Want to buy a Boxster, but I'm Afraid..very afraid!

[jonomo]

Brucelee...

I just emailed ya today... I use to live down in SD last year... If i had known I woulda stopped by your place.!

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by jonomo

Brucelee...

I just emailed ya today... I use to live down in SD last year... If i had known I woulda stopped by your place.!

Great. If I can help, I will be most pleased~

[Perfectlap]

BruceLee,
would you recommend a service contract for a 2000 Boxster with only 12,000 miles?
I passed on the plan they tried to sell me on at the Acura dealership where I bought the Boxster. The previous owner traded it in for a CL or something.
The service records only included one oil change and something electrical I think.
I asked for more but they said that was all it had done.

[aglsteven]

Jonomo,

There were a few issues with 97 and 98 Boxsters engines. I bought my 98 Boxster in 2003 and it has its second engine in it. By the time they are this age, if anything major is going to go wrong, it will have already happened.
Typical things that go wrong with Boxsters are:
Hood retracting cables snap.
Air mass sensors need replacing.

Servicing a Boxster is going to cost more than a Golf, but my garage tells me he doesn't like Boxsters because they rarely go wrong He likes late 70's to early 90's 911 'cos he gets to do $9000 engine rebuilds on them all the time.

I get the impression that the 2.7L Boxsters from 2000 onwards have had most of the bugs ironed out of them, as well as better low-end torque, equipment and power. Probably worth spending up to one of these if you are concerned

[jonomo]

Originally Posted by aglsteven

There were a few issues with 97 and 98 Boxsters engines. I bought my 98 Boxster in 2003 and it has its second engine in it. By the time they are this age, if anything major is going to go wrong, it will have already happened.

If you're already on your second engine, then that shows me that the motors are not very reliable. I don't think you should have to switch out a motor on a car thats less than 10 years old. That means I should expect to switch out the motor every 5~7 years. That doesn't help me at all. Maybe I'll get the S2000... so ugly, but very reliable!

[Perfectlap]

good News,
A few more quotes for my 2000 S which is out of warranty:

Century Warranty Services(from CarFax site)1-877-404-2066(Egor x12946)
CWS is a sub. of Fidelity Investments

(AAA coverage 800-528-2054 and service at any ASE certified dealer)
full coverage (-$100 ded. per visit, not per part)
NOT COVERED:
1.paint
2.glass
3.seating surfaces
4.oil change,tires,battery,brake pads,rotors,softop fabric.
(clutch and flywheel are covered, as well as the softop motor)

Price:
coverage for an additional 60 months/60,000 miles=$1795 (30 payments plus 10% down which is refundable for 60 days if you change your mind. $53 a month no interest)

72 months/72,000 miles=$2096 (30 payments as well, $62 )

This seems like a no brainer. For $350 a year I'm covering the engine, Clutch and all the electrical stuff for the next 6 years. Labor at a Porsche dealer without an extended service warranty seems like it would prohibitively expensive and the parts on electrical and HVAC OEM equipment will easily surpass $1000 (50% of my investment).

I get the feeling that the dealer would have interest to "find" things that "should" be fixed with much more "interest" than if I were walking in without coverage.
Sounds logical right?

[RandallNeighbour]

Lots of the 97s and 98s had rear main seal problems because of out-of-round crank shafts made in the first 2.5's. It wobbled horribly and eventually tore up the seal. I agree with those above this post that said if it has a bad engine, it's already been replaced for these year models... except if you find one a garage queen with 12k on it. I'd be scared of that just because it was in the garage far more than it was on the road and who knows what is rotting out from the inside out.

My '97 had a new $8,000 engine put in it just before I bought it. Right now, it's in my mechanic's garage having the transmission replaced, but only because of of an idiot previous owner jamming it into first gear and dropping the clutch repeatedly, or downshifting into first gear at a high rate of speed.

Search this site for threads about warranties outside of Porsche, and you'll read a recurring theme: "It's a waste of your money as they find loopholes as to why your problem isn't covered."

Buy a Boxster with some factory warranty on it... or better yet, one that is Porsche certified pre-owned and warrented to 100k. IMHO, this is the way to go and what I should have done. I like the older certified pre-owned option because all the stuff that goes wrong with most cars happens at 75-100k, not under 50k, so you get the biggest bang for your buck when X goes out at 79k miles. Also, the certified pre-owned Porsches are thoroughly checked out because they don't want to warrant a dog of a car. Just my opinion.

[clubhead]

Originally Posted by jonomo

If you're already on your second engine, then that shows me that the motors are not very reliable. I don't think you should have to switch out a motor on a car thats less than 10 years old. That means I should expect to switch out the motor every 5~7 years. That doesn't help me at all. Maybe I'll get the S2000... so ugly, but very reliable!

