Steve Martin

Thinking about adding a boxster to my driveway. I allready have a 928GT, but looking to have something to drive all year and not have to park it for 5 months and just look at it.

I've heard that some of the early years have been notorious for an engine issue causing the need for replacement. What should I stay away from? look for? years?

Also, would be looking for it to be an automatic, as I have a leg injury and am haveing problems with the clutch.

Any advice would be helpfull.

Macster

A thorough grasp of Boxster buying is developed from research.

While this has been covered quite a bit here the info is scattered about and one can go nearly blind reading through all the posts trying to find the nugget of gold.

My suggestion is to pick up an issue (new or back) of Excellence mag which has a Boxster buying guide.

If you want, several UK published Porsche mags have run Boxster buying guides. Back issues of these are often available and based on what I recall in reading this worth the small cost.

Oh, the issue names.... Gt Purely Porsche;

http://www.gtpurelyporsche.com/

and 911 And Porsche World:

http://www.911porscheworld.com/

There are some general guidelines...

Buy the newest best car you can find/afford. (Kind like the secret of making money in the stock market: buy low; sell high. Duh.) But there's some truth to this guideline.

Let's see... I just used Google to search "boxster buying guide" and got some interesting hits.

I'll leave it up to you to do your own search view the hits and decide which ones you want to read.

I like to point out the Boxster is just a used car so a good/thorough used car check out goes a long way to helping one eliminate bad cars.

I also like to advise one experience a prospective car first as a passenger on a test ride then again as a test driver. The route should cover 15 miles or so and give the driver the chance to demo the car in a wide variety of scenarios.

When you test drive the car you follow the same route and drive the car the same way.

I don't have time to type all the nitty/gritty details in but it is important to really spend some time with a used car riding in it driving it to give the car any time to manifest any issues.

If you can find no reason to reject the car be sure to have arranged a PPI of the car *after* you test ride/drive the car. The PPI guy should know what he is supposed to do, look for, and that is everything.

Take your time. There are plenty of cars for sale, all years, prices, and what not. Do not rush into a car until your sure of it condition.

Next to driving your Boxster the most fun you can have is shopping for it.

Sincerely,

Macster.

racer

I would suggest a 2000 or newer. Ideally an "S" since the extra hp will hide some of the performance loss associated with the auto (or tiptronic as porsche calls it).

2003 and newer has a GLASS rear window. Previous years used a plastic that would crack in cold weather if not cared for when lowering.

You didn't mention your budget, but Boxsters can be pretty old and the used car prices can be all over the map depending on year/mileage/model/condition.

Enjoy the search and ask questions!

CW-VIESOCK

The first question, that would let other know where start pointing you is, how much $ are you looking to toss at a Boxster? Initially that is. The second would be, what are your performance expectations?

From there, you will begin to whittle down your choices of vehicles fitting your purchasing criteria, based on some of the considerations "Macster" listed above for the offending model years.

Some older cars may be more expensive camparitive newer car but they may have extensive updates and service work done. There are a lot of pretty faces out there, some of them terminal under the skin.

Books that are helpful would include: Porsche Boxster & Cayman: Everything You Need to Know About Your Boxster or Cayman and Pelican's- 101 Projects for Your Porsche Boxster (Motorbooks Workshop). The latter being more of a up-sale projects promotional guide but does offer some hint of the issues that you should look for and their cost of repair.

Good luck.

fivepointnine

if you are looking for a relatively fast car you will definitely want to look for an S, if you want just a good, fun, all around great car you can find GREAT deals on the base models.

Steve Martin

Not looking for the fastest Boxster, or even one that claims to be. I have a 928GT for the fast part of things. just want to keep it in the porsche family

I'm looking for a fuel friendly 12 months-of-the-year vehicle. I do about 700 km to work and back per week, so a brand new car i cannot afford to buy, and a lease will.....kill any saving I 'm trying to have. looking to budget 20-22,000 tops.

Han Solo

That will get you a very decent base model Boxster 2000-2003. I'd look for one with about 30K miles. That will weed out any potential factory lemons (not many of those). If it's had IMS upgrade, that's worth $2500-$3000 parts and labor. Much more in less worries

fivepointnine

20-22 should get you an 03-04 base.......I would look for one with around 60k miles with a 60k service completed (water pump, clutch, etc)

Imo000

What the heck are you doing here STEVE? LOL

On a serious note, a convertible is a not a good choice for our winters. If you are willing to spend only a grand on good winter tires for your 928, it will drive like adream in the snow. Or you can get a Cayenne S locally for $22K.

CW-VIESOCK

I think Steve mentioned that he wanted "fuel friendly". Now, that's not really a Porsche selling point for any of its offerings but the Cayenne, whichever trim-level you chose, sits right there at the bottom with the 911TT.
With that said, the Cayenne would be a much better vehicle for your winters up there and it is unarguably the most sportscar like SUV, at least in the affordable used market. The Cayenne would also satisfy the "keep it in the Porsche family" requirement. Maybe a sunroof would make it ok?
Excellent suggestion Imo000.

Steve Martin

We'll with my new job I will be travelling about 220-250Km round trip per day(Grimsby to York university), you know what thats about Imre. Anyway, I thing that we will end up with either a Jetta or Passat DIESEL next year. anyine got thoughts on either of these?

Stephen Tinker

Steve,
Grimsby, Ontario - I once lived close to Grimsby in Lincolnshire, England. There must be some connection somewhere, though I have never heard of the Canadian Grimsby...
I hope your town is more - er - salubrious than the Lincolnshire model which is now a run down fishing port, though 50 years ago it was a prosperous centre.
No beavers (?) on the local coat of arms, just a trio of mediaval boars long since hunted out of existance in the 15th century !!!

Macster

I owned an 02 VW Golf TDi and it proved to be quite a nice car. Nice interior, well made, solid, nicely optioned and after 120K+ miles of driving delivered around 40mpg fuel economy.

Based on my experience with this car I think either the Jetta or the Passat cars, diesel, would be a good car to use for your work commute.

The Jetta is a bit smaller and undoubtly less expensive than the Passat so my leaning is towards the Jetta.

Just have to mention this though... Most (all?) diesel cars have a price premium over their gasoline engine counterparts. Thus it might be worth your while to spec two otherwise identical cars, one with a gasoline engine, the other with the diesel engine, and then figure out the fuel costs to see how long it would take you to in fuel savings to pay for the diesel's price premium.

Sincerely,

Macster.

healthservices

if you do your research you will see Porsche in general (at least the boxsters over here) are slow to sell. So negotiate price on whatever you find.