I apologize in advance for the long post. After years of shopping I finally pulled the trigger on a 2015 981 BS. I originally planned to get a 997.2 but eventually decided against it for 2 reasons. I wanted a more modern interior it had to be a convertible. I probably could have been happy with the older interior of the 997 but I've never seen a four seat convertible from any manufacture that looks good to my eyes with the top down, 911s included. A proper convertible has 2 seats and roll protection right behind, period end of story. For the past 5 years I've had a 2016 mx-5 club. I've done the standard mods to it (lowered, tuned, wheels & tires etc.) and it's a fantastic car. But the itch for a Porsche never left and the 981 boxster has always been my favorite modern Pcar with the exception of the 991 GT3.

The decision to buy came out of the blue when a couple of 981 BS cars showed up at my local dealer, 1 with PDK and the other a 6mt. I routinely look at the market and seeing these listed at a fair price caught my attention. I'd never driven a PDK car and saw this as an opportunity to drive both back to back. I quickly discovered that the PDK was not for me. But the manual car stole my heart from the moment I left the lot. In a perfect world it would have been a red or yellow GTS but the prices of those are approaching the cost of a new 4.0 GTS. Besides the S model is very close to a GTS in most regards and a fantastic car on it's own.

At first I wasn't a fan of the white body color and painted black wheels but my wife who has much better taste than me loved it. I'm smart enough to know that if she thinks something looks good I'll eventually catch on. And she was right, it's looking better to me every time I see it. What sealed the deal was the car's history. It's a one owner car with 5100 miles and a perfect carfax. It was sold and serviced by Bellevue Porsche where I purchased it. It's had all the recommended service (by time) including the 40k. It looks and smells new inside and out. When new it stickered at $82k and I paid $63k. $63k is a lot for a 7 year old car but I felt like I was getting a new car for $20k off. And honestly the 981 looks better to me than a 718. I wish it had PSE and PTV but I've learned waiting for the "one car" that checks all the boxes is an exercise in futility. This one has some tasty options like premium package plus, Info/Bose package and park assist. I also purchased the Porsche protection plan which is 6 yrs bumper to bumper with $250 deductible. I paid $6500 for that which seemed reasonable but I could be wrong. Regardless it gives me great peace of mind when buying used.

I've got a couple of questions for you experts. First is there any way to get a little more of that flat 6 song out of it without going to a full cat back system. I've seen the X pipes but they don't look like they'd do much. Also I plan to put a tune in it and my searching shows that FVD is a good choice, any inputs there are much appreciated. Other mods suggestions are also welcome. If you made it this far thanks for reading.

Lastly, funny story. If you're wondering about my user name. That's what you get when you type "No P car" and don't bother to look at what spell check did to it before you hit save. Here she is along with my old buddy. The weather has been so bad here in Seattle I'm using the dealer ad photos.

 

Nice looking car. ‘Course I’m biased. And it’s manual. Again, biased. 3 years warranty is around £1800 in uk so $6500 for 6 seems steep but what price for peace of mind? Where you’ll get hammered is having to have the car serviced by Porsche to keep the warranty valid. Don’t worry about no PTV/lsd. These only really show their worth on the track. As for PSE, it’s only noise, no performance gain. A full free-flow exhaust system with sport cats will improve the engine’s ability to breathe, pull harder under load, make it quicker through the gears…and sound louder. Others on here can advise on which brand.

Nice car. Enjoy it

 

Welcome! Nice car! No expert here, but without splurging on an exhaust, your best bet to have her sing to you is keep the tach between 4k and the red line as much as possible. If that doesn't do it for you, then you'll probably need to go for the cat back. I'm thinking of going for the Soul valved cat back; it sounds great - look for Tommy L's Cayman build thread - he put a Soul exhaust on his and it sounds awesome.

 

I personally love a white 981…but I’m also biased. I did a FVD tune + BMC filters. I feel the car really opens up and starts pulling at 3800, more so than without tune. I haven’t done any dyno tests…just based on my butt dyno. I’m planning on installing headers soon…and then I’m done. Enjoy it and welcome to the forum.

 

I purchased mine two weeks ago 981BS 6MT also. I thought about Soul but leaning to Top Speed exhaust because can’t beat price.

