Why take away all the character to this car??? I would leave all the drive train/suspension stuff alone, to maintain the tossible neutral handling, and sacrifice the plush interior and unneeded extras. That would be a good base car. And another issue that brings us to is right now i see it happen day after day where Simone is looking at a new car, looking to spend 40kish and sees a base boxster and is like "WOW" i can afford a PORSCHE for just a few more $$$ but when it comes to maintaining the car they wont do ****. They get mad that they need tires and brakes before there first oil change etc. I heard a story of a car that had a vibration that only wanted me to balance one tire to see if it helped, if it didn't i had to call to get approval to do the other one.

Mark

 

A Cayman and a Boxster are quite different if you get to drive one. This is a matter of your personal desires not mathcing with what Porsche is producing, the few downsides that the mid engine has are well worth the sacrifice. The biggest being no back seats. With the Panaomera (sp) supposed to come out next yeart dont hold your breath for another car for quite a few years.

Mark

 

no, it is boxster parts on a 911. the boxser was the 986 and the 911 was the 996 hence the boxster was made first.

Also, how many of you will buy a 40k porsche with under 300hp when for 30k there is/was the GTO putting out 350 and 400 hp with a msrp of 33k and a interior that was nicer than just about anything porsche put out. sure gm screwed up the marketing and cheaped out on the steering box and shifter, but the car was an awesome car.

if gm puts the 8 in the solstice like the tuners are, and offers you even 300hp for under 30k, tell me again how many are going to pay 40k for a porsche with less power. so you dont need the german/jap comparison, there are alternatives right here.

now dont start knocking the solstice and junk because they are coming out with a fastback, and the solstice is known to be a contender at autocrosses.

in the 80s the 150hp of the 944 matched the 150 hp of the 82Z28. now porsche needs to again match the power to contend.

 

[QUOTE=yellowline;4697392]
Besides, look at the problems with modern Porsches. Rear main seals, leaky engine castings, Boxster engines smoking after 140k miles, yellowing carbon fiber. My uncle needed to replace the RMS in his 996 a month before the warranty let up. The factory won't extend his warranty, even with an offer to pay for a warranty. 996 prices are falling faster than 993 prices...the market knows that the new cars are not built to the old-time German car standard. Do we really want something like that diluting the 944/928 legacy?QUOTE]

RMS have been delt with, they had to go through something like 17 revisions to get one that doesnt leak. But they have been trying to resolve it since it started happening, and the newest seal, I havnt heard of one that needed to be replaced that was installed correctly, which isnt as easy as pushing in a seal. And your complaining of one of a few easily addressable oil leaks on the new cars??? The older cars leaked oil out of everywhere. The 993 has a secondary air issue that costs 5K to remedy just to pass nc inspection and i see about 1 a month with this issue, all of these cars have there specific issues.

Boxsters start smoking from day one, they are much worse if they sit, due to the PCV system, and the AOS some oil gets back into the intake and puddles behind the throttle body, which causes a puff of smoke when they are started cold. If its a constant haze of smoke most likely the AOS seperator is bad.

Of course the 996 prices are falling quicker than the 993, the 996 was a test bed, basically a redesign, the 993 was the last of the aircooled, they will hold there values. The 996 was refined a lot with the 997 and is a great car. IF your uncle was refused an aftermarket warrenty then he needs to find a better dealer, our aftermarket warranty is really good, dont skimp though get one from the dealer, not online or from a used car lot.

The new cars are still very high quality cars, any issues they had have been delt with.

Mark

 

I know the numbers, check any 986/987 and most of the part numbers start 996/997 they are 911 parts put on a boxster. And with that mentailty, your telling me they designed the motor for the Cayenne BEFORE the boxster and 944 turbo???? in the mid 80's??? Cayenne is 948 & 955. Or that the new refined boxster/Cayman was done before the 993/996/997 series???? The only part of that i MIGHT be able to believe would be that in 92 when they were changing EVERYTHING they said lets make a mid engine car... call it the 986 series, THEN they started the 993/911 that COULD be possible.. MAYBE...


