mrbill_fl

by owner car:
Major repairs include alternator, radiator, front CV joints and boots. The clutch was replaced in January No aftermarket upgrades except a K&N air filter. it does have sport seats. 17" wheels, and new tires.

Assuming regular maintenance, how long should this engine last? (or is it already on borrowed time?)

whats it worth?


TIA!

mrbill_fl

is it worth 13k?

the lack of comments make me think this is not a wise choice...

lilredpo

Good morning, it's only 7am, so lack of response I would think is due to timing of your request. KBB excellent w/90K is about $16.5K, which is what I would expect with service records and well cared for. PPI would be highly recommended. I'd think the engine s/b good to go providing the first 90K were not tracked or abused. Many here have higher mileage cars without incident. Good luck.

Macster

Assuming the car's in acceptable condition for its age/miles you can use one of the public web sites that provide estimates of car values like www.kbb.com.

Enter the appropriate info and get the car's trade in, private and retail values.

Generally the car's worth -- to a private buyer -- something between trade-in value and retail value.

Next go to say www.autotrader.com and search for all Boxsters for sale from say model year 2001 to 2003 (a year on either side of 2002). See how many are available. Check miles. Compare prices. Get a feel for the market for these cars. If there are alot of cars and prices suggest this one priced a mite high -- and it probably is (no seller ever started out low and worked a buyer up to a higher price) -- lower your valuation of the car.

The car can't be in excellent condition, not 8+ years old and with 90K miles.

This does not mean the car's junk, or a rattle trap, although of course it could be depending upon how it has been used, serviced.

Learn about these cars -- search out Mike Focke's web pages for a good article on buying a used Boxster -- and determine what services are due. Brake fluid changes every 2 years. This car should have had a new serpentine belt, coolant change (with new radiator it might or might not have had this -- the old coolant caught and reused), transmission/diff fluid change. Plugs probably due for a change as well.

Whatever services are due factor the cost of these into your offer. If tires need replacing factor in cost of new tires and alignment. If tires unmatched or not N-rated if owner cared so little about this perhaps he was less keen on other servicing/maintenance.

Every engine is on borrowed time. Every one has a finite life. A well maintained engine driven in a reasonable fashion somewhere between a grandmother driving the car to church every Sunday to someone driving the car like he stole everywhere he goes should last many thousands of miles beyond 90K.

For instance my 02 Boxster has 230K miles on its original engine (and clutch) and runs just fine. This engine has received 5K mile oil/filter services from new and otherwise the car gets rather well taken care of, but it does get driven.

Sometimes I drive it a might hard -- no track time -- but I do drive it. Now some owners do track their cars and some of these cars have way over 90K miles on their original engines as well.

(Somewhere I read where a car engine has around a 10,000 hour life span. If the car is driven alot in the city in stop/go driving and its average speed low, say 15mph this works out to a life span of say 150K miles. A car driven more on the highway with the average speed higher say 45mph might obtain 450K miles. After having driven sometimes nearly 1000 miles in a day it takes some effort to maintain a high average speed. My 03 Turbo's on board computer has an average speed display and I just checked it last night after filling up the gas tank. In 243 miles of driving the car's average speed was 38mph. My driving consists of a 30 mile commute (one way) mostly freeway driving with the rest of the commute on city streets. Then I use the car in town some for errands and the like.)

In the case of the Boxster S who knows? The engine could have another 90K in it (or more, much more) or it could develop for instance the IMS death rattle the day after you buy the car.

That the engine has 90K miles and assuming the car runs good and its oil consumption tolerable (though you won't know how good or bad its oil consumption is until after you buy the car unless the engine runs low on oil during the test drive...) chances are the engine has plenty of spunk left yet.

If you like the car and believe you can work out a deal then have the car pre-purchase inspected by a tech who knows these cars inside and out.

