[Dystopius]

hi guys, new to group and porsche. here's my story.
was browsing ebay for unrelated stuff when on a whim i decided to check what an "old" boxster was going for these days since i remembered absolutely drooling for one back in the first years. long story short i was the winning bidder on a 98 w/70k for 8500. just like that, a 100% sight unseen no ppi no nothin' impulse buy. was lucky that my credit is good and was approved for $10k loan post facto.

took a flight literally just a few hours later and when i got to the location the guy selling it was genuinely nice and helpful. i'm a good judge of character and could tell this much. so on that very day he says the brake wear lit up and, indeed, by the time i met him he had it in the shop where the diagnosis was new front rotors and pads for $625. i decided to close the deal w/o any further haggling and just leave and take care of it back home. other than that the car looks, feels and drives fantastic and all the meanwhile i just couldn't get over the fact you could own this kind of car for four digits.

the previous owner clearly cared deeply for the car. he handed over an inch-thick folder with all the repair work done over the years. he had done some light and tasteful modding like new stereo, a new top w/ glass, shifter, etc. and the cincher? not sure if i've ever seen or heard of this before but when i shook hands and said good-bye he was tearing up. the parting was both awkward and poignant. this guy *really* was going to miss his old ride.

anyway, drove a thousand miles back home in one 18-hour marathon. took it straight away to the local shop here in town that works only on german cars and got a call that all four rotors needed to be replaced for a total est. of $1,310 plus i told him to go ahead and change the oil too for another $100. hopefully, dear jesus *hopefully*, this will be my last major expense for at least the next few months. now i have no money to title it [the visa card is shivering in fear].

i would like to know some candid but not needlessly alarmist answers - any substantial advice is helpful:

1- really, since i'm broke and nearly unemployed (quite possibly the poorest porsche owner ever) if past this bill anything comes up >$1,000 within, say, the next six months should i just drive it into the ground, chalk this up to an early mid-life crisis and sell it for parts? seriously, consider the question.

2- after my full-day drive with this car i'm beginning to reconsider some long-held assumptions. like that a) the S trim would be the only worthwhile boxster and that b) tiptronic is basically an abomination made for the benefit of posers and talentless showboaters but no real sports car enthusiast would be caught dead driving an automatic.

on the first account i wonder if those modest 200 ponies are (i'm a bit embarrassed to admit) almost more bite than i can chew because, boy, maybe it's just an auditory illusion from hearing jet engine noises coming from a foot away but it *feels* like the wolfman got stuck in there - just wow! which leads me to the tranny point: i've owned a half dozen manual cars from utter ****************boxes to an audi tt and have always felt if not masterful then at least competent enough in getting going. i'm not the redline type. 99% of the time i shift into the tall gear by the time i'm coming off the ramp. when feeling "sporty" i take first up to 3 or 4 grand and go into second and repeat. that's enough thrill. but with this car i feel like a legion of ghost german engineers are staring from above in disgust at how i handle their art. a couple times in stop and go traffic my car died. talk about embarrassing eh. i'm so self-conscious now that i drag the needle to the 2k mark and sloooowly, very gingerly let go of the clutch in a move that takes a couple too long *just to get moving*. today i think i even unintentionally burned rubber because i smelled something funky when doing this. can all y'all give this loser some tips on how to properly upshift a fine-ass car like this?

3-is it possible to get an aftermarket warranty for a car this age & miles? while i would naturally prefer bumper to bumper it's the powertrain horror stories i'm reading about that really freak me out. one IMS and i'm stiffing the bank for the loan and starting a new life in thailand. i know that likely the greater portion of you here are stock market millionaires and so on to whom ten large may not be chump change but not a big deal either. for ME though i can't properly express the sense of dread that overcomes me from the thought of blowing this amount of money.

4-with my nuvi gps on i noticed a curious error in that the speedometer was consistenly 4 miles behind the satellite. though i have no way to know for sure i suspect that it's the car giving the false number. i remembered the seller mentioning at one point he had a set of nice wheels that he sold years before and i got to thinking, is it possible that if you put on larger/smaller than spec tires the car miscalculates how much ground it's covering per second since a larger wheel, of course, carries the car further on each rpm. since this car has stock wheels this would mean that if my theory is correct he had the speedometer logic algorithm modified to compensate and this not reverted when the stocks came back on. ideas?

all for now - pics and followup by this weekend!