Intro and Running a cheap Boxster, what could possibly go wrong?

[Adrian Thompson]

I’m not sure if this is the right place to introduce myself and my car, if not feel free to tell me and I’ll move this.

I’ve been a Porsche nut for years, I’ve come close on a couple of occasions, but never taken the plunge before. While some people aren’t keen on Boxsters I love them, and personally think the 986/996 front end works better on the Boxster than the 911, especially in drop top configuration. The Boxster just looks right, while a 911 Convertible looks like a hump back whale. You may have noticed I’m a convertible person having had a Spitfire, a Miata and several Mustang convertibles over the years as well. I’ve also done a fair bit of track driving, autocross, hillslimbs and even one season racings, but most of that was pre kids in the 90’s. I’ve only done a half dozen autocrosses in the last 10 years plus a couple of track days.

So, for a while I’ve been looking for a new car. I work for Ford and get a company car, but as my wife does more miles than I do she drives it. I’ve got a Volvo C30 that I bought new (When ford still owned Volvo I hasten to add) But as the Volvo is now 8 years old and 105K miles I’ve been looking for a new car. I bored everyone I know plus people on Grassroots Motorsport forum where I spend a lot of time with my what car rambling. I was considering the whole gamut from a new loaded Mustang GT or Focus RS, down through used Boxsters and other things, but I’d narrowed it down to either a nice low mileage Z4M Roadster (circa $20-25K) Or the best 986 S Boxster on the planet (Circa $20K). What did I do? I bought the least desirable Porsche in existence, except it’s the most desirable Porsche in existence as it’s mine. I wasn’t interested in a 897 with the M97 and non-serviceable IMS Bearing unless I could step up to an 09 with the 9A1 engine and no IMS at all, but that was getting a bit new and pricy. I have no problem buying a 10 year old non Ford product, but If I’m going to buy something newer it needs to be in the Ford family. Pride in what I do, who I do it for and don’t bite the hand that feeds you and all that.

[Adrian Thompson]

It’s an early (2.5L not 2.7L) base Boxster with just about the only option being the tiptronic, yes the anathema of a sports car a slush box. But trust me; it has a lot going for it.


We all know the issues of early M96 Porsche engines with cylinder chucking and IMS bearing failures etc. Well this car had a brand new engine fitted under warranty in September 05 at 56,325 miles. Piecing things together from receipts and Carfax it had 72,104 miles on it when it last changed hands in 08, and only has 76,858 when I bought it, so it’s only done 20K on the new engine and less than 5k miles in the last eight years or about 600 miles a year. I will soon fix that.

[Adrian Thompson]

So why this car and why did I get it? Well it belonged to the husband of my next door neighbor’s wife’s business partner. Sounds complicated, but I’ve met the guy and his wife on several occasions over the years. The original owner was his step fathers, he actually thought his step father was the 2nd owner having bought it as a young used cars. CarFax and the fact that Porsche replaced the engine for free (I have the documentation showing warranty) after six years suggests the step dad was the original owner, I think changing the title from Connecticut to South Caroline may have lead him to believe there was an extra owner. It was bought in Connecticut but spent most of its time down in South Carolina as I say. The engine replacement paper work comes from Porsche of Fairfield CT, but the guys address at the time was in SC. Once he got it in 08 the PO has just used it as a weekend toy. It had a lot of sentimental value to him, but I don’t think it was overly popular with his wife. Apparently when he came in the house last week ranting that it was a POS and he was done with it because the electric seat height adjuster was broken, his wife seized upon that to strongly agree with his urge to sell it. It’s spent a lot of time sitting so it’s got various scratches and a few dents plus it’s generally filthy, I mean really dirty inside with a heavily worn seat bolster and a few damaged parts. He put the word out to friends he was thinking of selling and was talking to my neighbor about cleaning it up to sell. My neighbor Dan, he’s a super nice guy who had a 1955 356 and now has a 78 911SC. He loves cars and is a demon at cleaning cars up to look great, he has far more patience than I do for scrubbing out little corners and nooks and crannies inside. He told the seller he might know someone interested in the car as is and he let me know about it. He knew I wanted an S not a base car and certainly not an auto, but figured the guy wanted shot of it without hassle of cleaning it up and wasting weeks on dead beat Craiglisters or offered $2K to trade it in.

