Well, I pulled the trigger..
 

Hi guys,

some of you may recognize my name from hanging around here looking for info the past few months, and making the occasional post. Anyway, I just wanted to report back that I pulled the trigger on Saurday - ordered an 07 Boxster, and put down a deposit! I have a week or so before the order goes final, I gather, and m probably looking at March delivery, which would be just fine with me - April might be even better. You may remember I was considering the Cayman S too, but I decided I liked my Mk 5 GTI too much and need it's practicality - I figured the Cayman S doesn't have much of a practicality advantage over the Box - not enough to have it as an only car. So I will replace the TT Roadster with the Boxster, and keep my GTI.

What I ordered:

2007 Boxster
Forest Green met., black/black
Xenons
18 in Box 'S' wheels
heated seats
windstop/storage box
Sound package plus
colored wheel crests
sport steering wheel
headlight washers in body color
I may delete Boster insignia or have it in body color too, or just leave as is...opinions on that one, or anything else I listed?

I may scrap the 18s, too; I love the look, but unsprung weight is not my friend, especially on the slightly torque-challenged 2.7, I think. I also live in NYC and I think the 17s would provide a more fluid, supple ride/handling package. Somehow, I also think the fat-sidewalled look of the 17s is kinda cool in a retro sort of way! On the other hand, I am here in Germany this morning and on the way to my hotel a new 987 on 18s rolled past at low speed - they look great...

Anyway, I am pretty psyched as you can well imagine; I can't count the number of times I thought or said aloud on Saturday "holy sh--, I just bought a Porsche..."

Got a good though not great deal, I think; $4K off sticker; the car listed around $51.5K

Thanks for your input up to this point, and I'm sure I will want to know a whole lot more in the future!

18" Wheels
 

That may be a good call on going to 17" wheels with a 2.7L Boxster. I have stock 17" wheels on my 2000 2.7L and just got a set of aftermarket 18" Carrera wheels. The aftermarket wheels look great, but they weigh in at about 3 lbs heavier and 3/8" greater in diameter than the stock wheels and I can feel the difference. Even with that small of a difference in the rotating mass the car does not feel as quick. Now, if you could get some very lightwieght 18" or better yet 17", that would be a whole different story....


Ed

:cheers:

Hi, I'm in NYC too and I have 18's on my 2004 S. I wanted the stock 17's for the same reasons, but the car I had to take off the lot (ordering period was closed, the car in stock was 90% of what I wanted) had 18's. Overall I haven't had an issue. There was one time on the Van Wyck expressway (I try to say off it) I hit a huge lump at the head of the exit ramp, it couldn't be avoided. I was certain the rim and tire were damaged. As I drove the car after the "impact" it felt normal. So, I continued to drive (the Van Wyck isn't a very friendly road for pulling over). When I got home I closely inspected the rim (front right). All that was there was a small chip in the finsh of the rim....I felt lucky.

Anyway, the 18's have been fine, they look great and have proven to be durable.

Good luck with your box....great choice!

bob

go with the 18's.....you don't want a 17! I have the 18 box s wheels on my 05' I'll post a url to the pic.....btw, I will eventually upgrade to 19" classics....

hope this works
 

Congrats on the new ride! I can't imagine how hard it will be to wait 'till March. Welcome to the Porsche fam!

- C5150

17" wheels will dent as easily as 18" wheels, both are cast alloys and well...they dent that's what they do in NYC. On ride quality its more to do with weight.
18" Carrera five spokes are 21 pounds nearly 10 pounds lighter at each corner than the stock 18" wheels. 40 pounds of moving weight changes ride quality for sure. But even more pivotal is the weight of the tire. There is more of a diff. with a light tire and heavy wheel than with a light wheel and heavy tire.

