Hi from another newbie shopping for a used 986...
I'm just killing myself looking for something bad to say about the Boxster but haven't come up with anything yet! I am also REALLY concerned about reliability. My Hondas and Toyotas were of course perfectly reliable, and kinda fun. Then I got a Mercedes 190E that was a hangar queen and had crazy mysterious EXPENSIVE problems. So I'm once bitten twice shy and worried a bit about the Boxster.
So I've done a few things to check on reliability: first
www.alldata.com will tell you some about the tech bulletins. Check also
www.986faq.com for a great summary of the car. And then the one thing that really got me was the Comsumer Reports used car reliability score... for the Boxster it was awesome, most categories were above average reliability. It was equivalent to the score for the Honda S2000.
My NEXT step is that I want to go to a dealer or a shop and survey how much it costs for each of the standard maintenance visits. I understand that even an oil change is rather expensive because of the accessibility of the engine, and a large oil capacity, and synthetic. Does anybody out there have a comment on that?
And maybe whats the one good example that I should ask to price out a major maintenance? Like how much for a new clutch? Or what would you ask?
In any case I'm not so naive as to expect a free car, I know this car needs care and I'm happy to give it! I just want to know more...
thanks gang, this is a great forum