our new toy
 

We just bought on a complete whim a 2001 Boxtser S with 29,000 miles. Yesterday I was not even thinking of one. A little compulsive but my wife is grinning ear to ear. I guess the pathfinder is going to get a break.
Just joined the forum today to check some things out..thanks for the great info. I will get pix soon.

Pics are needed! Sounds like you grabbed a great car though! You will enjoy it for sure.

With both feet!!

Welcome! Enjoy!

IMHO, 2001 Boxster S is a great car! Congrates & enjoy.

I'm kind of partial to 2001 too! Congrats and welcome to the forum:cheers:

Me too
 

But Wow.....29K miles....awesome

Too bad it's not a 2002.

Congrats and enjoy in good health

Why
 

Why a 2002 ?

Starting with Chuck's post, they're commenting on the year Boxster each owns.

pixhttp://986forum.com/forums/uploads01/BB11407237457.jpg
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01/BB21407237519.jpg

I like the clear headlights and the wheels....great acquisition.....now the fun begins :cheers:

Love the impulsivness YOLO

Low mileage S with litronics, you are very lucky! Enjoy it!

Fantastic looking car! I really don't want to rain on your parade, but, with that low of miles, I would definitely look into getting the IMS replaced. Low milage cars seem to have higher failure rates due to corrosion. You can do a search on here for more info, it's been beaten to death, but cars that are used regularly with frequent oil changes(every 5000 miles or once per year) seem to do better. Just my .02...

I am having a highly rated euro car shop inspect tomorrow. I got a 60 day warranty when I got it. 2 questions. What is litronics and what is the IMS.

Litronics are a very expensive oem upgrade. They are xenon low beams with a halogen high beam. Overall they make the car look much younger than it actually is. IMS is the intermediate shaft bearing, turns out porsche made a bad part choice on this one and they can fail, in the case of a failure you are expecting the whole engine to go with it. This does not happen as often as the hoop-la around here makes it seem, but because of how much money it may cost you, many replace the bearing with one that to our knowledge won't fail.

I am having a highly rated euro car shop inspect tomorrow. I got a 60 day warranty when I got it. 2 questions. What is litronics and what is the IMS.

The IMS bearing was supposed to be a sealed bearing but it has not been. Engine oil gets in and washes away the original bearing grease. If the car is driven regularly and above 3000 RPM with some revs close to the limit, the thinking is fresh oil gets in to the bearing and keeps it lubricated. Also, oil gets behind the bearing and into the tube behind it. For a car that doesn't get used too often and infrequent oil changes, the oil turns acidic and begins corroding the bearing, leading to an early demise. Once the bearing goes, it is game over. Most get the bearing replaced when the clutch is due to be replaced. With a low milage car, you are more susceptible to the oil becoming acidic. There are different replacement bearings out there and various "solutions". Do a search for the name Jake Raby, he is a frequent contributor on this forum and developed a replacement bearing and now the IMS Solution. You can also get the IMS Guardian which warns of a potential failure.

I change my oil ever 5000 miles, inspect my filter for metal debris, and get the oil analyzed by Blackstone Labs($25) for my piece of mind. I have 75,000 miles but the car has been used regularly with regular oil changes. I also have a magnetic drain plug to show any metal debris in the oil. My plan is to change the bearing when I have the clutch changed. Everyone has to make their own decision with what they are comfortable with. Since this was an impulse buy, I figured you might want to know a little about the IMS. There was a class action suit against Porsche for this but for most of us, there is no remedy under that.

Take a look at this post from today:
http://986forum.com/forums/413194-post251.html

I am not trying to scare you or anyone else, but you should know about this issue. I bought mine with full knowledge of the failures and factored it into my purchase. I hate to see buyers caught unaware. These are fantastic cars for the money, you just need to know the weak points. :cheers:

deltacharlie, I too have a low mileage 2001 Boxster S. Oddly, I purchased the car new in 2001, sold it to a friend in 2009 and just recently bought it back from him with just over 24k miles on the clock. When I got onto this forum and began reading about IMS failure, I began to get concerned, so....as many others have done, I decided to "bite the bullet" and pay up for the IMSB replacement. When my OEM IMSB was removed, my mechanic told me that it looked clean with no evidence of it being ready to blow up my engine. I am not sure as to what the moral of this story is but I do have peace of mind to go out and drive my car as much and as hard as I want which is the real joy of Porsche ownership. As BruceH said, it is good to have knowledge of the potential failures. As others have documented here, the actual numbers of catastrophic IMS failures is pretty low. You need to determine your own risk tolerence. BTW....great looking car!!:cheers:

First, I feel my mechanic is pretty good and he has owned these himself. I think oil analysis is a great idea, especially on my first change(It was just serviced). Next, this car will not be driven very hard..mostly a sunday cruiser. What is the IMS guardian?

