[deliriousga]

Originally Posted by coiguy

However, I have always owned Japanese cars and this car will be my daily commuter so I have concerns about its practicality.

How many of you commute with it and do you find the noise too much? I liked the driving experience during the test drive, but not sure if I can live with it daily once the novelty wears off. I commute about 40mi/day.

We commute 40mi/day in ours and love it. We've had the Boxster for 2 1/2 years and my wife misses it tremendously if I have it in the garage for service.

Originally Posted by coiguy

What about maintenance costs? Tire costs? The salesman said oil change at 20000mile or 2 years, cost about $200. What about the other interval service costs?

Maintenance costs are a little higher than most other cars, but as you said they are much less frequent. Maintence is relatively cheap if you are a DIYer (i.e. oil change is $55 DIY vs. $200 at the dealer). As a daily driver in traffic, plan on using the 10K mile oil change schedule. Tires (I use Kumho's) are about $300 front two and $350 rear two. The 30K services (plugs, oil & filter, air filter, cabin filter, fuel filter & misc. checks/lube) is about $800 at a dealer.

Originally Posted by coiguy

Are "blown engine" problems that common?

They are not as common as it seems if you are judging it only by forums and not nearly as common in the newer models.
1) You have to realize most people on forums are much more interested in their automobiles and discuss everything about them. People tend to report negative things much more than positive, it's just human nature.
2) You'll notice a lot of the blown engine threads in forums start out "I'm new here" because they were seaching the net for info to help them with their problem and the forums pop up. Being upset with a problem, again human nature gets it out there.
3) Many people will do engine mods to their Boxster and, unfortunately, those mods can lead to early engine death or higher risk of a big problem. It's kind of like my computer. I can modify the bios to make the system run 2-3 times faster than the processor can really run. It will run at that speed, but the processor will run hotter than it's supposed to and die much faster than normal.
4) The most common problem was with the 1999 models that had imperfect engine blocks.
5) While it's not as widespread problem as it seems, it really sucks for the guy that has the problem and I don't blame him for posting it all over the place.

Originally Posted by coiguy

I would get the heated seats, wind deflector, xenons, 18in rims. It sounds like they are discounting because of the year end. What kind of deals have people been getting?

If you get the wind deflector (don't do without it) and xenons, make sure you lock the car up every time you leave it, no matter how long it is. Xenons are hot on the black market and it's easy to remove the headlights from inside the hood.

Finally, a word of warning. Once you get a Porsche, you will always want to have one in the driveway (or two, or three, or......)