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Old 08-05-2011, 07:15 AM   #5
Overdrive
Opposed to Subie Burble
 
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Central CT
Posts: 1,197
Garage
I know it seems like a lot, but if you chip away at a few of these, little by little, next thing you know your list will grow much shorter and it'll just be the big stuff that you can really focus on accomplishing. Your steering shake above 70 could be due to tires being out of balance, easy and simple fix. I thought mine was an alignment issue, the whole car and steering used to shudder, but I had the shop that did my IMS job rebalance all the tires, and two of them were way out of balance...the car is now shake free all the way into triple digit territory. $25/wheel, totally worth it, and cheaper than an alignment if you don't need one.

The interior door handle shouldn't be too terribly expensive, see if you can find the parts on Pelican Parts. It's a small thing, yes, but clearly it's compounding with all the other things going on and adding that much more stress to your ownership experience. Knock that out too, shouldn't be tough.

You have the switch for the parking brake, so why not just take care of it?

Unless you have a desire for spiffy new floor mats, I'm sure you can find some used ones that someone is willing to part with here on the forum, or you can spend about $100 for some new ones from Lloyd that will last you a good long time and won't require the little velcro disc attachment.

When you say interior lights, do you mean all the lights on the inside? Dash lighting? The door lights and overhead light?

I know there's gotta be some people here on the forum who would pretty much give you their old, but still fully functioning Porsche radio. Just make sure you're provided with the code, and some time in the future you could always just put in a decent aftermarket unit when you're not spending the funds on upkeeping the car (it's not going to be forever).

The lack of a spare key is a pain, I know, and unfortunately there's not much of a way around spending some money on a spare. I got a non-remote spare, which, coming from the dealer, ran about $250 (because I own a 97, it costs more than any yearfollowing), the majority of that cost being parts cost, but you may be able to get a blank off of eBay that the dealer can cut and program for you, so you could save some money that way. I believe there is also a way for you to program it yourself. And once you have that spare you won't need to do it again unless you're good at losing keys.

Don't let it all overwhelm you. Break it down into small, doable stuff...medium level, more involved stuff with some cost attached to it...and major stuff that needs to take priority and/or more funds to accomplish.

Oh, and the IMS is not a necessity if you're not having problems. I'm not sure what mileage you have, but the higher, the better, really. Just drive the car the way it's meant to be driven and enjoy it as much as possible. If something does happen to the IMS, at least you didn't pay top dollar for the car.

Just hack away at it little by little, and that list will shrink. Don't give up on the car just yet.
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1997 Arctic Silver Boxster, 5-spd
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