I was
exactly the way you are today when I bought my beat up boxster five years ago. No mechanical experience. No tools. Lots of confidence.
Here's my advice:
- Get the largest set of metric tools from Sears you can afford and one of those cool rolling tool chests in which to store them. That'll look great in your garage, by the way.
- Buy a Bentley repair manual. The thing will make you feel as if you can do a major motor teardown and rebuild! Very cool late night reading for the bedside table too. That's where mine remained for the first year.
- As others have said, you need nice wide ramps for the back wheels. Make them or buy them.
- Buy a race jack. I got a cheap one at Pep Boys (good quality and only $50 on sale) and it works great. You'll use it for years to come on the Boxster and other cars too.
- Buy a set of floor stands. You don't need really heavy duty ones because your car only weighs 2800 pounds. Two will do.
Oil changes take a whopping 30 minutes, and most of that is waiting for the oil to drain. There's only ten minutes worth of actual work to do.
Changing plugs is not as simple because you can't see all of them, but it's not hard to do. Just do one plug at a time and you won't mess up the wire order. I did it last year for the first time and it took all of an hour and a half.
Timing belt? If you mean the
serpentine belt it's not hard if you have the diagram. The self-tensioner is built right in. The Bentley manual covers this in great detail, btw.
The fuel filter isn't hard either, but it's messy if you don't do things in the right order or you're not prepared to catch some fuel when you undo it. Once again, your Bentley repair manual will help you do it right.
Men repair and maintain Porsches. You are a man. Therefore, you can repair and maintain your Porsche. That line of thinking has taken me far in life and you're gonna do fine with it as well.
Go get greasy. It's fun, and saves large wads of cash
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