POLL - Who is ON a warranty and who is OFF Warranty (risking it all)

[johnsimion]

Originally Posted by Samson

I have a 2001 base 5-speed with 17k miles. No warranty. If the engine kills itself, we'll see how my finances are doing and how nice Porsche wants to be and go from there.

Mine is a 1999 base 5-speed with 15K miles and no warranty. Almost ditto to Samson. I was offered a warranty but it was almost $3000 for 3 years, so I declined. For that bet to pay off, there has to be a 20% chance of the engine blowing in the next three years ($15K x 20% = $3000). I figure the odds are much, much lower than that, and anyway the $3000 saved now can go towards a new engine -- if need be.

There have been hundreds of thousands of Boxsters produced, and yet I've only seen reports of a couple of hundred engines blowing up. I even checked the NHTSA and they only have 11 such reports. Porsche has NO such reports on the Better Business Bureau. Consumer Reports mostly rates the Boxster "Better Than Average" for major engine problems. My mechanic knows of "a couple" of engines that blew (in greater KC metro area, that's not many). I know if my engine blew up, EVERYBODY would be getting my complaints, and I can't be that much different from other people.

What I think is happening is this: a couple of hundred engines blowing up IS above average compared to, say, Toyota or Honda. If it is 1% of the total Boxster production, that actually is very BAD but statistically it's still a 99% chance of NO problems. So, I'm going to take my chances.