So I went to check it out, hopeful but skeptical. I looked it over and drove it. First impressions were it’s tatty and I wasn’t super excited but I test drove it anyway. First surprise. I don’t hate the tiptronic auto. It’s got to be in the top three best auto’s I’ve driven (along with an auto L98 C4 Corvette and an E39 540i) It holds gears well and actually has good engine braking. Yes it’s slow with only circa 200hp, bit it felt faster than I thought. All the time looking around it I was texting a couple of friends one of who wo works at the local Porsche dealer on the parts counter. Given the history, the mileage and the new engine I decided it was worth skipping a PPI (I mean, what could possibly go wrong with a water cooled Porsche!!!) as long as I could get it for a good price. After a few mins haggling I got it for what I think is an excellent price.

The last service I have a receipt for is at the local Porsche dealer here in Birmingham Michigan (Fred Lavrey) in 08 for a service and oil change at 73,235 miles which is only 3,600 miles ago. There is another visit to Fred Lavery listed in CarFax Sep 14 at 76,775 but it doesn’t list what was done. So at best I can assume just over 100 miles on the oil and at worst 3,500. Either way due to the age I’ll be changing it relatively soon. I don’t’ see anything about flushing the trans, so I’ll probably do that soon as well.
It really endeared itself to the family by the battery going flat at the local pet shop 45 mins after I picked it up on Saturday so I called my wife to send Dan, the neighbor, down to give me a jump. The irony is my new Porsche was rescued by the most unreliable car in the universe a Land Rover Discovery! Even better as we were jumping it a guy next to us laughed at a Landy jumping a Porsche and it turns out he works with friend who is at the Porsche dealer above!
The Next night Dan the neighbor being the star that he is dropped this lot on me. An R&T two pack of a 986 and a 550, plus the Porsche option catalogue and ‘lifestyle accessories’ book both from 1999, the year of the car.

[Adrian Thompson]

So, lets asses the car.
Here it is at the seller’s house with the Disco mentioned above in the pic.

The interior needs some work




Various scratches to work on




And the actual headlamp lens is damaged although the outer plastic only shows the merest hint of yellowing. The internal lens is broken. Not be Xenon it should be cheap to fix

[Adrian Thompson]

Last off the top is OK with just one tiny nick in it, but not all the way through. Inevitably the window is well past its prime. I watched a YouTube vid where a guy picked out the old stiches, made a new window and sewed it back in again by hand. HE had well over 20 hours of hand stitching. Screw that I’ll find another way that doesn’t involve replacing the whole top.


And a couple more just because I can

[Adrian Thompson]

So plans. Well first off was a new battery last night. Then look at the seat. Remember I said the guy told me the electric seat height adjust was buggered, well I believed him as the switch was just loose and flopping around and while I’ve read an absolute ton on the mechanics of these cars, I’ve never read much about the rest of the hardware so I had no idea until I started Googling that it’s actually a mechanical system. I figured I could get to the back of what I thought was a switch and jump it to lower the seat to a better position. But Google taught me that it’s a hydraulic ram with a cable attached to one end which connects to a lever on the side of the seat. Apparently it’s not uncommon for the pin to slide out of the lever mechanism leaving it inoperable. To fix it properly I need to take the seat out, but in the interim I got Dan to jump up and down on the seat (in socks obviously) while I reached under the seat to operate the cable to the hydraulic ram manually. Voila, 30 seconds later the seat it down and I’ve fixed what was the final straw making the guy sell the car.

Next up. This car has instantly saved me $600-700 or more. Due to time constraints I was going to take the Volvo to a dealer or specialist and pay for the timing belt, and all the front end engine accessories to be replaced. But now I can take it off the road and do it myself for the cost of parts rather than paying parts (plus markup) and labor. The last quote I got was over $1,100. For now the Volvo is on storage insurance and the Porsche is in use (although I have a company car). I need to get some hide food on the leather bolster to stop it deteriorating more, then when I take it off the road for the winter I will look at 'Leatherique' products to restore them, I’ve seen and heard of amazing results browsing FerrariChat and Pelican so it seems good stuff. If I have too I’ll get a new panel sewn into the driver bolster.

I need a couple of interior bits from Evilbay. The mesh insert behind the drivers roll hoop is missing. The hinge on the center cubby is broken and the far left driver’s side dash vent is falling to bits. Possibly the strangest thing about the interior is bits of foam keep falling/blowing out of the heater vents and both at face level and under the dash, I guess I’ll have to investigate that, any ideas? I assume a gasket is deteriorating somewhere.

Next I figure tires. What’s on there has plenty of tread on but I had no idea how old they were. I’ve found a receipt and it’s from July 2003 when it had 43K miles on it!!! So yeah, I figure before any long trips I need tires. I started off thinking I’d go for Star Specs, but then realized, who am I kidding? This is 99% a road car with possibly 1 or 2 autocrosses thrown in if I feel like it. So right now I’m thinking regular Direzza DZ102’s which, as it’s only got 16” wheels happen to be dirt cheap at $329 a set and I have a friend who can get them mounted and match balanced for free.

