I think I'm ready to sell my Boxster..

[Overdrive]

Whoa, that tire's wacky! Looks like it's got one of those tumors...something like that can occur if your shock is no good...the tire bounces up and down at a very high frequency because the shock isn't doing its job, tire heats up a lot and that tumor thing can happen (I really have no other term to describe it). Not guaranteed to be the problem, but something to check. Does the rear suspension have any odd movements when you take bumps on the road?

Glad you found that out before too long...it also looks like it was rubbing on something, too. Is that part with the tumor the inner or outer edge of the tire? If it's the inner, see if there's any signs of it rubbing against something in the wheel well area.

[Lil bastard]

That tire has delaminated and must be thrown out. Usually a tire delaminates after a fairly severe impact with say a pothole or speedbump. It is unsafe and you will never eliminate the shimmy shakes running on it.

Also, the same impact that delam'd the tire is likely to have bent your control arm too, so have them checked to spec. Again, with bent control arms, the car will never balance or align properly.

Cheers!

[DFW02S]

I've seen bubbles in a sidewall but never anything like that where the tread actually separated inside. I wonder if the belts split in the same way?

[pompous]

Originally Posted by rdougan

Does anyone know if it is normal to have that little gap underneath the engine, where the transmission mounts?

The gap there is normal. Mine looks the same.

[jakekit]

It is quite a list. The thing to remember is this. There is about a 90% chance that any used car (especially any sports car) that you buy is going to need somewhere around 10-15% of the purchase price in work right off the bat to get it to where you want it.

No PPI or other work prior to purchase can fix this. Spending time driving a car regularly is going to enlighten you to all kinds of things that you want to fix.

I bought a "good" car and have already done:
Wheel balance
new top
new cupholders
sway bar endlinks front and rear
new floormats
lots of paint chip work
new wheel centercaps
replacement of CD holder with cubby
new front hood solenoid
tons of new undertray bits
one spare key made
new sunvisor mirror assembly
replace broken ashtray with storage bin

I've still got a couple of rattles floating around in the car which are making me nuts. I'd love to replace all of the rear windscreen bits which are a large part of the rattling. New rear tires need to come sooner rather than later. Also need to do rear trailing arms.

I've noticed that some prior owner tried to "fix" the engine cover and bose speaker carpeting that faded by stapling on some ghetto black interior carpeting. Some day I'll want to replace that as well.

It's just the way it goes sadly. The only good thing about this is that as I repair each thing I know it's where I want it to be. Even the "perfect" car is going to run up a list of crap to deal with.

So you have two options. Fight it out with this car if you truly like everything about the car. Year, model, options, colors. These are things that money can't fix. Sell it and move on to a Honda-ish vehicle you don't care about.

[jakekit]

Note to self. Never make a list of work you've done on a car you've owned less than 6 months.

[rdougan]

Originally Posted by Lil bastard

That tire has delaminated and must be thrown out. Usually a tire delaminates after a fairly severe impact with say a pothole or speedbump. It is unsafe and you will never eliminate the shimmy shakes running on it.

Also, the same impact that delam'd the tire is likely to have bent your control arm too, so have them checked to spec. Again, with bent control arms, the car will never balance or align properly.

Cheers!

Yeah, it is pretty bad. I will be getting 2 new rear tyres now. I'll have a look at the control arms..

Originally Posted by pompous

The gap there is normal. Mine looks the same.

Excellent, that helps.

Originally Posted by jakekit

Note to self. Never make a list of work you've done on a car you've owned less than 6 months.

hah! Yeah, it is crazy when you make a list. But it's good to know exactly what needs fixed, and what is priority.

I replaced the handbrake sensor yesterday and it fixed the problem! 1 thing down, 9721387 more to go.

[Overdrive]

Originally Posted by rdougan

...I replaced the handbrake sensor yesterday and it fixed the problem! 1 thing down, 9721387 more to go.

[Mark_T]

Originally Posted by jakekit

Note to self. Never make a list of work you've done on a car you've owned less than 6 months.

Along those lines, I keep all the receipts for everything I've ever spent on the car. I will never, ever make the mistake of adding them up to see what the total is!

As far as the list of stuff to do, I organized it into phases with a timeline on each phase, all spread over three years. Made the whole thing seem much more manageable. It also keeps me focused on what's important.

[rdougan]

I replaced a pipe which went from AOS -> throttle body today and it seems to have fixed any idle/hesitation issues. Yay!

Things are actually looking up...