 

I would look at Soul. After buying them, I believe they are of high quality for not the high Porsche tax pricing. I have the competition headers on my GT4 and it really opened up the music. the PSE muffler helps a bunch but without the valves opened it made it probably 25% louder. With the valves open its probably 50% louder. Its just enough so its enjoyable when your not off cocking about.

 

Congratulations on a beautiful car. You will love the 981 platform. I love it so much I own two of them. And your MX-5 is an awesome car also.

 

Congrats Nip. Great looking car. I just got a low mileage '14 CS w/ PDK this past summer myself to complement my manual, soft top 30th AE Miata. I feel blessed every time I get behind the wheel of either car.

In terms of tune there are Cobbs, Softronic and FVD. All similar in price. Cobbs' license is transferable (can be resold) but its off-the-shelf tune has the lowest gain by a good margin. If you intend to keep the car for a long long time, the latter two are the better options.

As planted and flat as the car corners in its standard suspension (esp compared to Miata), it is better still w/ the X73 package. Just the sway bars that I have done so far have made an incredible difference, and I would have done the dampers/springs as well if my driveway had allowed the lower height. I think this OEM mod returns far more driving reward than any power mod, imo.

Cheers!

 

good to know. I’m still tossing it about. $800 vs $2200 bit hard to see when I don’t see what I’m gaining especially since I don’t want valves. Soul is close so I may pop around

 

Funny, same exact situation here with my white with black wheels 981 CS.

 

Love white! I was looking for a white one to replace my 2013 Agate base model (that I put 60k miles on) when this 2015 S popped up on Car Gurus last March in FL. 10k miles, MT. PSE, Sport Chrono. Spotless. Made a handshake deal by phone and flew down to St Augustine the next week for a mini vacation. Dealer put a temp registration on it and I used it as a "rental" for the week. I never used to be a fan of black wheels but over the years changed my mind so will be switching in a few months at next tire change. They look good on yours. What size wheels are yours? OEM?
Coincidentally my DD before the Boxsters was a 2002 Miata SE. Put 120k miles on it without any problems.

 

Beautiful car, I love the 2 tone interior. I'm fine with all black but would have been trilled with yours.
Mine are 20" Carrera S factory wheels. Really quite stunning IMO.

I wasn't aware of the NB special edition till I saw your post. That's a nice spec. Driving my brother in law's NB is what got me hooked on MX-5s. So small, light and flickable. You can have fun while never exceeding the speed limit. Now he has a beautiful Mazda Speed turbo NB. All original and in excellent shape.

 

Yeah, thought they were 20's. I was thinking of going to 20's when I do the wheel change (19's now) to improve stance but someone pointed out that the gap between the tire and wheel well wouldn't change. The lower stance comes from the car being lowered, which I think is the case with all PASM -optioned cars.
RE the Miata - I hear ya. I used to tell people all the time I was perfectly happy driving "reasonable" speeds. When I got the Boxster I racked up 3 quick speeding tickets and thought I was going to have to get rid of it. But I decided to change my driving habits instead. Moving up to the 'S' has made that a little harder, though.
Enjoy the car.

 

Thanks for the feedback. You helped convince me to explore other warranty options and I found this invaluable thread. https://rennlist.com/forums/991/1236...elity+warranty
I knew about Fidelity but naively thought that somehow the "Porsche Protection Plan" was better. Now I know it's just another service contract from underwritten by Safe-Guard and branded Porsche. Fortunately I can get 100% refund within 30 days. Yesterday I purchased the Fidelity Platinum 60 mo/60,000 mi $0 deductible plan from Michael at Steingold Volvo for $2860 after the Rennlist $200 discount.

Next week I'll give the dealer a chance to explain why I should pay more than double the cost for their plan but from what I can tell the only difference in coverage is the Porsche plan covers shock absorbers and the Fidelity plan does not. I will report my findings.

 

Dealers love these warranty plans, they typically come with huge margins. Most uninformed folks incorrectly think if the dealer is selling it, it must be better than any of the other offerings out there..

I did the same, bought the warranty because the dealer said it was part of the deal in order to buy my cayman s at the price negotiated.

first thing I did when I got home was to get the full refund for the warranty ( don’t recall exactly, about 3k) and then went and bought the fidelity platinum warranty.