Finally a good nights sleep
 

Long story short, I purchased a 2002 Boxster about two weeks ago. The car was well taken care of and had a pretty clean PPI from an independent shop.

After replacing the normal wear and tear issues (i.e. Coolant tank, ignition switch, front engine mount, etc.) I felt that the car was in pretty good mechanical shape...except for the unknown IMS bearing. There were no signs of a failure or leaks from the engine or tranny so my local shop said to just do it at the next clutch change.

After reading A LOT of forum posts and web clippings about the IMS bearing failing I have to admit that I started to panic a bit. Every time I started the engine I was basically crossing my fingers hoping that there would nit be any issues.

So today I decided to have the IMS retrofit installed. The old bearing had a little bit of play and more than likely would not have lasted until my next clutch change. It cost me about $1700 for the job and in my opinion it was well worth it.

So needless to say, I can sleep well now without having the "what if" looming over my head anymore.

Congrats on your new to you Boxster and best wishes. :cheers:

Good luck :)

Completely agree with you. I can sleep a lot better now after the IMS retrofit.
How many miles do you have on your car?
Mine is an 02 too and I had quite a bit of play when we replaced it at 47K miles last January (no leak from IMS seal either).
I think we can't guess the IMS bearing conditions without removing it out of the engine (My oil filter was clean, no metal shavings but my bearing had some play and I think it won't last much longer if I did not replace it).

Mine had 56k on the original but I replaced it and I enjoy driving it without that particular concern.

My car has just over 50k on it. While it might not be for everyone, it just made sense to me to have the IMS retrofit done. To me, it's a relatively small cost in the big picture.

Cheers!