I even found the radio code so when I changed the battery I could punch it in and still have the radio work.

So far I can’t believe my luck. I love the car, it rides amazingly well yet is fun to throw around at sane speeds. IT”s not fast, but OMG does it sound good when you rev it to the red line. The auto works well and is really good in manual mode with a surprising amount of engine braking which is usually an issue with autos. In fact it’s so good that I’ve already decided that my next Porsche will be a PDK. Next Porsche? Yeah, I figure I’ll keep this 2-3 years then either sell it for a bigger better Porsche or pass it down to the minor offspring as her first car (daughter, no back seat )

[Adrian Thompson]

OK, this is strange, why are my posts appearing in reverse order, newest at the top oldest at the bottom. Every other forum I'm on does the oldest post at the top. Am I doing something wrong?

[kjc2050]

Originally Posted by Adrian Thompson

OK, this is strange, why are my posts appearing in reverse order, newest at the top oldest at the bottom. Every other forum I'm on does the oldest post at the top. Am I doing something wrong?

Go to User CP / Thread Display Options

[imon_2nd]

Hello, Adrian.

Nice to read about somebody else who buys "cheap" used sporty cars and loves them. I bought my first Porsche (2004 Box S, 98K miles, 6-spd with a newer motor) last week for $13K. Had the clutch and RMS done immediately. Really fun car as my DD. I'm thinking of upgrading the suspension since I do track days pretty regularly. On the other hand, the parts are very pricey.

Cheers,

Dave

[CrisZenithBlue]

congrats on the new car Adrian! give it the loves it deserves and it will give lots of smiles in return!

check out this thread on the foam coming out of the vents:

http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/60055-heater-not-crispy-enough.html

sounds like another winter project for you as it's time consuming more than anything.

good luck and keep us posted! always nice to see someone working on and enjoying their boxster.

[Adrian Thompson]

Thanks for the kind words guys. I don't think It's worth upgrading the suspension as a)it's a base tip-tronic car, b)I don't really do track days.

thanks for the lead on the heater foam and the thread display settings.

I've put a couple of hundred miles on her now and I swear she's getting smoother with each each mile. I'm still trying to understand the transmission calibration when in D, sometimes it drops into 1st at rest, most of the time it stays in 2nd. Engine and transmission oil and filter change is on the cards for a couple of weeks from now, need to order filters and bits either from Pelican or my local dealer and read up on oil suggestions.

Oh yes, and I had to be that guy driving my new toy to work yesterday and wear this jacket

[BruceH]

Congrats and welcome to the forum Adrian! When you get the drivers side roll bar insert, make sure you zip tie it, probably should do the passenger side while it is still there

[paulofto]

Adrian, welcome to the forum you are going to have a lot of fun in this car.

BTW, my brother in law has been with Ford Canada for over 30 years and he gets a new company car every 6 months. His winter drive is usually an Explorer but his summer ride is almost always a Mustang. He takes delivery this week of a California Special with all the bells and whistles.

And one more thing, I love your vintage 917 era Gulf jacket. Here is my vintage 956/962 era Rothmans Porsche jacket. Another of my brothers in law worked for Rothmans for over 30 years and got this in the mid '80's during some kind of marketing promo. It has never been worn and he gave it to me when I bought my Boxster a couple of years ago.

[chooch]

I'm looking at a 2001 Boxster with 68,000 miles, 1 owner wanting $10k. I am new to Porsche, but am hearing about some issues specifically IMS faults?
Can someone clue me in?
Thanks

[jcslocum]

Chooch, go to the Google and start reading. It's like reading war and peace....

[jcslocum]

Originally Posted by Adrian Thompson

I need a couple of interior bits from Evilbay. The mesh insert behind the drivers roll hoop is missing. The hinge on the center cubby is broken and the far left driver’s side dash vent is falling to bits. .

Welcome to the addiction we call Porsche ownership!!! Good looking Boxster.

If you need parts, send a message to Woody; itsnotanova on here. He's a good guy that breaks Boxsters and is very fair with the prices.

The hinge on the console is replaceable.



That kit works and costs about $20.

[grc0456]

Congrats and welcome, Adrian. i enjoyed reading about your journey into 986-hood.

As far as the foam blowing, its likely coming from the hot/cold mixer door between your heater core and AC. It is a metal piece with holes that are covered by said foam. The foam and glue has deteriorated over the years and is blowing out the vents. You may also start to notice you don't have hot heat or cold AC, but sort of lukewarm/cold. That's because of no more foam covering the holes and the mixer not being able to separate hot from cold. It's a do-able DIY, but you need to take a lot of stuff off under the front cowl to get to it. Once you do, just vacuum the foam bits out and re-foam it with some weather stripping. Use Search here and you will find more info.