Green and Black sounds very nice. I saw a nice 911 in that scheme with polished mesh wheels. Real head turner.
I'm not as crazy abot green and tan, elegant vs. sport I guess.
Green and red would be interesting, saw a Lotus Elise like that once, I think.
p.s.
How much more in this neck of the woods is the 3.4 option?

p.s.s.
ALL P-Cars should have front and rear badges its blasphemy to do othewise.
I think it would be cool if you became the first guy to have a 987 badge on your
Boxster. On dark green I think a silver or gun metal badge would look nice and a silver hood crest up front. Bumperplugs.com sells that stuff and some cool interior mods too. Maybe you could get a green and black thing going like they did with this yellow/black:

http://bumperplugs.com/gallery/SYCaymanS1.jpg

Congratulations. Good color choice. ;) Post some pictures when you get it.

Tire Weights
 

I have wondered about putting a light weight tire on my 18" aftermarket Carrera wheels. Does anyone have a recommendation for a lightweight tire? BTW, my stock 17" wheels with Michellins weigh in at 48 lbs for the rear, my aftermarket Carrera wheels with Falken 512 tires weigh in at 51 lbs.

Ed

:cheers:

Nice choices.

I ended up with 19s on my car. It was not my first choice but everthing else on the car was just what I wanted so I bought it.

With the 19s I have found the ride to be firm but not a huge difference from the 18s.

I did run into a pot hole a few weeks ago and lost a tire (expensive for 19s and my reasone for prefering the 18s initially) I was not going fast but it felt like the car had taken a 1 foot drop!. I expected to loose a rim and a tire but I only lost a tire. When I took the wheel off I carefully loooked over the rim and could see no damage I was surprised, I took another look when the new tire was fitted (I don't like to fool around with bad tires or rims) and all was okay, the tire shop could not see any problems either.

So the moral here is as follows:
1. The car looks better with bigger rims!
2. The rims are surprisingly tough so go with what looks good to you.

As a former owner of a 987 base with the OEM 17s, I highly recommend keeping the 18s with your order. Not only are the 17s some of the most aesthetically challenged rims I've ever seen, they're a pain to keep clean, and the ride with the 18s is no worse and arguably better.

Upgrading to the OEM 18s after delivery is also much more expensive then buying them as original equipment. The 18s are very much in demand from other 17 buyers looking to upgrade. In case you were curious, the trade-in value of the 17s is @$100.00, which pretty much illustrates the collective opinion of them. The weights for the two size rims are as follows, and the rotating mass isn't nearly as much as the 19s would be:

Standard 987 17" wheels are 18 - 6 (18lbs 6 oz) on the front, 19 - 13 on the rear.

Standard 987 18" S wheels are 21 - 11 and 22 - 14.

The difference in mass can also be shrunk a little bit when one calculates the weight of the tires into the overall weight. 18" tires are going to be a little less heavy than their 17" counterparts, if the other dimensions are the same.

I wouldn't stick with the 17's, myself.

Congrats, John!
Keep the 18s.
Z.

Congratulations! I'm almost identical to you in my cars, except a generation back in each case. I have a 2002 Boxster S and a supercharged 2004 VW R32. In my case, I definitely like the styling of the older better than the newer. Just my personal preference, though.

Thanks
 

Thanks everyone, for your enthusiasm and input; I'm keeping the Boxster logo, and I think I'll leave it in the stock color. Still on the fence about wheel size, though from the weight info in this thread, it doesn't sound as though I would notice the increase in rotational mass with the 18s. I may need to try to set up a back-to-back drive with my dealer...time to give my salesman a call anyway and see what the cutoff date is.

Thanks, Bob - I'm in LIC, and the Van Wyck/Whitestone, GCP, BQE and LIE will be at least occasional driving roads for me; I think they are one of those things you have to live with to know and understand, which is one reason why I'm leaning 17s, the other being the fact that Ed Devlin says he can notice the difference;

I always found that on identical cars, you really noticed the difference in accelerative 'snap' through increased wheel size when accelerating out of corners.

Hi, I think you'll be fine with the 18"s. I find that going a bit slower on the problem highways here is the best way to deal with the road conditions. I use the GCP (east of LGA) and the Northren State as much as possible, mostly to avoid those damn sand trucks on the LIE and the crazed Taxi and Limo's on the Van Wyck. The BQE at right time of day could be fun ;)


either way the car is amazing....enjoy!


bob

About the 18"'s
 

We swent through the same decision on our '06'. The 18's won mainly on appearance. I've driven both and had not noticed a difference in steering response.

