oil leakinmg around coil packs!
 

Please help! just recently purchased a 1998 2.5 boxster with 51k on the clock, car is really clean to look at, appears well maintained, purchased from a dealer 90 miles away from home! on the way home from the garage, car started to jerk, and eventually cel light came on! took the car back and they replaced maf, all seemed well, until 50 miles down the road, same fault! garage really doesnt want to know, now have trading standards involved! anyway my mate the mechanic took out the coil packs last night to find three are covered in oil! one had massive crack, one was odd, and shouldnt be on the car! so 5 out of 6 not much good! suggested chaging the spark plug tubes, which i will probably get done! is this common, is this the most likely cause of oil around the coil packs, or am i starring down the barrel of a gun! all the talk about engine failures is scary, currently wish i never bought the car, had it one month and it hasnt worked at all!

The Boxster engine uses spark plug tubes which allow the plugs to go deep into the heads, I think the idea is to improve complete combustion. They have o rings on both ends, this sounds like you need new spark plug tubes or more likely just new o rings. They may be a bit of a peckerhead to remove but they shouldn't cost too much, don't hate the purchase just yet, hopefully you just have a few bugs to square away.

you should consider replacing the tubes yourself. I followed pedro's instructions and did all 6 in about a 1.5 hours. read thru this link and see what's involved

http://www.pedrosgarage.com/Site%203/Change%20Spark%20Plugs%20%26%20Tubes.html

Suncoast is a decent place to get the tubes and o-rings

http://e-partssales.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=P&Product_Code =99610532552W99970734340W99970721540&Category_Code =ENGMECH

thanks!
 

Thanks for your replies, i have got a complete set of tubes, seals, plugs and coil packs, i just hope that finally gets the car up and running, a friend of mine is a mechanic and has said he will do it for me at the weekend, i'll keep you up to date as to weather the fix works!!! that link you said me lizbox is ideal! put my mind a little bit at rest!