[husker boxster]

There are no real ways to conclusively determine the health of an IMS. You can do an oil analysis and check for excessive amts of metal in the oil. You can see if there are records documenting oil change intervals - best case scenario is 5-8K mi. Any other methods involve some sort of expensive surgery, starting by removing the transaxle to get to the IMS. Basically, it's a crapshoot determining the health of an IMS in the 987 M97 engine (06-08 models). Thankfully they were the best IMS version Porsche produced for their water cooled engines.

Unless the oil was changed every 15K mi (which was the factory recommendation in 06) and previous owners lugged the engine at 1K rpm, you should be good. But YMMV.

I own two 08 Porsche 987Ss. My Boxster S LE just turned 60K mi and is my semi-garage queen as I only drive her in good weather. I bought her new and drive her approx. 6K mi / yr. My Cayman S Sport is my all season "beater" and DE car. I bought her when she was 3 yrs old and had 7400 mi. She now has 55K mi, many of those mi driving to or on a track (Laguna Seca, COTA, Kansas Speedway, and Indy). Two basically similar cars, two different lives. But I don't worry about either blowing an IMS.

Look for records for oil change intervals, water pumps, plugs and coils, brake pads and brake fluid flushes. These are normal maintenance items.