This should have the tech dropping the oil filter housing and dumping the oil out and look at the oil to see what you see. If he sees metal particles...
(Get a new filter element and o-ring from dealer that tech can use to replace the old filter. Have a quart of Mobil 1 0w-40 oil to use to top up engine to make up the nearly half quart of oil the filter housing contains.)

Have shop read out engine controller overrev counts. Post here for comment.

Be sure you verify check engine light and other warning lights come on when key turned on and go off when engine starts. Start engine from cold and let it idle while you listen to engine from all sides of car. Listen for any internal engine noises. Ticks. Rattles. Knocks, etc.

While engine warming up test all car systems: lights, top, A/C, wipers, trunk latches, door locks, windows, stereo, everything.

Go for a test ride. 15 miles. Mixed driving. Have owner demo car's performance. No need to get radical but you want the owner to run the engine up to near or at redline in several lower gears to make sure engine pulls strongly and smoothly all the way up.

Once back at the starting continue to let engine idle. Check again for noises. Then you take car out for test drive. Same route. Drive the same way. See how engine feels. How car feels. Steers, brakes, etc.

Oh, if you get the car dump the K&N and go back to the stock filter. The stock filter is a very good filter and easier to renew when it is time. With the stock filter you don't have to worry about the filter oil fouling the MAF and possibly causing problems.

Sincerely,

Macster.

gerrygug

I have a 2000S with tiptronic for sale at $12,900 offer. The car is in first class condition with all maintenance up to date and complete service history from day one.

judd944

check what other options were on the car too. They will add to value (somewhat). A stripped Boxster S was 51,500 while you can add 10k quickly.
Pick a loaded car up for very little more. When I looked for my car it has a lot of stuff I wanted as extras.
Litronics, Heated seats, PSM, 18" wheels, full leather, windstop, 6 speaker system, colored center caps,etc. the sticker on my car was ~60k. I paid maybe 2500 more than a stripped boxster 3 years ago.

mrbill_fl

There's some good ideas! Thanks!

I also like to see how the owner drives his car before I buy it.. the idea of doing 2 loops is perfect!

& good to know some engines can go over 200,000 miles.

-on the RMS, and IMS, is there a consensus on the mean failure rate, or pretty much random failures?

I'm not sure this car has PSM. I've driven several boxters on the track, (DE instructor), but never w/ PSM off. I'm not too concerned if it doesn't have it.
-But should I be? would that be a deal breaker for anyone?

Macster

Doing two loops and putting around 30 miles on the car driving it in a variety of ways gives the engine controller a good chance to identify a misfire problem or some other problem and turn on the CEL. The car might have had the CEL extinquished either on purpose or by the owner disconnecting the battery for some other reason.

Car might have had an upgraded RMS installed along with an upgraded IMS end plate with an improved 3-ribbed seal and 3 new micro-encapsulated bolts. (My 02 had this done at around 25K miles under warranty and seals have been leak free since.)

Generally if RMS replaced the IMS end plate is upgraded -- unless tech can tell the improved plate already present -- along with 3 new micro-encapsulated bolts. The bolts are important cause they thread into through holes into the crankcase and oil from the crankcase can seep past the threads and out from under the bolt heads and mimic an RMS/IMS leak.

At 90K miles the car probably has had RMS replaced. At 90K miles if the RMS was going to leak you'd see the signs. A good PPI will look for signs of oil leak from this area. Not the end of the world expensive to fix but it ain't cheap: tranny has to be removed. Probably looking at at least $1000 and it could be hundreds of dollars more.

IMS (bearing) failure is the luck of the draw. No real sense of the odds. No one outside of Porsche knows how common the failure is and Porsche ain't saying.

At 90K the engine's not totally past any risk of IMS. I've read reports of IMS failures (or suspected IMS failures) at IIRC 110K miles. One or two. Most IMS failures occur at far lower mileages.

Find out where the car has spent some time. CarFax report can provide some clues. Call PCNA customer service with VIN and someone there will tell you which dealer car shipped/sold to. With the VIN call that dealers and other dealers in the areas you learn from CarFax the car spent some time and ask the service department if it has any record of doing any work on the car. You might learn the car had an RMS done early on along with other work.

