Want to buy a Boxster, but I'm Afraid..very afraid!

[jonomo]

Last year I was poised to buy a 99 boxster... but like an eediot I decided to save some money and try to buy a house... little did i know that is almost impossible in Southern California... anyway, I ended up buying a 02 VW GTI... i got a great deal on it cause it turned out to be some limited edition version that the Dodge dealer didn't know about.. so i got it super cheap... its a fun car .... but i miss driving a roadster.... I use to own a Miata and a Kia version of the Lotus Elan (S. Korea).... anyway, it looks like I can sell the car for the same price I purchased it for even though I've driven it for a year... so I decided to look into a roadster again, and of course my heart slowly drifted back towards the boxster.... I looked over some of the forums to see what people were talking about these days and saw alot of reports of $11K being spent to replace blown motors... now I realize that most of the people who post are usually angry about something and 99% of the others don't even look at the forums.... but seriously though.. how prone are these cars to breaking down... I can't afford to spend 25K on a car.. then spend another 10k to replace the motor or tranny.... maybe I should buy another miata, or a z3 or SLK? I know what peoples advice is, "have it checked out by a mech", but ... seriously folks... is it that much of a hassle? Is the car that unreliable?