PS: can you get us a forum member discount on a new gen Mustang GT???

[Adrian Thompson]

OK, so let's bring this up to date. I never posted back at the time, but a week after getting the car I managed to drive into a tree, in the Home Depot parking lot at 5 mph while looking at my GPS. Yes, I really was that stupid. The upside was that the car I paid $5K for was valued at, wait for it, $12K by the insurance company. YEs, they really were nuts in giving it that valuation, based partially on the new engine from Porsche less than 20K miles before. So three weeks in the shop, my $500 deductible plus a whopping total of $7,717.06 from the ins company saw a new fender, bumper, support, front right radiator and AC Condenser etc and it was better than when I got it.

Here's my stupidity.

[Adrian Thompson]

Next up was time to change the trans and oil fluid back in July at 77,657 miles. I used the recommended 0W40 (Mobil One full synth) and Pentosin ATF-1 which according to Pelican Parts is the correct spec for Porsche auto trans without paying through the sun-no-shine-hole for the Porsche logo being on the bottle.

The engine oil was OK on miles, but had been there for a few years so I wanted to change it. The auto fluid I could find no evidence of it having been changed and in 'D' the trans always seemed to set off in 2nd and be slow to up or down E36 M3 although everything worked fine when in manual mode (remember this is a regular auto, not a PDK) That seems to be a common issue with old dirty fluid in these cars and changing it seems to fix a lot of ills.

OF course, one of the joys of this being a mid engined car with no (normal) access from above, is that this job is a pain in the ass. It took something like six hours all in, which is longer than it takes me to change the alternator on an SVT Contour which internet lore states is an almost impossible two day exercise.

The bits. And BTW I love me new roll about Harbor Freight tool box. It now has all my metric stuff in it while everything else is in my original non movable Craftsman box back in the garage.

First jacking the car up. It turns out the jack points are pretty mangled. This is the one of the one on the right hand side. Pretty buggered up isn't it?


This is the one on the left, or more accurately this is where the left hand side one is meant to be. Totally missing!! How the hell can the jacking point be completely gone!! You need to have the car level, not just one end jacked up as it needs to be level for filling the trans as will be seen later.


So once in the air step one is to remove the under tray, this allows you to reach the trans to drain the fluid. The trouble is to remove the under tray you need to remove eight nuts to lower the two aluminium chassis braces that then allow you to remove the under tray! You also need to undo the rear sway bar so it can be lowered enough to remove the trans oil pan.

The old trans fluid while not sparkling looked cleaner than I imagined it would after (what I assumed to be) 16 years and pushing 80k miles. Here is it coming out.


With the fluid drained I could remove the pan. All nice and clean in there.


This is the old filter. It doesn't look horrible in there either. At this point I was a bit worried, it all seems better than I expected so I was wondering about the poor shift quality in 'D'
Note. These are the same size, strange forshortening effect witht he camera makes the old one look smaller.

Anyway while letting every last drop of fluid drip down I also changed the engine oil, this prompted the first of three trips to the auto parts store. In my collection of oil filter wrenches I assumed I had one that would fit. Nope. Off to get one. Inevitably the POS stamped cheap, E36 M3ty steel with non-existent tolerances just slid on the filter. Back to get one of the wrap around ones which I’ve always found useless as there is never enough room for them, but this time I had success. So change the oil and fill it up no issue..

Back to the trans. Swap out the trans filter for the new one and pop it in place. then time for a refill with fresh fluid. There is no fill plug on the top or the side of the trans you need instead to fill from the bottom with a pump. This is what the pan looks like (pinched from Pelican)

See that yellow tower, it’s what you fill through. You pump in fluid until there’s enough in to flow out. That’s the correct level.

Of course I didn’t have a hex large enough to fit the plug so that was the third trip to the parts store to get one.

The process is you put it all back together (after a good cleaning, new filter, gasket etc. and torque up the cover in the correct order to 8 ft/lb’s which is about the torque a sparrow farting at the end of a ratchet produces) then pump fluid up into it until it spills out. They you put the plug back in and run the engine until an infra-red thermometer tells you the bottom of the pan is between 85-100 °F. Then you shut it off, remove the plug, top up, replace the plug then rinse and repeat until no more can go in which was four rounds for me. One thing, it really seems to me that more fluid came out than went in, so I wonder if there had been too much fluid in there and/or I didn’t manage to really fill it up.

