My car bounces?
 

When I get my tires spinning 1-2 gear on any surface pavement, my car bounces up and down very rapidly, I thought it was just the traction control kicking in, but my friend says my shocks might be blown... just wondering if my boxster is the only one that does that or if all of them do this.

-Brian

Well, given that the only way to really induce wheel spin in a Boxster is through a clutch drop (1st) and a power shift (2nd), I'm guessing it's either:
1. Wheel hop. Fairly typical for vehicles that can't massively light the tires.
or,
2. That's your transmission and clutch telling you they're about to disintigrate from clutch drops and power shifts.

I've always been curious about what a clutch and tranny replacement costs. Let me know will you?

Krn986, I think either way you look at it, the probelm will soon resolve itself. How you ask?:

1) Either you stop doing what Denverpete suspects! :)

or

2) You keep driving it like you are, and the engine/tranny blows...and it will "run" sooo smoooooth you'll think the car it just sitting there (because it will be just sitting there)!

Take care.

Only spin tires, if you can, on a rental car! :D

Hi,

Interesting you should say that. Enterprise Rental Car has just contracted for 50 Lotus Elises, 20 of which are now available in 5 California locations: Beverly Hills, San Diego, Newport Beach, Pasadena, and Santa Barbara. The remaining 30 are slated for the Las Vegas and South Florida markets.

The Elise will rent for $199/day and you must be 25 years or older, posess a major credit card and carry full-coverage automobile insurance. These cannot be ordered online, rather reservations must be made by calling Enterprise directly at 1-866-458-9227. I've driven it and you can definitely spin the wheels. Sorry to hijack the thread...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

? I ment IN 1st gear i take off no clutch no changing gears it just bounces up...not during gear changes.

That just happened to me last night. I was going down a side road I never go down, was in rolling in first gear at 10 or so, decided to punch it a bit and got this horrid thumping, traction light going off like mad. At first I thought road since it was a little crappy, but I drove further down and tried it again, same result. Scared the hell out of me, thought maybe it was something with the suspension to induce rabid axle hop or maybe even the wheel was bent or something. Got out, checked it, looked fine and I was at my destination.

I pushed it again later that in the night on a road I'm used to tho, and it was smooth sailing. I tried again once or twice today and no problems. I'm thinking it was a mixture of cold tires, cold foggy night, bad road, and just minute slippage+hop. I'm very good to my tranny, double clutch all downshifts and never slip it above 2k. For me, fun is just winding it out from 3-6k once or twice, so I think in this case it was just bad circumstances.

-David

Warning: Thread Hijack
 

So that we don't have to highjack this thread anymore than we already have, would you mind starting another post and tell us a bit about your experience with the Elise or Exige? I know it's not necessarily a daily driver, but I have seriously considered getting one....

+1 it was a rainy day in seattle and i felt like takin the boxster out, i did that and my car was just thumping along and as i hit 2nd gear the car was smooth then.

Spoke to a friend of mine today about it, he once had the same issue on his 300zx. And for a car with 320hp that should simply be spinning the tires, it was pretty weird. His fix was removing the excessly bouncy rubber suspension bushings and going with a much tighter swingarm setup.

The moral of the story, I think the suspension type in a Boxster might also have something to do with it, for the same reason the Boxster is prone to axle hop. It's a car more likely to hop than simply spin, I guess the price paid for an intermediately plush ride on a sport suspension.

-David