I was driving home from work on Fri in the Boxster and stopped at my mom's house. As I shut the engine off I thought I smelled antifreeze. Went inside for 10 min and she wanted me to sharpen the blade on her lawn mower, so I pulled it out of the garage to take it off. Still smelled antifreeze. Looked over and there was a 4' puddle under the front of the engine and a nice little stream coming out. I quickly got the blade off and hustled the 3 mi to home. Watched the temp gauge and it was doing fine. Got 1/4 mi from home and the check coolant level light came on. Got her in the garage and shut off without any issues. The steam was still flowing.
Called Woodhouse and they asked if I could drive it in. I said it had lost a lot of fluid and I didn't want to start it up again. Plus they're 10 mi away. I still have 6 mo of warranty, so they said to call Porsche and they'll arrange a flat bed. But it wouldn't get there in time to get it to Woodhouse before they closed and I didn't want it sitting outside overnight. So I called Porsche at 6:45am on Mon. They said they'd have a truck there by 8am. At 7:30 I called Woodhouse to let them know I was coming. They asked if I could ride to the dealership with the tow truck and I said I didn't know. They said if I couldn't, they'd send someone out with a loaner, otherwise I could pick it up when I got there with the truck. The driver arrived a little before 8:30 and it didn't take him long to get her loaded and strapped in (I had already put the tow hook on). He said I could ride with him, so off we went. We were driving in rush hr traffic and he started texting.
Only took me 10 min at Woodhouse to get the paperwork done and on my way. You see below what they gave me. :dance:
They called about lunch time on Mon and said the water pump was bad and they'd have it ready to go Tue after work. I called them Tue morning and said if they had a serp belt in stock it would make sense to go ahead and put it on. When I called Tue afternoon they said it would be ready at 5pm. I got there a little before 5 and they were putting the finishing touches on the detailing.
I work from home on Wed, so I was going to take her out to get some lunch. Before I could back out of the garage I got the check coolant msg. I shut her off and looked under the coolant cap - there was no antifreeze to be seen below the MIN level. I had some Havoline antifreeze but didn't think it was a good idea to mix it with Porsche coolant. Called them up and asked them if that was OK. They said no, that I should bring it in. I said I'd be there at 3:30. They had her for about 15 min and when they brought her back, they also had a gallon jug with a quart of coolant in it so I could top it off myself if needed. Nice.
Woodhouse was top-notch in taking care of me.
I should mention that Punkin is 3 1/2 yrs old and has almost 26K mi on her. The service description said the water pump pulley had excessive play in the bearing. The impeller was supposedly not damaged. I know water pumps are a weak spot, but was surprised it would shoot craps that soon. But it was better to break now rather than 6 mo from now. And a couple of wks ago I took her on a 100 mi golf excursion and it was very fortunate that it didn't break then. So in several ways I feel fortunate. All it cost me was the price of the serp belt.
