How many miles are normal for a brand new Boxster?
 

I just purchased a new Boxster S with odometer reading of 92 miles. Is this too high for a new porsche? This is like ~8 test drives, more than average I guess. I remember when the first time I test droved a new boxster, the dealer didn't tell me during break-in period the rev shouldn't go higher than 4.2k, and I was constantly driving at 5k~6k rpm. I can just wish other test drivers of my car didn't abuse it too much.

And on this car I can feel slight jerk when I press or release the throttle a little fast (not very fast) in low gears. And when I turn off the engine, I can feel a slight left to right shaking of the whole car. Not sure if these are normal. I don't remember I felt similar things when I test drove another boxster s with 24 miles on it.

Mine had 13mi

mine had about 90

Mine had about 7 miles on it.

8 :cheers:

Mine had 3

Take It Back To The Dealer
 

And Drive Another Car To Compare.

When I test drove a Boxster... it left the dealership with about 5km and came back with over 25km because the dealer drove us to a nice out of the way road. Then I ordered one in the color that I wanted, and mine had barely 1km on it when I took delivery. The way I look at it, that's 20km less break-in period for that Boxter's owner :)

My Boxster rev'ed smoother after the first 1000km. The break-in period really does make a difference. I don't know what you mean by a jerk when you press the throttle, however I also feel a slight shake when starting or turning off the car... it is a horizontally opposed engine, so the weight of the pistons shift left-right.

Our '99' had 95 miles on it;
 

Our '06' had 5 miles on it.
I watched a new Cayman get "broken in" at an auto-x where a salesman let a few club members try it out. Judging from the engine noise, they sure weren't shifting at at 4200 rpm.
You have to wonder what those PCNA launch Caymans were put through in the first 2000 miles; probably not a car you'd want to have after the warranty was up.

33 Miles on mine

Thanks for all the replies. After spend more time with this car, I found a new problem: when the car is parked and idle, I can feel some irregular shakes of the car body, the source seems come from the back of the seats, the engine. The occurrence is not periodical, but in average happens every about 5 seconds. This is more severe when the car is just cold started, but still noticeable after temperature reached 175. After running the car on the high way for awhile then put it to idle, this phenomena seems disappear, but will show up again after 30 seconds.
I went to several dealers close by (the dealer I bought the car from is 1 hour away) and tested 3 Boxster S, none of the cars have shakes like that. I made a service appointment next Wed.

I think most states have a regulation which defines what the maximum mileage is for a car to be sold as "new". In the case of Colo., where I live, I believe it is 100 miles or thereabouts.
While I would say 95 miles is pretty high mileage for a "new" car, it probably does not exceed what is legal. Your local auto licensing folks should be able to tell you for sure.

Just to satisfy my own curiousity, I looked up the state regulation on new car mileage. I was only off by a factor of 10.
In Colorado, a car used as a demonstrator is considered to be a "new" car until the mileage reaches 1,500 miles.

Being that these regulations are state by state, I would bet the variation would be huge.

Here is the funny thing about break in periods in cars. Most manufacturers recommed you take it easy with the motor for the first 5000k and other recomendations like that.

Generally the thought from the aftermarket crowd like myself who builds motor we generally do not break motors in at all. Piston rings seat in better in a varying load and throttle conditions.

When you hone cylinder walls it acctually makes them slightly coarse as it cuts ridges in the wall. This helps the rings wear their own groove so the priston ring to wall gap is a tight as possible, (say .014 for the top and .022 for the bottom ring) and the best way to break this whole setup in is with lots of varying conditions on the motor.

Aftermarket breakins are no different from stock for a general street motor. ON a full race setup, we build the ring gaps quite loose as they never see the street, they are built, receive 2-3 heat cycles, then hit the dyno and make 600 or so HP say on our turbo car.

Generally the best way to break in a motor is to beat it right from the beginning. I know this goes against your conventional wisdom but remember what the dealership is telling you is best for warranty, not whats best for horsepower or your driving pleasure. We find the best break in on motors are when they are driven normally right from the start. No full redlines for 1000k but if yoru redline is 7500rpm go upto 6500rpm and use varying loads and amounts of throttle and drive the car car. After 1000k or so change the oil and redline the crap out of it.

My talon I built the motor and it saw 18psi of boost from a large turbocharger on the very ride home from the shop to my house. It sees a lot of flogging and passes at the track and high speed runs on the highway and it never breaks and makes a lot of power and takes a lot of abuse. The 4G63 is not exactly considered the king of reliability but I challange that motor a lot and it never fails, ever.

Here are some other website with the same school of thought.

http://www.ntnoa.org/enginebreakin.htm
http://www.aircooled.net/gnrlsite/resource/articles/engnbrkn.htm

So the whole point of this is not to worry about the Miles on the car so far as they would have been varying loads from other people which are just helping break in the car. They wont run the car that hard for that long with a salesman in the car. You just need to abvoid lugging the engine hard for long period of time, other then that have at it. Chances are you got a really good break in with all those people driving it at varying loads / conditions...

@986Jim,

I totally agree with you so far as Engine Break-in is concerned. Porsche, and many performance Manufacturers pre-test the Engines anyway.

One thing about new Car break-in however is that it more often has to do with the Transmission than it does the Engine. Bearings, Baulk Rings, Synchros and the Gears, CW&P, all establish their wear patterns during this period. A Lotus Engineer once told me " You can thrash the Engine right out of the Dealer, but the Tranny really needs 500 careful miles if it is going to deliver long, trouble-free performance for the life of the Car..."

@yfei,

Personally, I think you're making waay too much of it. You're attributing every little thing to the fact that your Car has anywhere from 89 to 3 more miles on it than some of the other owners here.

Your Car may have some issues, but that is the product of manufacture and assembly rather than a few additional miles - these are Mass-Produced Cars and there will always be some variation from one to the other, some period of sorting out.

These Cars are expected to easily rack up 200k miles in their lifetimes and 89 miles is too insignificant to affect it in the least. And, realize that a Flat-six isn't going to be as Butter Smooth as say a V-12, that's the nature of the Beast. You may have experienced smoother testers, but so many variables from Ambient Temp to the actual batch of Gasoline used could be responsible for the difference that you simply cannot blame it on 80 additional miles.

You may be hearing alot of ghosts, and I wouldn't let this spoil your new car experience. Use the Warranty (that's what it's there for...) to sort out any real issues and then enjoy the Car!...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

i do not think i would accept a 90 km or miles car as new . sorry but this would not do 10 to 20 kms max for me or no sale!!