ecedge

Does anyone know about the ignition issue (where it wears out) that requires the ignition to be replaced? I was told about this iginition failure by teh Porsche dealership.

I am a new Porsche owner who purchased my Boxster with used with 79,000 miles from a private party. I took it to the local Porsche dealership to have the car checked out and to set the codes for the NAV, PSA, radio and alarm since they were all not working when I got the car. The air conditioning is also not working. The Dealership listed the items that needed fixing and believes that the known problem with the ignition in the Boxster may resolve all the electrical issues once it is replaced. I have an opportunity to either replace the ignition or retrun the car to the seller and walk away. Has anyone heard of this "Known" ignition isssue with the Boxster?

Macster

that were resolved by replacing the ignition switch.

I suspect that some of these switches were helped toward their premature demise by the presence of a full keychain. This added weight with movement results in excessive wear/tear to the ignition switch.

Return car to seller and tell him if he will pay to replace the ignition switch (or have the source of the problem diagnosed and corrected) you'll reconsider the car.

No way you should pay good money for a car in need of repair. In some cases if car proves to be otherwise sound, but say needs brakes (and brake wear is not due to excessive tracking of car or other forms of abuse/misuse) you can get estimate for new/full brake job and subtract this from your valuation of car and then adjust your offer accordingly.

You learn of these when last thing before you buy you take car to reputable shop to have PPI done and get estimates of anything that need attention and use these to adjust the value you assign to the car because you'll have to turn around if you buy car and spend this money to bring it up to 'spec'.

Or let seller have brakes done and then you pay the unadjusted price (that you have arrived at by good/thorough market research).

In the case of having the seller do this ideally you want the work done at reputable shop (dealership best) that gives a good warranty on parts/labor that when you buy the car you get so if parts/labor prove defective you have some recourse.

There are a lot of good used Boxsters around. No need to buy one that needs work and then have to pay for the work.

Not good practice to pay good to excellent condition money for a car that then requires additional money to bring to the condition you expected, were led to believe. Remember too though it is buyer beware so you have to be very sure of the car's condition.

I do not like electrical problems. It might be a switch. It might be harness damage from a wire breaking, being pinched, damaged, even rodent damage or water ingress.

I'd be inclined to take car back and start anew looking for a good used Boxster.

Unless seller gets switch (or whatever) fixed and good check out by you turns up no other untoward behavior and untoward behavior that you noticed before switch/whatever work done is absent. And check every car subsystem. From top operation to lights, signals, horn, everything. Treat car as if nothing works and you have to see/verify everything works before you buy.

Sincerely,

Macster.

THXBABE

All good points by Macster.

To answer your basic question, there is a known problem with the Boxster ignition. It is not a big deal. You can buy the part at Porsche or Audi and DIY the fix.

I don't know about that being the source of all your problems. And I would not want to pay a dealer to start diagnosing electrical issues with my car.

Walk away from the car and search for another.

rmurph

Another yes on the basic question regarding ignition failure. My wife's Boxster, 2002 w/ 47K, just had the ignition failure this week. She was unable to remove the ignition key. We called the local dealer and were told this is a fairly common problem, that is why we have several ignition switches on hand. While she was able to start the car, according to the deale in short term, in addition to not being able to remove the key, the car will not start either. Unfortunately we had no choice but to pay the ransome to the dealer to repair. This is her daily driver and I was out of town. And, she did not want to leave the car parked with the key in it.

powderhound

my switch was starting to feel like it was sticking and i was carefull inserting and removing th key but it felt like it was about to stick. i ordered 2 from sunset audi in portland for about $15 each. i had my local independent porsche mechanic replace it and now it is as smoth and easy as ever. i keep the extra for an emergency just in case. mike foeker on ppbb has a great writeup on the replacment and says it talks 15 min to do as long as you have a very very short slotted screwdriver. i had mine replaced at the same time as other work so i don't now what he charged me for that bit but now i don't have to worry about it going out at a bad time.

Eric

powderhound

i forgot to mention that if you try to order it at sunset porsche you have to buy the whole ignition and cylinder but you can get just the switch from sunset audi

Eric