Cant disagree more, i dont think i handled or breaked anywhere near a single thing Porsche makes, the clutch felt like it was mechanical. But i was very surpirsed at the interior. I was trying to get one myself.

I am unfamiliar with the solstice, I am happy that the US manufacturers are finally coming around.

I disagree, Porsche is doing extremely well and if the Panomera does anywhere near as well as the Cayenne Porsche doesnt HAVE to do anything, I have heard rumors that in 2009/2010 that the sporscars will get the direct injection, which will produce more power but i doubt that there will be a huge increase in power. Porshce isnt trying to be the fastest car, or the best handling or this or that Porsche loves the fact that i can do EVERYTHING very well and that is what keeps people so in LOVE with these cars.

Mark

 

Thanks for proving my point. Do you think a 951 or 3.2 Carrera pilot from 1986 needed to talk about fit and finish or "snooze factor" in order to compare his car to a Corvette? Yet, all you see from folks today is: "well, the quality... the fit and finish... the racing heritage."

Porsche realized that it could produce these cars on the cheap and people would still snap them up IF they made it trendy enough and IF they provided enough posters and commercials cramming the heritage argument down your throat. Then, when the tide of RMS failures, "it's got a plastic rear window" complaints and (my favorite) "we can't rebuild your engine... we have to have another one installed by Porsche" blow-offs from dealerships came rolling in, everyone either looked the other way or didn't care because the car was on lease anyway. Pathetic.

I mean, afterall... 10 years ago, Porsche did really well overall at Le Mans.

Micah

 

Mark,
I owned a GTO for two years. Tell me what it could and could not do.

Also, what year did the boxster come out? what year did the 996 come out? IIRC the 996 came out in 99 and the boxster replaced the 968 in 97. hence, the 996 is using boxster parts, not the other way around. but if you wish to believe it is the other way around, who am i to disagree.

 

Yeah, but the part that i am not quite understanding is the issues that you complain of have all been delt with and not just recently??? The RMS issue is fixed, and yes it took them redesiging the part something insane like 17 times to get one that deosnt leak. the rear plastic windows (WHY porsche why) and the engine thing is cost prohibitve, why would you want your engine rebuilt in a dealership, when you could have one that is BRAND NEW, or at worst refurb in Germany with all new main components??? and it still works out cheaper??? Yeah CHEAPER.. New engine for any of the normal cars now is only 8k ish, and there is better qualtiy control on Porsche part there also.

 

I know you did, i'm just telling you how the part numbers fall. I drove a GTO and still would love to own one, but i still think its a night and day differnece in the cars. If I had the choice to drive either a Boxster or a GTO it would all depend on the cars. I cant afford either at this point so its a moot point.

Mark

 

997s have also experienced the RMS issue.

The engine replacement issue is a big deal because it is incredibly short-sighted. We are talking about engine replacements in 5 year old cars with less than (sometimes significantly less than) 100k. That is reprehensible - and completely refutes any "quality" statements regarding Porsche vs its competitors.

Secondly, The engine costs $8k. (which, for the record, isn't exactly small change for a car that now costs $30k). The associated costs (labor, seals, etc) drive the replacement up to the $13-14k range - and that's while supply is plentiful and dealer mechanics are trained.

You want your engine "rebuilt" at a dealership because it creates a basic core of wrenches who know how to accomplish the procedure. Then, when these mechs get their own shops, or start giving their own advice, there is a group of folks who are trained to do the work - NOT just trained to fill out an order form for a new unit (because, I'm telling you - in 5 years, that $8k for the engine alone will look like a bargain).

Here's the truly ironic thing - the $14k for an installed unit is already rapidly approaching half the purchase price of a used early 996. The replacement/purchase price ratio is even worse for a Boxster. This is the classic "$2500 new clutch for a $4k 944NA" scenario all over again - except these cars are much, much newer.

