Considering Boxster, Have Questions

[fatmike]

I drive an '02S because I like the "modern-classic" look of the 986 and I don't want to worry too much about it. I bought my car 4 years ago. If I was going to buy today, I'd probably buy a 2009 or 2010 model (maybe a Cayman).

I bought my car for a song @ 11K miles and have put almost 60K on it over the past 4 years as my daily driver - rain, snow, sun, whatever. Yes it requires a bit more maintenance, but it's a 10 year old car now... After a while, all of the usual-suspect stuff breaks and then you have a well sorted daily driver. I think (hope...) I've reached that spot.

I've owned 3 BMWs and truthfully there is no comparison. The Porsche is a driver's car. BMW lost their way a long time ago.



Mike Focke's site still has a lot of great information about buying a Boxster:

mikesporscheboxsterwebpages - mikefocke2

[jb92563]

I did my own PPI on my recently acquired 2001 Boxster S, since I figured that none of the really important stuff can be discovered without taking the engine/transmission apart.

I spent 2 hours at a private sellers home looking stuff over like reading all the maintenance repair receipts, counting up the olil changes, decoding all the options.

From the records I started getting a feeling that the current and previous owner did regular maintenance and took good care of the car, a very good sign.

Then I tested everything in the car to make sure everything inside and out was functional and sound. (I forgot to try the wipers)

I crawled near/under and looked at everything exposed (I had a fiber optic camera from Harbor frieght $80 to look at inaccessible places)
Number one was that there was no Oil on the ground or on the engine at either end. I would check that again after the test drive and it was all clean, also a very good sign.

I felt confident I had a good 11 year old car with appropriate 55k worth of wear and tear. So I bought it after getting a discount of 500 for the rear tires that have a few k miles left on the tread.

When I got home the additional issues I discovered is the wiper spray did not work, thanks to this forum chances are good that it is only a disconnected line and I will fix it this weekend.
Also had a loose vent in the rear quarter panel which again was simple to reinstall properly so it was in tight.

I also had a stange noise behind the passenger seat over bumpy road and as others have described the same symptoms have found it to be nothing more that the top rubbing, which after an adjustment stopped.

I find that this forum has a solution/answer for every conceivable problem and question and is better than have just 1 mechanic at a shop guess/solve your problem.

I'm loving the Porsche 986 experience and looking forward to many years of pleasure. Did I mention that driving was out of this world.

I went to a track and guess what I saw, a lot of Porsches, what does that mean?
They are great performers and people buy them specifically for that purpose.

I love that folks who have driven all sorts of performance cars just think the Boxster is fantastic, can they all be wrong?!!!...I think not!