IMS Guardian

Nice boxster, good purchase congrats.

sometimes driving slow can actually cause more damage, the engines are made for a bit of fun :D

That would explain why the IMSB of my 2001 S with 24.5k miles was in pristine condition when I had the LN retrofit done. High revving fun!

Nice, very nice. IMHO, black Porsches look great. Keeping them clean is enough to kill someone with OCD like me. It just shows every last speck of dust!

Just from those exterior shots it appears you have a well optioned Boxster S. The Headlight Washers were a $225 option, the Xenon Headlights were a $1070 option and the 18" Sport Design Wheels were a $2660 option.

There is a white tag attached to the underside of the front hood. It will have the cars options. Post either a photo of it or the codes themselves and we'll let you know what you have.

Welcome and enjoy another nice looking black Boxster

Thanks for all of the help and comments. Attached is the option tag.
Took her to the doctor for a physical. weeping waterpump seems to be the only concern and I think warranty is paying most of it.http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1407410644.jpg

Deltacharlie: you may want to have them swap out the front motor mount while they're changing the water pump... it only lasts about 40k miles or X years anyway.

Even if you just enjoy leisurely drives on weekends, after the motor is fully warmed up run it through the gears to near-redline RPMs each time you drive it. It aids in full-motor nook and cranny lubrication and the Porsche engineers designed the motor to be wound up, not kept below the variocam threshold, which is 3200 rpm.

If you wind up the motor to redline every time you take it out, there's a good chance you'll never see an IMS problem. Never forget that there are thousands and thousands of Boxster owners out there who have no idea what an IMS is and don't care and will never have a problem.

Code Option Description

2001 Boxster S base price $50,200

XRL 18" Sports Design Wheels $2660
030 Sport Group $690
239 Tires
288 Headlight washer $225
424 CD Shelf Center Console $40
446 Colored Wheel Crests $170
454 Automatic speed control
490 Hi-Fi sound system
502 Produced in Finland
551 Air Deflector (Cabriolet)
584 Rear Storage Box
601 Litronic Headlights $1070
696 CDR-220 (AM FM CD) Radio

I am speculating that you have the Sports Package (P63) as you have the Wind stop, sound system, cruise control and AM/FM/-CD player. These items could not be ordered separately. They only came in packages in 2001. If you also have a CD changer in the front trunk and the On Board Computer then you would have the Sports Touring Package instead of the Sports Package. The Sports package was $1560 and the Sports touring package was $2870.

The 030 code is the Sports Chassis with more rigidly tuned springs & shocks, spring plates (Front & rear).

Nicely optioned car! Enjoy.

May I inquire what the seller's asking price was? No need to tell us what you negotiated.
Cars with low mileage always show interesting spreads.

Congratulations on this nice aquisition. I'm loving that pristine rear window. If your mechanic knows these engines like you think he does, sometime before that warranty expires someone needs to remove the oil filter housing & inspect the oil filter for any foreign debris. You should put some miles on it 1st since the oil was recently changed. ;)

Thanks for all of the great input. It was at a Lexus dealer in their "B" lot because of its age. asking was 18900 plus 700 dealer fee. I got the rainy sunday, junior manager wanting to sell something cash price. They covered the 60 day 2000 mile warranty and were really nice to work with. Plus I looked like a total bum that day.
As I said, I was shopping for a jeep cj 5 in stock condition. Oh Well, things change.
I did not want to get dirty anyway.
I should put my car history under my name but dont know how..Between my wife and I it is quite a list of neat cars.

If you send a nice picture in to Excellence Magazine along with your purchase price they may print it under the 'market values' section. I think they'd be interested in it since it's a low mileage car and at the high end of 986S pricing. In comparison I've seen moderate mileage 996.2 base Carreras sell for ~ $12K (an 02 if memory serves) from private sellers. Dealer sales are always significantly higher from what I've seen on Autotrader/Ebay motors. But with literally hundreds of thousands of 996/986 on the market pricing is all over the spectrum. There simply are not enough buyers to absorb that much supply, they always seem to go for low mileage cars which are getting to be rare now.

You can usually find Excellence magazine at Barnes & Noble. It's the unofficial magazine of Porsche in the U.S.
They've got an article in this month's edition about the Boxster GTS.