I never thought I'd say this but I am considering buying a Boxster!! Early models appear to start at around the £10k mark. The more I read about them the more I fancy one. It would have to be the 3.2 or 3.4.
Does anyone here have any experience of them?
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Great cars, we had a 57 plate 2.7 987 for a couple of years, not very quick in a straight line but great fun in the twisty bits. Swapped it for a 987.2 Cayman 2.9 which is a very similar drive, I think an S or probably the R would be my next choice for that extra bit of grunt.
Watch out for the drain holes blocking in the roof compartment. If they do, water can fill up and runs down behind the seats, the carpets are backed by thick foam which absorbs an unbelievable amount of water, Porsche also decided to put the rear electrics control ecu under the passenger seat, this doesn't like sitting in water
Take one for a test drive!
I've not driven a Boxster, but driven a couple of 3.4 Cayman S's.
They are spectacularly good. Not really a tinkerer's car by any stretch of the imagination but if you want something you can just get in and drive the wheels off every single time and know it'll be utterly brilliant at it then I think they are pretty hard to beat. Properly brilliant sports car package - the steering is just beautiful for starters nevermind the rest of the chassis.
My missus has had one for the past 4 years or so... Looks identical to the one above but in black...
It's very nice to drive, doesn't feel *that* special until you start pushing, then it's awesome. If I was to pick one sports car that I could use every day, that would probably be it - it's quiet, comfy, fast enough, makes an awesome noise (especially with the roof up, the induction note is incredible when you wind it up!), great fun with the roof down, and should be pretty reliable. It also gets close to 30mpg running round, more on a run...
Servicing is fairly pricey if you take it to porsche - you are looking at £500 for a minor service, or £800ish for a major one - but these are typically every 20K miles or 2 years I think, so unless you are doing mega miles it's not that much on balance. There's plenty of independent places that are between 50 and 70% of those prices though. Bits are available from design911 and other specialists should you want to do it yourself - eg. rear brakes (disks and pads) are £700 at porsche, bits are £250ish.
Downsides - if you want to do any work on it yourself engine wise, they are complete absolute ****s to work on due to the layout - limited access from underneath due to the frame rails, and an access hatch behind the rear seats from above. My other halves has been very reliable really - other than an intermittent non starting problem (everyone told us it was the crank sensor, hence the comments about being nasty to work on, when it was actually the fuel pump) and consumables it's been great. The batteries are known to go flat if you leave them for 3 weeks or more.
Tyres are expensive - the 19" rears are close to £300 each, and porsche have a dicky fit if you fit non porsche approved (N rated) tyres. If you puncture one tyre, you may have to change both as the N rating is followed by a number (N1, N2 etc) which seems to change regularly and need to be matched. I'd recommend a TPMS system - you can buy them from ebay if it isn't factory fit, as the tyres are very low profile and stiff sidewalled so it's easy to miss a flat and wreck a tyre..
Brake discs corrode on the insides, so expect MOT advisories for corroded disks, and porsche will 'strongly advise' you change them. This happens across all the range - my mate has a Carrera 4s which is used most days and his has the same problem.
There's lots of 'internet talk' about the engines - there are problems with Intermediate Main Shaft (IMS) bearings failing and writing off engines. Porsche refined the design through the years, so each newer iteration is supposed to be more reliable than the earlier ones. I researched a load when we bought ours and it seems that a lot of it is internet BS, if you look at how many old 911s and Boxsters there are driving round compared to new ones the problem can't be that widespread. If you are really worried, it is possible to get the older ones updated but it's a costly job. If you call a specialist like autofarm they should be able to give you some unbiased advice...
Any questions let me know!
Wow, thanks for the info chaps especially Jonny. Legend!
I'm really getting the itch now! Would you be able to recommend any good forums?
This place is literally down the road from me so should be able to help with anything I need that I can't do myself.
I had read about the N rated tyres and the gearbox issues.
What fuel do they like? What does your missus use?
I work at design911 so have these around me all week long servicing and adding go faster bits to them. They are pretty good cars really the only main faults with them are the front shocks have a tendency to wear on the sanctions giving play in them, and the dreaded IMS, but thats easy to spot the start of, it looks like a leaky rear crank seal on inspection underneath.
One lime green Cayman R sticks in my mind as I have taken it from stock to about as fully tuned as it can be short of opening up the engine and going for a standalone ECU. Gotta be about 380bhp plus, 1250kg and its a lovely driving car. Boxsters and Caymans cover quite a wide performance range when you think about the early 2.5's all the way to 3.4's, so there is something in there to keep most people happy.
I forgot that Pablo works at Design911Originally Posted by Mr G
Wow, thanks for the info chaps especially Jonny. Legend!
I'm really getting the itch now! Would you be able to recommend any good forums?
This place is literally down the road from me so should be able to help with anything I need that I can't do myself.
I had read about the N rated tyres and the gearbox issues.
What fuel do they like? What does your missus use?
You are supposed to run them on super+ - there's a 97 RON sticker on the cap. The other half always forgets and runs it on 95 and it doesn't seem to mind...
For forums - renntech is the only one I've ever (rarely) used for help..
They'll have knock control on the ECU for lower quality fuels so running it on super just means it won't run as well as it could do. Won't do any lasting damage.
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Pablo, many thanks for the info. How many IMS failures on the Boxster 987's do you see? Do you know if anything can anything be done to prevent it?
You can either replace the bearing pro-actively, or upgrade to the later bearing revisions:
http://www.autofarm.co.uk/engines/wa...ed/shaft_tech2
But they don't specifically reference 987's at being at issue, just earlier 986's...
From what I can tell, porsche updated the design for the 987, but didn't get it 100%, so refined it again through the run - after a certain point however to update means a lot more work than the earlier ones (possibly engine out). In theory all 987s should have the better bearing, so shouldn't have an issue, but some of the very early ones got leftovers from the 986's so may have missed out...
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