Back in the Saddle!
 

I drove the boxster today for the first time since May the 5th.

May has always been a bad month for me, my first boxster was totaled in May, I lost my first girlfriend in May, my current boxster broke down in May, and I made the mistake of cheating on my current ex in May and lost them both. No matter what every year I expect everything to hit the fan in May.

Good news is, everything usually comes back around in late July. And so is the case now.

I went on a spontaneous mountain drive back in May to ease my mind from my now ex giving me the cold shoulder, the drive was great but right on the back side of the ridge line the car gave out on me. I immediately assumed ims. The car had been having a set of O2 sensor cel codes and ran rough but also had developed a tick from the belt side of the engine. I was stupid to take the car on a long trip considering this.

Come to find the issue was not an ims but regardless the car was towed to the dealer and with summer time coming soon and me taking online classes over the summer I did not need transportation so we made sure the car was made completely solid. It took the car a while to get in the bay and parts took forever. But I finally got the car back today.

The car now has a new aos, waterpump, rollers and pulleys, a belt guide clip to fix the issue that caused the whole fiasco. Crankcase sleeves, spark plugs, and new oil filer tube and crankcase vent elbow.

It turns out the cel was caused by a pinched seal from the previous owners diy aos job that caused oil leaks and vaccum leaks. And the belt went off due to an issue with the alternator that was fixed on later cars. The car got a new aos and waterpump as preventative as the car is at 100k miles and has not had the waterpump done before.

The car runs better then ever and feels more powerful, I was pleased to find that I haven't forgotten how to drive stick either haha!

I've been driving a Camry and sienna in the mean time..... You learn to really appreciate the boxster when you get used to those two cars, sitting low, having a manual, and heavy precise steering is great!

These cars are outstanding and it's great to be back in one. I've been stranded a few times and had a few issues but majority of issues I've ever had with them have been from botched jobs at Indy shops or diys. Take good care of these cars and keep things preventative and they are as solid as they come.

Don't worry about girlfriends, one leaving ten coming :)

Jake - I'm glad to see you back on the road!

Enjoy the rest of the summer - you're going to start a whole new chapter of your life in a few weeks with college starting. Have fun!

Welcome back Jake.

Although my Box does not get driven every day, it's just great knowing it's there in the garage any time I need her.

I don't want to think of not having that option.

What else did the previous owner DIY?

No car for 3 months right in the middle of summer....man I would have been clinically depressed.

Freshly dumped too haha! It wasn't bad though I've had 3 classes this summer so that's kept me busy, I've also started working out!

The PO seems capable, he's rebuilding a 914, he just pinched a seal while installing the aos. Which has caused intermittent cel issues since then.

I knew we probably could've done some of the work ourselves but with an undiagnosed cel as well we simply handed the car off to the dealer. At the end the bill wasn't that bad at all considering the car is entirely solid now.

Jake what codes did you use to have? P11028 & P11030 by any chance?

i get these intermittently but the car is running solid so i'm suspecting a small vacuum leak. my AOS was changed recently..

It was either 28 and 30 or 38 and 40, I honestly can't remember beyond that. We chased them around replacing things like the MAF, the symptoms lead us to believe aos but it had recently been replaced so we discounted that not considering that the recent change of aos could be what was causing the problem. Hope you can find what's causing the problem.

thanks Jake! i will do a smoke test for vacuum leaks soon on my next oil change and see what's going on. cant be the MAF because that was recently changed and the car is running normally.

also, CEL just went off on its own today but i'm sure it will be back to haunt me some more until i figure this out.