The reason you haven't seen an even greater uproar about this is because, like I mentioned earlier - most of these were all warranty repairs for owners. Hell, provided the dealer gives them a loaner, some premium coffee and a fancy release package for the next model year, a lot of folks are excited about getting a new engine from Porsche. They'll be unloading the cars (onto folks like us...) in a few years anyway. In another 10 years, there will be very, very few 3 and 4 owner 996s w/100k+ out there. At the same time, owners will still be forced to buy complete engines from Porsche, and they won't be able to afford the (rising) cost. But Porsche won't care by that point - to them the 996 is already an old car.

As a quick exercise, do a search on autotrader for Boxsters from all years. The highest mileage 986 currently for sale (out of nearly 2500 cars) has 115k. There is only one other car with over 100k. That's out of 2500 vehicles. 996s don't do any better.

Micah

 

I dont doubt that early 997s have the old design RMS seal, I personally have yet to see one. And about the engines, I understand your point of view, I guess i have been kinda short sighted in the fact that 996 will turn into 44's... But i guess my remaining issue is, engine failure is rare in these cars, i know early boxster had the sleeve issues, but that was remedied very quickly. I see many 60k + 996/986 and a fair share of 100k cars. I do see where you are coming from, and the deaerships do have the tools to repair these engines, I personally have been factory trained on the 996/997 engine rebuilds. Now i know this is a much smaller percentage of cars, but some food for thought for ya, the GT3 engines and turbo engines, there are only a handful of factory techs in the country that can dissassemble and reassemble them per Porsche... I guess i see it from two points of view, the tech side of me, I like the fact we just swap engines, I make more $$$ and i feel the customer will get exactly what he paid for. Here is a good example from my personal experience. Since Porsche went to the Jap supplier for the new transmissions, we no longer just swap transmissions and ship back the core, we have to rebuild them. The first one that was done in my shop, the guy was paid x amount of hours under warranty to do it, but when he got it all back together, something wasnt right... the second gear synchro was cracked from Porsche. Was that the techs fault??? No, but he got the short end of that stick and lost almost two days fixing it. I dont believe the QC is there to give the customer the same engine rebuild as Germany can provide.

On a side note, It was 11K for a engine replacement on a 98 boxster that i did a few weeks ago, CP.

Mark

 

Mark,

Good discussion!

Micah

 

Never said the Cayenne wasn't an amazing SUV. I said that I find it comical to say they don't want to dilute the brand of a high end SPORTS car company when they sell an SUV and are getting into NASCAR. I mean, they started making TRACTORS for crying outloud. For people to say they are too good for an entry-priced car is hilarious. Mr. Porsche made THE entry-priced car!! The original Bug. My guess is Ferdinand would disagree with that snob attitude.

You are right I have not driven a Cayman. But I have driven a Boxster (non-S) and definitely wasn't impressed enough to want to pay base price FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS for one.

My comment about it not being THAT much more of a car still stands. For what it SHOULD be vs what it IS. I'm saying the Boxster SHOULD outperform the 944 on EVERY level and the fact we are even talking about them, comparing them, proves there's an issue. Technological increases in automobiles dictate that the car SHOULD whale on a 944 for the same price or less (taking into account inflation). Someone brought up the Corvette, and that's a perfect example. Another is the Zs we've been talking about (Datsun 200Z vs Nissan 350Z).

One can dream right? I don't want a Porsche Civic, but I think a $35k-market car should not be completely out of the question for Porsche, and that there are actually life-long Porsche fans who don't see the Boxster as the end all that Porsche seems to make it out to be.

 

Porsche already makes a stripped out model.

It's called the GT3.

 

Ohhh BABy, and they even improved on it...

its called the GT2 BABY!!!! I cant wait to PDI one!

Had a REALLY good driver take me for a ride in a race prepped GT3 the other day WHOLLY ****