500

I have two Porsche from the '80's and a 2004 Boxster. I've found the build quality of my particular Boxster to be quite good. However, I'm sure your experiences are valid too. I have read various articles etc. that suggest Porsche significantly improved the overall quality during the 9X6 years. I know people with much more than 50K miles who have had much better luck than you, and of course there are some that have had worse.

As for the IMS, I think everything that can be written on it has. There are many hypotheses and each has its adherents. However, none seems to explain all the failures. However, if the car is 2004 or earlier, than we now know there are good options for servicing it.

perfectlap

I wouldn't go romanticizing Porsche build quality. It's not like Porsche has ever been Lexus in the quality department overall. And the cars that were built in the way you say is no longer the case, had many costly repairs of their own when they did break down. Before the 996/Boxster Porsches weren't exactly a value proposition on reliability vs performance. I think some who get nostalgic about Porsche before the 996 forget that there was a reason why Porsche was barely selling 2,500 Carreras in all of the North America during a robust 1990's economy. If the cars made sense in reliability/performance/cost the money was there in that bull market economy to have sold the old Porsches at the new 996/Boxster sales levels. But Americans weren't interested in leaky cars with a bunch of quirks that required extremely expensive engine maintenance as a regular part of long-term ownership. They bought tanker loads of expensive Lexus cars though... Pre-996/Boxster Porsche costs were fine for the weekend wrencher who can do a $7K-$12K front end on a NA or Turbo air-cooled, but that's a very small group. And apparently not a sustainable business model unless you can command Ferrari type premiums, but Porsche drivers unfortunately drive their cars more than 10K miles.

Also, worrying about the IMS every time you turn the ignition is simply avoided by addressing a problem, which all Ferrari, BMW, Merc, Audi, etc. cars have, *BUT* without the need to rebuild the engine from 1999-2005. In fact if you did the retrofit with your clutch the cost was neglible, as the LNE bearing is not the only route. Or if you simply decided to do the IMSB only, it could be done for under $1,000 using a non-LNE IMSB. Point is there are nearly 400K perfectly retrofitable Boxsters and Carreras to choose from. As LNE have posted they'd sold over 10K retrofit bearings and the number that have still gone down are barely a handful. The IMSB is not the principal reason to avoid these cars. It's the over-priced parts and specialized labor but show me a Porsche vintage where that's not the case.

p.s.
I spoke to a Mini Cooper mechanic in Florida who had about a half dozen Minis in his shop when I visited, some appeared to be used for Autocross and the mechanic himself competed at the national level. He point blank told me to stay away from Mini Coopers out of warranty for many of the same reasons you cite against Porsche. They guy has Minis on the lift behind me and he's honestly telling me not to ever consider a used one unless the factory is footing the repair bills.