Don't try to find out who owned the car. Dealerships won't reveal this.

Can't help you with PSM. My Boxster doesn't have it and I don't think I've used PSM on my Turbo. (If it even has it?)

I like to use MSM. Macster Stability Management: Steering wheel, throttle, brakes.

Sincerely,

Macster.

mrbill_fl

-Again good idea running the VIN at PCNA for 1st dealer location and any warranty service...

current owner bought it in 2004,
clutch was just done in Jan, so I figure they would do a RMS if it needed it then.

anything you normally do anyway, while its out and apart?

Macster

If the RMS or IMS end plate replaced at the time the clutch job was done this should be noted on the work order/invoice. If it is not then you can bet it was *NOT* done.

The only thing I had the technician at Porsche do when he dropped the tranny to replace the RMS/IMS -- under new car warranty -- was to apply a tiny dab of heavy duty/high pressure/high temperature grease on the various pivot points of the clutch hardware to help loosen up the clutch action. Could have been my imagination (or more likely normal -- Boxster clutches get a bit heavier the stabilize but didn't know that then) but the clutch felt a might heavy at 25K miles. It may have felt a bit easier/lighter after the tech did what I asked. Whta he did at my request might (might) have contributed to the clutch's longevity.

As I mentioned the other thing, important as the RMS, is to if the IMS end plate not updated to update it with the new one with a better seal and the bolts.

Since the IMS directly under the RMS it is difficult to know the IMS end plate/bolts are not contributing to the "RMS leak".

Word is many RMS's were replaced when the real problem was the IMS end plate seal -- single o-ring -- and the bolts. In fact, when I took my Boxster in service manager told me that even in mid-2002 under warranty Porsche was replacing the IMS end plate/bolts at the same time the RMS replaced. Makes sense: Just a few dollars more in parts cost and a few dollars more in labor vs. having to drop the tranny again if the IMS proves to be the culprit and not the RMS.

Additionally if AOS leaking that's the time to take care of it -- easier to get to I believe when the tranny's out.

If cam cover end plugs/seals leaking that would time to replace those I guess.

Ditto leaking spark plug tube o-rings.

If the CV boots cracked/torn -- the S harder on these than the base model -- it might be a good time to take care of those. If boots not holed the CV joints can be disassembled, cleaned, repacked with grease -- if inspection finds no reason to replace them -- and reassembled and of course new CV boots fitted.

Tech could check the dual mass flywheel to verify the dual mass feature working as specified and if not replace the flywheel.

New: Oh, forgot to mention the LN IMS bearing upgrade. This wasn't available until recently. Too much to cover here. Do a search for LN IMS bearing upgrade and read all about it. Jake Raby's site: www.flagsixengineering.com (I hope I have that right) has some info and links to another site (L&N Engineering IIRC) that has some info as well.

Sincerely,

Macster.

mrbill_fl

It sounds like the IMS end plate needs to have be done at some point, so I'll need to see some records of that being done.
-Or, is there a build date after all engines had the later parts?

I'm going to see the car Saturday. and the service records.

again, Big Thanks!

Macster

If there are engine numbers or VINs or build dates (see tag on inside of driver's side door) that are tied to the appearance of the new/improved IMS end plate and its 3-ribbed seal and micro-encapsulated bolts I don't know about it.

Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I just don't know about it.

If you're on friendly terms with your local Porsche parts department people someone there might know. They can look up the part # based on VIN -- alwsy the VIN to go by -- and perhaps their parts database will have the date the new part # went into effect.

Sincerely,

Macster.

dallison28

fixed

judd944

In Kentucky, the dealer has to tell you who owned it and give you their phone number. I called the PO on the lot when I was looking at a BMW to ask why he traded it in. He had no skin in the game so he could be straight up with me.

Macster

Oh what a goof on my part!

Thanks!

Sincerely,

Macster.