[Jake Raby]

Mike, Lots of the people who contact us have high mileage cars.. A chunk of these have already had a replacement engine, but another good chunk hasn't and they still run fine.

BUT many have just bought the cars with high mileage and gotten them at very good prices because they have high mileage. The majority of what we create is applied to dual purpose DE and street cars that spend more time on the track than the street.. More and more high mileage (less valuable) Boxsters are being made into dedicated tack cars and these people not only want reliability but they also want and need more power.

To them the factory can't give them what they want and therefore the prices we charge for a more thoroughbred engine are much more acceptable. Boxster track cars that are prepped well bring more money than street cars with low mileage and that also lessens the pain from spending money on a blueprinted engine thats built for the application.

I will say that cars that make it past 85K generally won't see any of the standard failures that are most common.. The majority of the failure calls we get range in mileage from 30-65K with an occasional call from a 70K+ owner.

We have begun asking callers if we can record their conversations with us for comparison and posting later, so within 18 months or so we'll have recorded data that we've logged from notes as well as MP3 files from phone chats that can be posted... You'll see that its the same story over and over almost to the word.

You have to remember that only a small portion of Boxster owners are internet junkies.. We have a lot that contact us who have no idea what the prices we charge are or even what an IMS bearing failure is. They are referred to us by our ad in Excellence or by word of mouth as being "The guys that can do the repairs" so they call us absolutely unknowing.. In fact I refer more people to our site than already know about it and send messages of inquiry to us. Heck some people have a failure then go to the dealership and receive a diagnosis only to hear about some broken shaft in the engine and that triggers a google search and then they find out about us.

We are now approaching the time that heavily driven cars are having engines begin to wear out rather than fail.. These made it past the most vulnerable points and continued on to the point where they are consuming oil and making rattling sounds. The amount of these is much higher now than it was a year ago and we are learning from these core engines when they are dissected.

And now what we charge is very close to the factory replacement engines from Porsche, much closer than it was this time last year.. Our prices have stayed the same and even dropped as volumes have increased, while the factory engines continue to see elevated costs periodically.

The people who are purchasing the 986 to be recreated as a track vehicle are generally a little different than the 986 owner who drives the car daily.. Some have a Turbo in their stable or another 911 and they desire the 986 due to it's superior handling. Its also considered a somewhat disposable car if they were to slide off the track, crash and burn.. Then they rip off the suspension, engine and tranny and throw those into another high mileage tub that they might have purchased for as little as 3500 bucks... Then they do it all over again.

You don't see many of this personality type on the forums...

It all really boils down to luck.. So drive the damn car and just don't worry about it. If it breaks you do have options.(It could be worse if those options didn't exist.)