I think I'm ready to sell my Boxster..

[Gforrest2]

Got my '03 Base last year bascially sight unseen. Ebay purchase for $12,500, which at the time was several thousand below Blue Book retail. Had 80k miles. So far, replaced 3 tires and the motor mount and had an alignment done. It needs new CV boots and the brake fluid flushed according to the post PPI. Everything else works, came with mats, humps with covers, wind deflector with case, and a non-oem car cover.

Now that I've said this, I'm sure something will go terribly wrong (big $$$) in the immediate future.

[Mark_T]

"If you are talking about the hose in the picture with the red arrow pointing at it, it is the overflow hose for the power steering reservoir."


Aw, too bad - that would have been an easy fix. but at least the hose has been id'd now, so that's one problem down.

[rdougan]

Thanks for all the replies; it is a huge booster! I love the car, it is just quite annoying having all these issues. I don't think I've actually had the chance to fully enjoy the car yet (I'm too afraid to remove the toolbox + jack from the trunk). It is especially hard as I have little patience, but hopefully it will pay off.

Originally Posted by stephen wilson

What year & mileage? Purchase price? How many of these problems were existing when you bought the car? Also, you don't HAVE to replace the IMS (bearing).

2001, 90k miles. About 50% of the issues I already knew about, not including the clutch.

Originally Posted by Overdrive

I know it seems like a lot, but if you chip away at a few of these, little by little, next thing you know your list will grow much shorter and it'll just be the big stuff that you can really focus on accomplishing. Your steering shake above 70 could be due to tires being out of balance, easy and simple fix. I thought mine was an alignment issue, the whole car and steering used to shudder, but I had the shop that did my IMS job rebalance all the tires, and two of them were way out of balance...the car is now shake free all the way into triple digit territory. $25/wheel, totally worth it, and cheaper than an alignment if you don't need one.

I'll get that done then. It has gotten dramatically worse over the past few days, not getting very shaking even at 45MPH.

Originally Posted by Overdrive

The interior door handle shouldn't be too terribly expensive, see if you can find the parts on Pelican Parts. It's a small thing, yes, but clearly it's compounding with all the other things going on and adding that much more stress to your ownership experience. Knock that out too, shouldn't be tough.

Yeah, it is just a simple spring that was broken. I identified the problem when taking the door lock mechanism out of the door.

Originally Posted by Overdrive

You have the switch for the parking brake, so why not just take care of it?

From what I've seen, replacing it is a pita. Though it now sounds simple after replacing the AOS.

Originally Posted by Overdrive

When you say interior lights, do you mean all the lights on the inside? Dash lighting? The door lights and overhead light?

Any lights that go on when you open a door/flick the switch. Neither trunk lights work either (I've replaced the bulbs).

Originally Posted by Mark_T

Actually, I'll be selling off my old grey floor mats when the new black ones arrive in a few days. I'll give you a "sympathy price" - it'll be less than half of what new mats would cost, including shipping. Let me know if you're interested.

Thanks for the offer, but I don't think gray would go to well with my black interior.

Originally Posted by Mark_T

This isn't a cheap hobby, but dude... you own a Porsche! You're living the dream!

Definitely! I love the car, even with it's many faults.

Originally Posted by Lil bastard

Yes... and to add,... it goes to nothing... it is just a vent tube.

Thanks. I thought the same, but couldn't find any information on it.

Does anyone know if it is normal to have that little gap underneath the engine, where the transmission mounts?

[rdougan]

And managed to get the car up on a lift today to take better pictures. Look at the amount of gear oil under here..



Bigger image: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/RwAGHy3zOi7mpVbBJzDEsw?feat=directlink

As for the vibrations, it wasn't a balance issue. Look at the tyre that was on the back:





No idea what has happened. Maybe the tire is just very old? Anyway, not safe. I've replaced it now with the spare tire for now. All the other tires were fine..

