once you peel back the beautiful facade of the mercy log you kind of see the italian craftsmanship here of this uh oh my um so i guess i'm hauling this in the azure uh good luck i hope it doesn't tear your seats or something i guess we could put down some mats or something for you yeah all right ella wizard didn't want the liability of doing this so no i got it this far you can take it from here all right oh it's okay we need to probably put that seat recline a little bit if it flies out how much is the front murcielago bumper probably 10 or 15 000 yeah all right send it well what a nice practical utility vehicle this bentley azure is it is just continuing to amaze me now it's definitely not an athletic car by any means they gave it plenty of power something like 400 plus horsepower and when this turbo hits well i'm not going to go too fast because of the bumper uh it has a lot of power but the braking and the the handling well not so much it's better than a rolls-royce in a lot of cars it seems slightly athletic but no sports car but i mentioned this plenty of times with land yachts modern bentleys are just well too athletic any modern luxury car is too athletic and too sporty now because that's what automotive journalists want they want a car that will go fast around a track so they can say oh it handles amazingly it can show off how good of a race car driver they are when really that's not really what you want in a luxury vehicle you want this you want smoothness you want quality you want presence and this bentley azure has all of it and i own it for less than thirty thousand dollars just absolutely astounding look at this bumper dropped off at the paint shop and then i think it's the beginning of a beautiful long expensive friendship with this thing but since the cost of entry was so low i can handle some big repairs here and there thank you for watching\n"