Scared new Boxster owner - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

jmatta · 01-13-2009, 03:10 PM

The number of cars that have had catastrophic engine failure is a very small percentage, but design weaknesses have been identified. That said, there is always the possibility that any of us could be the next to go, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

Spend some time reading the posts by Jake Raby or visit his site www.flat6innovations.com. Oil change maintenance (every six thousand miles) is very important with these engines to extend reliability, as they are subject to fuel contamination in the oil that can lead to problems.

Drive and enjoy your new ride!

gmboxster · 01-13-2009, 03:29 PM

I think a couple of the replies weren't exactly what he had in mind. The sarcasm can be felt from here. I bought a 1998 with 46K miles on it 1.5 years ago. Thus far not a bit of trouble whatsoever. The only problem is I don't get time to drive it as often as I would like. But as others have said, you have it now so drive it and ENJOY !

kabel · 01-13-2009, 03:43 PM

SeanZ4, welcome to the forum. Jake said the perfect sttement just yesterday:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

Don't be afraid.. Just drive it. If it breaks, then deal with it.
A lot of these engines fail, but a lot more don't...

I bought my MY99 with 78k on the OD, it now has nearly 104k on it i drive it daily, I autocross it at least once a month (even won coverall class champ with it). Educate yourself on the quirks of this fun car, education is knowledge, knowledge is peace of mind. Enjoy!

E Kaplan · 01-13-2009, 03:55 PM

Welcome to the forum:

I have a 2000 base Boxster and bought it about 10 months ago with 30,000 miles. So far, I have drove it about 10,000 miles (several 500+ mile trips) and the car is completely reliable. No problems at all. Just drive it and enjoy.

Eric

Brucelee · 01-13-2009, 04:17 PM

We will never have data on this issue so it is really a shot in the dark.

One thing we DO know is how expensive it is to recover from an engine failure. This is not true for all other cars but certainly, most of us blanch when we hear the tab on a used or rebuilt engine for our Box.

Since the car is tough to work on, most of us could not replace the engine ourselves so we have to add labor. Some of us could actually do an engine on a Miata or a Corvette I think.

I can tell you that the number of engine failures is MUCH higher than 100-200 in the Boxster run.

How do I know.? When I was dealing Porsches, I had a good buddy who was the svs manager at the local dealer. I mentioned to him that everytime I walked around the svs bays, I saw an engine/trans unit or 2 out of a car. He told me they did a new engine PER WEEK on average.

I didn't believe him but then I saw that he was serious. Whoa baby!

This same guy got the factory to eat half the cost on a 99 carerra engine in a car that I sold to some guy. At 66K miles, he was on the freeway and BAM, all gone.

Sad but true. Beautiful 911, one owner, great service records and the whole deal.

Where is the $1500 engine when you need it?

nola911 · 01-13-2009, 04:46 PM

If it makes you feel better, the online forum was my reason to not buy a 7 series BMW for the family cruiser. It was also the reason to pass on an S-Class Mercedes. If you talk to an owner of either, they will sing praises till your deaf. These things scare you, often without justice.

I bought a lexus because it didn't have horror stories on the forums. Overkill, yes.

ekam · 01-13-2009, 05:27 PM

I heard there's going to be a terrorist attack in multiple american cities in the next few days. Stay away from major airports, train and subway stations and large buildings.

I also heard on CNN that there's these killer bees coming from south africa.

And those germs on door knobs and your keyboard at work.

And, you might as well try to stay home tomorrow, you might get hit by a dump truck or a hummer... brain juice is hard to clean off those roll bars.

This forum is getting worse day by day...

941MXVET · 01-13-2009, 06:00 PM

Greetings fellow new Boxster owner. Being a new owner, I'm probably still seeing ownership through rose colored glasses however, allow me to share with you some of my thoughts, and research. When the later 98-99's came out they suffered from the 'slipped sleeve' issue, from what I've been able to gather, Porsche did a silent recall in that they replaced the engines while trying not to make any noise. Regardless, not getting off on the right foot with customers. The other issue, IMS failures, seam to occur on a percentage of horizontality opposed Porsche engines, we'll have to deal with them but there seam to be a few things as owners we can do.

When my wife and I researched our purchase, we "sampled" the market on E-bay. What we would do is search Porsche>Boxster>1997-2004>sort from lowest price. I no longer have the papers I jotted down the info on so I don't have hard numbers but basically we were looking for 'rollers' and found very few. Most of the rollers were unfortunately due to vandalism

One was due to flooding. Plenty of wrecks, and lots over 100k on the odometer. In short, while there is a risk, the cars are great drivers, the prices have dropped dramatically, making now an attractive entry point!

Spinnaker · 01-14-2009, 01:45 PM

If it will make you feel any better, my 2000 S just turned 100K.

Jaxonalden · 01-13-2009, 03:36 PM

You want to feel better? Go back to the dealership and ask if there's a warranty you can purchase on the car, if not there are a few aftermarket ones you can buy.

Or you can do like the last guy that owned your car for 38K miles, drive the piss out of it and enjoy yourself!!