[Overdrive]

Whoa, that tire's wacky! Looks like it's got one of those tumors...something like that can occur if your shock is no good...the tire bounces up and down at a very high frequency because the shock isn't doing its job, tire heats up a lot and that tumor thing can happen (I really have no other term to describe it). Not guaranteed to be the problem, but something to check. Does the rear suspension have any odd movements when you take bumps on the road?

Glad you found that out before too long...it also looks like it was rubbing on something, too. Is that part with the tumor the inner or outer edge of the tire? If it's the inner, see if there's any signs of it rubbing against something in the wheel well area.

[Lil bastard]

That tire has delaminated and must be thrown out. Usually a tire delaminates after a fairly severe impact with say a pothole or speedbump. It is unsafe and you will never eliminate the shimmy shakes running on it.

Also, the same impact that delam'd the tire is likely to have bent your control arm too, so have them checked to spec. Again, with bent control arms, the car will never balance or align properly.

Cheers!

[DFW02S]

I've seen bubbles in a sidewall but never anything like that where the tread actually separated inside. I wonder if the belts split in the same way?

[pompous]

Originally Posted by rdougan

Does anyone know if it is normal to have that little gap underneath the engine, where the transmission mounts?

The gap there is normal. Mine looks the same.

[jakekit]

It is quite a list. The thing to remember is this. There is about a 90% chance that any used car (especially any sports car) that you buy is going to need somewhere around 10-15% of the purchase price in work right off the bat to get it to where you want it.

No PPI or other work prior to purchase can fix this. Spending time driving a car regularly is going to enlighten you to all kinds of things that you want to fix.

I bought a "good" car and have already done:
Wheel balance
new top
new cupholders
sway bar endlinks front and rear
new floormats
lots of paint chip work
new wheel centercaps
replacement of CD holder with cubby
new front hood solenoid
tons of new undertray bits
one spare key made
new sunvisor mirror assembly
replace broken ashtray with storage bin

I've still got a couple of rattles floating around in the car which are making me nuts. I'd love to replace all of the rear windscreen bits which are a large part of the rattling. New rear tires need to come sooner rather than later. Also need to do rear trailing arms.

I've noticed that some prior owner tried to "fix" the engine cover and bose speaker carpeting that faded by stapling on some ghetto black interior carpeting. Some day I'll want to replace that as well.

It's just the way it goes sadly. The only good thing about this is that as I repair each thing I know it's where I want it to be. Even the "perfect" car is going to run up a list of crap to deal with.

So you have two options. Fight it out with this car if you truly like everything about the car. Year, model, options, colors. These are things that money can't fix. Sell it and move on to a Honda-ish vehicle you don't care about.

[jakekit]

Note to self. Never make a list of work you've done on a car you've owned less than 6 months.

[rdougan]

Originally Posted by Lil bastard

That tire has delaminated and must be thrown out. Usually a tire delaminates after a fairly severe impact with say a pothole or speedbump. It is unsafe and you will never eliminate the shimmy shakes running on it.

Also, the same impact that delam'd the tire is likely to have bent your control arm too, so have them checked to spec. Again, with bent control arms, the car will never balance or align properly.

Cheers!

Yeah, it is pretty bad. I will be getting 2 new rear tyres now. I'll have a look at the control arms..

Originally Posted by pompous

The gap there is normal. Mine looks the same.

Excellent, that helps.

Originally Posted by jakekit

Note to self. Never make a list of work you've done on a car you've owned less than 6 months.

hah! Yeah, it is crazy when you make a list. But it's good to know exactly what needs fixed, and what is priority.

I replaced the handbrake sensor yesterday and it fixed the problem! 1 thing down, 9721387 more to go.

[Mark_T]

Originally Posted by jakekit

Note to self. Never make a list of work you've done on a car you've owned less than 6 months.

Along those lines, I keep all the receipts for everything I've ever spent on the car. I will never, ever make the mistake of adding them up to see what the total is!

As far as the list of stuff to do, I organized it into phases with a timeline on each phase, all spread over three years. Made the whole thing seem much more manageable. It also keeps me focused on what's important.