Keep one thing in mind on the 17"s, because they are only 6.5" wide, your tire options to fit that front wheel are very narrow--there are very few max perf. tires in 205-55-17 sizes. Comparing that to the 235-40-18, there are quite a few different tires available from BFG, Michelin, Bridgestone and Goodyear to name a few.

Also, look on Ebay for the price of Takeoffs for 987's, the 17's have gone for as low as $800 + shipping. If you get the 18's and don't like them, you can always sell them and pretty much get your $ out of them

BTW, have you considered the Sport seats? they are a great value (@$770) if you were considering auto-x or track days.

Thanks - I love the sport seats and agree that's a good price for a nice option by Porsche standards; I'd probably get them on a Cayman S, but they seem overkill on a 2.7 Box, also because I probably won't use the car competitively.

SD987, did you have PASM with either car?

John Y: Don't discount the
 

performance of the base 987 too quickly. this car really does get around a auto-x course very well, even better with PASM.

One of the guys in our club--I think Tom is on this board--turned in a time that was only 1/2 second slower that a 944 turbo. He was on street tires and the 944 guy was on Victoracers.

At Mid-Ohio, I certainly was not the slowest my run group--the one above novice--and spent most of one lapping session chasing and passing a 996 C4. With the 07 you'll get a few more HP and VarioCam +.

Mike - thanks, and I don't discount it at all; while I probably won't track the car, if I didn't feel it was enough for me (and I own a couple of pretty torque-happy tuned, turbocharged cars) I certainly wouldn't have taken the plunge. But I'm pretty confident that in it's own way, the VC Plus 2.7l engine will be enough to keep me happy - the rest of the car doesn't exactly hurt, either!

The only issue I have is the 17s v. 18s, and it bothers me that I can't make up my mind. I like the supple, fluid ride on the 17s, and I think they will provide all the handling dynamics I can use, especially since as I said, I don't expect to be going to the track. On a car whose major selling point is handling, I doubt that Porsche would standard-spec wheel and tires that let the car down. I also like the fact if anything, the 17s will probably add to the car's fun factor by making the car "feel" stronger, especially powering out of curves, since the engine will not be over-matched by the wheels/tires. Though I am not in love with their appearance, I do think they look much better when I see them in person as opposed to photos. If I go for the 17s, I am thinking about the factory 5mm spacers as a nice, safe, conservative way of improving their overall appearance by moving them a little more flush to the fenders.

Although in an earlier test drive with 18s the ride was fine, it was a long time ago, and I think the car may have had PASM and been in "Normal" mode. But I love the look of the 18s, too. I also supect they are just light enough and the motor jsut torquey enough that it really won't feel lifeless or "locked down" as you try to accelerate while turning. Question for those with 2.7l engines and Boxster S 18s (or the 17s, for that matter) - how easy is it to spin/chirp the rears in different situations?

GREAT articles in the November issue of 'Excellence' for those who haven't seen it yet, about the 07 Boxster and S, and the Cayman, raising many of these issues.

OK, this ramble is over! Thanks for the input as always, guys.

Yes John Y, I have PASM on my current S with 19s. I don't auto-x the car but frequently drive on the street as if competing in an auto-x :).

I'll let you in on a little secret. The base 987 with 17s is just as fun to drive as the S with 19s and the handling feels just as good if not better. I say feels better because it feels lighter and more tossable. Is it going to turn in a faster auto-x time? No, but that's not down to the handling factor.

Do I notice a difference with PASM? Yes, the car definitely hunkers down and there's also a slightly different response in the throttle (this is without Sports Chrono) that doesn't get mentioned much. Could I in good faith recommend PASM to a 987 buyer? No, because I don't think it provides a $2000 premium to the handling characteristics of the stock suspension.

You may also want to check out the updated Porsche configurator. It's been mucho-modified.

thanks for the wheel weight figures, by the way - are those from your measurements?
If there were as many good looking, lightweight but strong aftermarket options for the Box as there are for my Audi or even the GTI, I wouldn't think twice about going for the 17s, and considering the good 18 in options later.