my first porsche
 

I'm new to this forum and to porsches' in general. My car is a 2003 boxster S with 58,000 miles. Generally the car seems to be in very good condition. However I wasn't aware of the IMS issue with these cars until reading several forums. My question is how big a problem is this and are there warning signs? Does every Boxter ultimately experience this problem?

Hey welcome to the forum and congrats on your new ride. First off IMS is an issue, but it is very rare, and there is no definitive causes for its rapid deterioration. As such their are measures you can take for prevention, one of which is the ims guardian, or changing the IMS for the LN upgraded piece. Other then that the signs are metal flakes in your oil filter and engine knocking from what I understand.

With that said I have owned my 2000 porsche for a year now and it has 116,000 miles on her and still running good. So I personally don't worry too much about it.

If you want in detail stories of IMS issues the search bar will give good results.

Other then that my suggestion is enjoy the car, and post some pics because we love pics.

Welcome and to answer your question - No, its not an inevitible fault. There are loads of threads on here, just search for IMS and you will see the paranoid and practical ends of the spectrum.

I would say be aware and don't skimp on servicing, but don't focus on the negatives too much, get out there and enjoy the drive my friend, they are great cars!

You won't see many "My factory IMS bearing is doing fine" threads, so the IMS issue seems larger then it ever really was.

Here is an entry from the 986 wiki page:

"Early engines had a small number of failures, due to cracked or slipped cylinder liners, which were resolved by a minor redesign in 2000. Other failures have been reported, most notably involving the intermediate shaft (IMS) bearing, but affecting less than 5% of all cars.[citation needed]"

There is nothing to support the 5% claim, so take it how you will. From my research the one way to see if it's a developing issue in a car, you can look at the cam deviations using a durametric and see if one of them is moving up and down which 'might' indicate a failure in the works.

Lots of people have simply replaced them either for piece of mind, or as part of other maintenance like installing a rear main seal, or a new clutch.