Originally Posted by PaulE
Mine's been very reliable too. It is a 2003 S bought new in September 2003 and about 64,600 miles to date. In 2012 at about 33,000 miles the car was making a very harsh screeching metallic sound when I started it so I had it flat bedded to my indy garage - they looked it over, found nothing, got my permission to start it and there was no noise -it's never happened again, they didn't hear it but thought it could have been a collapsed lifter. At 42,000 miles I preemptively upgraded my IMSB to the LN single row pro, put in a new water pump, new Porsche antifreeze, serpentine belt and AOS. The clutch, pressure plate, throwout bearing and flywheel were all in great shape so they went back in. At that time, the RMS was bone dry so we decided it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. But then the RMS started to leak and the oil fill neck was also cracked around 48,000 miles, so they were fixed. The clutch was still perfect though and is still going strong at 64,600 miles.
I've only ever had 2 potential strands. The first was driving home to NJ from my first HDPE at Mosport last July at around 60,000 miles. The idler pulley on the serpentine belt was starting to fail and making noise, but I made it home and had it replaced. The other time was last month when the electrical switch portion of my ignition lock failed. The car had the good sense to let that happen at home - the car would still start and shut off but the headlights wouldn't come on and the ignition key wasn't locking when I got it out.
I've had other typical things - tires damaged due to road hazards that had to be replaced, a couple of bent light alloy Carrera rims, torn CV joint boots, burnt inner headlight lenses on my Halogen lights. The burn marks were just starting but the lights were never great, and I had highbeam burn marks as well even though I rarely get the chance to drive with high beams. So I upgraded to Nine8Six's projectors. I've also had one of my horns fail a couple of times, I think that was the result of going through automatic car washes which I don't do any more and haven't had that issue again. I also had to re-sew the Velcro straps to the edge of my convertible top that wrap around the push bars in the top frame over the door windows.
Spark plugs and coil packs last about 30,000 miles for me, my front pads and rotors were replaced at 60,000 miles, the rears are still original, my original battery lasted until March 2009, the replacement Interstate H7 is still going strong. I use a CTEK battery tender whenever my car is parked in the garage.
Upgrades I have done include adding the factory rear speaker kit, my car came only with dash speakers, the OBC addition with PDwight's wiring harness, the hard top, Ben006's ball bearing short shifter, the Suncoast cup holder that fits in the arm rest compartment, a set of 2003 17 inch wheels and tires, the previously mentioned Nine8Six projectors, and smoke gray front side marker lights. Planned upgrades for this year are a second center console storage bin to replace the CD holders, an underdrive pulley and the ROW M030 suspension kit.
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