It is a fact that Porsche has cylinder casting problems for cars built bet 1997 and 1999. Go look up the tech section at pca.org. Full details are there. Something about the engine liners being porous. So engine built during this period may suffer from premature failure. It is a fault on the build process. Someone said it's rubbish to avoid 1997 to 1999 cars in an earlier post. It's NOT. I would avoid those cars unless cost is your major concern or you find one that already has its engine replaced under warranty.

If you're already considering a Porsche, part of you wants passion. You're not going to get that same feeling with a Jap car (S2000) like it or not. You don't buy a Ferrari and expect longevity of its engine and components. Modenas needs an engine out service every 50k miles! A Porsche is sort of like middle ground, at least for Boxsters and not exotics like GT2. It comes with a reasonable amount reliability iwth another reasonable dose of exoticness Hey, their still German made afterall Italians? That would be a different issue all together

[Brucelee]

Sadly, this engine alloy issue is not confined to Porsche. BMW has a MASSIVE problem with their V8 engines between 95-98. They VERY QUIETLY replaced a ton of these engines.

In my experience, the Porsche engine is very tough indeed, putting aside the issues we already discussed. Recommendation I make to all my customers:

Change the oil/filter every 7500 miles, not 15K like the manual recs.

Use 15-50 Mobil 1 in warmer climes.

DON'T hammer the car when it is cold. NO engine likes this.

[jonomo]

Originally Posted by clubhead

You don't buy a Ferrari and expect longevity of its engine and components. Modenas needs an engine out service every 50k miles!

A Ferrari Modena isn't an entry level car designed for the masses. They are exotics and aren't meant for daily driving. When's the last time you saw a ferrari with over 50K miles?

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

BruceLee,
would you recommend a service contract for a 2000 Boxster with only 12,000 miles?
I passed on the plan they tried to sell me on at the Acura dealership where I bought the Boxster. The previous owner traded it in for a CL or something.
The service records only included one oil change and something electrical I think.
I asked for more but they said that was all it had done.

On this car with that mileage, the service history sounds about right. For the future, I would do an oil change (Mobil 1 of course!) every 7500 miles, not 15K as the manual says. Assuming you drive prudently, this should keep your engine internals intact.

The issue of a service contract is thorny at best. Much depends on the following variables:

What is your risk profile, that is, how well do you respond to planned vs unplanned expenses? A service contract is simply an insurance contract which takes your money before an event happens and in fact, may not happen. On the other hand, it protects you when it does and more so if the costs are higher than otherwise expected.

Some folks love to buy insurance, others never do!

The second variable is the contract itself. What does it cover and how is the company about paying. From my understanding, if that SC was actually underwritten by Acura, they are pretty good about paying. That said, you have to read the contract carefully to see what you are getting.

On the Box, the big ticket items would include a total engine (unlikely for sure), clutch, trans and rear main seal. Less costly are other seals and gaskets and of course, electronics.

I wish I could just answer for you but as you can see, it really is very individual indeed, just like how we all like to personalize our Boxsters here on the forum.

[BuffaloBoxster]

Just to throw my two cents in on the subject of extended warranties... In May I bought my '01 Boxster, and the factory warranty ran out in November. During that time, I had a couple of little things fixed under the factory warranty - my HVAC controls had a couple segments on the LED go bad, and I also had the transmission mechanism on my top break. All of it was fixed under factory warranty. The bill for the HVAC was over $1000 (mostly the part from what I understand), and the top transmission was about $700.

I bought an extended warranty from Warranty Direct. I did some research and they've been around a very long time, and I had a hard time digging up dirt on the company. Their converage most closely mimicked what you'd see covered on a factory warranty, and they will let you have the car serviced by the dealer. My coverage was a little over $2000 to extend the warranty by four years and up to 100,000 miles. Knowing how expensive these cars are to have fixed, if only what has gone wrong over the first six months I've owned the car go wrong in the next four years, I'll still be pretty close to breaking even. And I'd hate to have everything sunk because that unlikely failure just happens to occur on my car, and I'm making payments on a car I don't have $9000 for an engine rebuild and a Bxster without an engine is obviously not going to get me much money out of the deal.

[Perfectlap]

is that Warranty Direct coverage $2000 a year for four years? ($8,000 total)
I drive the car pretty hard. But I have always changed things on previous car's before they break and I had a great mechanic who won't go near a Porsche.
I only drive about 6,000 miles a year. I rely on daily public transportation to get to work into NYC. So my daily drive is literally 5 minutes to the train station and five minutes back in the evening. Public Transportation is not cheap though $300 a month. I do plan to attend track drving schools and at least 100 Autocross laps, so the car will be tested to some degree.

Service contract seems very tempting, I'm the type that would like hanging out in the Porshce garage just to watch them tell nothing needs fixing. But my mileage is so low I wonder if it will be wasted.
(In the back of my mind I keep thinking about how a 996 I was considering was only $9,000 over the Boxster I bought. But I guess you can't look at it that way)

[BuffaloBoxster]

No, it's $2000 for all four years. The key is to buy the coverage before your car goes out of warranty.