After that refit the under-tray, replace the aluminium braces and the 8 nuts then drop her to the ground and test drive time.

Regardless, wow, what a night and day difference in shift quality, it engages 1st more often, the shifts don’t’ hang up and are sooner and smoother than before. Considering the that a) the fluid that came out didn’t appear to be that berkeleyed up and b) doing this only changes at best 1/3 of the fluid in there It’s an amazing difference. I think I’ll make this an annual thing for a while until I’m sure it’s all fresh fluid in there.

All done!

[Adrian Thompson]

Next up was time to change the trans and oil fluid back in July at 77,657 miles. I used the recommended 0W40 (Mobil One full synth) and Pentosin ATF-1 which according to Pelican Parts is the correct spec for Porsche auto trans without paying through the sun-no-shine-hole for the Porsche logo being on the bottle.

The engine oil was OK on miles, but had been there for a few years so I wanted to change it. The auto fluid I could find no evidence of it having been changed and in 'D' the trans always seemed to set off in 2nd and be slow to up or down E36 M3 although everything worked fine when in manual mode (remember this is a regular auto, not a PDK) That seems to be a common issue with old dirty fluid in these cars and changing it seems to fix a lot of ills.

OF course, one of the joys of this being a mid engined car with no (normal) access from above, is that this job is a pain in the ass. It took something like six hours all in, which is longer than it takes me to change the alternator on an SVT Contour which internet lore states is an almost impossible two day exercise.

The bits. And BTW I love me new roll about Harbor Freight tool box. It now has all my metric stuff in it while everything else is in my original non movable Craftsman box back in the garage.


First jacking the car up. It turns out the jack points are pretty mangled. This is the one of the one on the right hand side. Pretty buggered up isn't it?


This is the one on the left, or more accurately this is where the left hand side one is meant to be. Totally missing!! How the hell can the jacking point be completely gone!! You need to have the car level, not just one end jacked up as it needs to be level for filling the trans as will be seen later.



So once in the air step one is to remove the under tray, this allows you to reach the trans to drain the fluid. The trouble is to remove the under tray you need to remove eight nuts to lower the two aluminium chassis braces that then allow you to remove the under tray! You also need to undo the rear sway bar so it can be lowered enough to remove the trans oil pan.

The old trans fluid while not sparkling looked cleaner than I imagined it would after (what I assumed to be) 16 years and pushing 80k miles. Here is it coming out.



With the fluid drained I could remove the pan. All nice and clean in there.



This is the old filter. It doesn't look horrible in there either. At this point I was a bit worried, it all seems better than I expected so I was wondering about the poor shift quality in 'D'

Note. These are the same size, strange forshortening effect witht he camera makes the old one look smaller.

Anyway while letting every last drop of fluid drip down I also changed the engine oil, this prompted the first of three trips to the auto parts store. In my collection of oil filter wrenches I assumed I had one that would fit. Nope. Off to get one. Inevitably the POS stamped cheap, E36 M3ty steel with non-existent tolerances just slid on the filter. Back to get one of the wrap around ones which I’ve always found useless as there is never enough room for them, but this time I had success. So change the oil and fill it up no issue..

Back to the trans. Swap out the trans filter for the new one and pop it in place. then time for a refill with fresh fluid. There is no fill plug on the top or the side of the trans you need instead to fill from the bottom with a pump. This is what the pan looks like (pinched from Pelican)


See that yellow tower, it’s what you fill through. You pump in fluid until there’s enough in to flow out. That’s the correct level.

Of course I didn’t have a hex large enough to fit the plug so that was the third trip to the parts store to get one.

The process is you put it all back together (after a good cleaning, new filter, gasket etc. and torque up the cover in the correct order to 8 ft/lb’s which is about the torque a sparrow farting at the end of a ratchet produces) then pump fluid up into it until it spills out. They you put the plug back in and run the engine until an infra-red thermometer tells you the bottom of the pan is between 85-100 °F. Then you shut it off, remove the plug, top up, replace the plug then rinse and repeat until no more can go in which was four rounds for me. One thing, it really seems to me that more fluid came out than went in, so I wonder if there had been too much fluid in there and/or I didn’t manage to really fill it up.

After that refit the under-tray, replace the aluminium braces and the 8 nuts then drop her to the ground and test drive time.

Regardless, wow, what a night and day difference in shift quality, it engages 1st more often, the shifts don’t’ hang up and are sooner and smoother than before. Considering the that a) the fluid that came out didn’t appear to be that berkeleyed up and b) doing this only changes at best 1/3 of the fluid in there It’s an amazing difference. I think I’ll make this an annual thing for a while until I’m sure it’s all fresh fluid in there.

All done!