[JoeFromPA]

The boxster has been a very reliable car for many years now and has topped reliability charts as well, and that includes pre MY 2005 cars.

It's a very simplified car, well built, without alot of nuisance parts to go wrong IMHO...

BUT, that being said, it's impressive for a convertible which by their nature tend to have more reports of problems with the tops, creaks and rattles, and so on.

No offense meant to the 986 community, but my personal objective is to get my boxster in tip-top shape (60k tune-up coming up, fluid changes, motor mount and shifter bushing replacements, really deep detailing), ride it out for a few years, and then pick up a nicely depreciated 2005-2007 Boxster S or Carerra....if I stay in the Porsche community.

Maybe it's just my age or the fact that I've never owned one, but I need something that has a more barrel-chested sound at low RPMs, shove in the seat, etc.....the 2.5 liter is a gem above 4500-5000 rpms, but I've been driving small displacement engines for a long time now. I need something that's a bit more dangerous to drive than this ridiculously balanced car.

....

Anyway, my point is that to me the boxster allows me to do that. It's a pretty low-rent car if you are willing to do the work yourself on everything short of dropping the transmission (and even more low-rent if you are willing to go there!).

Short of the IMS failing and grenading the vehicle, I don't have much to worry about. The engine is bulletproof in terms of driving the snot out of it, the trans is stout. The clutch is good, though alot of people are done with it by 60k (probably due to the flywheel damping wearing out though).

And there's only one or two sensors/accessory parts that tend to go, and even those are infrequent.