I still think I'd repair it..

 

How is it going?

Any news?

 

Real sorry to read about this bad luck. Pre '09 Boxsters and Caymans are a POS , in my opinion, because of the IMS failures. I would not put any more money into that car. Cut your losses and buy something else.

Most used car buyers would not know about the problems that afflict these cars because its not general knowledge. A Porsche dealership would know but if you bought from some other dealership , they might not be aware of this either.

All used cars come with risk but these generations of Boxters/Caymen/911 with the IMS problems are extremely risky in my opinion. Probability may be low that you will get stung but the cost is too much.

Get out while you can....

 

Thank you for your comments, now why don't you run along. Don't you have some head studs or rod bearings to change?

 

LOL

 

Your resume of Porsche ownership indicates you have zero experience with the Porsches you are giving advice on, so why post your uneducated opinion? Surely the OP can read whatever you have & more.

 

Sorry to hear about your car. I cant imagine a newly purchased used car suddenly breaking down and needing an additional $5-20K to get it going. I think you should threaten the used car dealership with a lawsuit as they sold you a clearly defective vehicle that did not survive 60 days. I don't know where that will go, but its the first place I would try. They should offer you something to reduce your loss (they probably bought the car for $7-10K, so should be able to at minimum give you back $5K). Second we all should learn that Porsche Dealership PPI's are worthless. I think all they look at are codes and then tires, and brakes and things of that nature, consistent with the 30K mile service. You should have taken the car to an indy and asked them to open the oil pan or at least check the oil filter, check codes, ignition range, and cam timing deviation, but as would be expected the casual buyer would expect the dealership knows best. Get your $400 back from Porsche for the PPI since their review of the car did not offer any value. Finally, I recently sold my 986 to my brother in law and purchased a 996TT and the Mercedes dealership provided a 90 day 1,000 mile power-train warranty. They did not want to at first but eventually gave in. I pretty much told them I am driving the car home about 600 miles and want to make sure that I get there in one piece. I considered buying cars from various Porsche dealerships and none of them would give me a warranty (they knew better).

My recommendation on moving forward is depending on the condition of the car, I would buy a motor from a totaled car (private sale only as you never know what you are getting from a dismantler) or drop the cash and get a good motor from Jake. A used 2.7 motor is probably $3-5K and $1-2K to install so this is probably your cheapest route, but you continue to run the risk of another failure, on the other hand Jake can sell you an upgraded 3.2L that will produce more HP and improve reliability. In any case good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 

No PPI is perfect and is only as good as the reputation of the person (not company) doing it.

Parts wear, parts age.

I bought used Boxsters twice, both wonderful. But I was conscious that they, as any used car, could have a catastrophic failure at any time and that Porsche repairs cost more than some other brands. I accepted that risk in exchange for paying lots less than a new car with warranty would have cost. And the guy that bought mine did the same.

Involving lawyers, ha. You have no claim after a month unless you got one in writing.

If you are interested, I have a list of wrecking yards on my web site that buy broken Porsches and sell parts from wrecks.

 

The likelihood may be low but he only had the car for 36 days.

 

So? Are you implying that the seller knew of a problem and sold him a car in need of repairs? I've heard of others who have almost proved that. The seller would reply that there was no warranty, you had the opportunity to do due diligence and it isn't the sellers fault that a random event happened or that the PPI didn't discover a problem. The PPI guy would reply that the event was random and that a PPI can't uncover everything, it is just an informed and instrumented look at a car. I'd bet there were other failures beginning to happen within that engine too. You want an engine tear-down and examination for the 29 known modes of failure, you go pay $25k for the engine that results.

Random events can happen randomly. I know of folks who had two IMS failures within 20k miles in the same car. Others with 250k miles on the same design.

Any time you buy a car this old, you are somewhere out there on the bell curve of failures. But you paid a much lower price than you would have paid for one statistically way over on the up-slope of that same curve. And paid less than one with a warranty.

It is truly unfortunate that this happened. And impacts on the psyche the more because he was buying "a Porsche".

 

Maybe they did maybe they didn't. I owned a boxster since 2002 and have followed this topic from its onset. All I'm suggesting is go after the seller, there is a possibility you may be able to recover some of your loss. Goto the BBB and/or send them a legal notice. I would even write Porsche a letter. It is not acceptable for your car to just break down like that and so soon. I concur that you will not get any more than the cost of the ppi from the Porsche dealer. In the end you may not get anything, but why just roll over. Good luck

 

What is porsche going to do? Why write them a letter? He bought it used, it's long out of warranty, and frankly they owe him nothing. If it were new or barely out of warranty, they'd step up. But 4 years and 50k is the warranty. Beyond that, they owe nothing. PPI will show any visible impending failure. I've not seen one that will routinely pull the filter, check for debris, do a leak down and compression test without having to pay extra, so even then he has little leg to stand on for the dealer doing the PPI unless he requested those are done, even then, predicting what'll happen within a month with the internals is like being able to predict when a light bulb will fail. Finally, used car, sold from a dealer, likely had a document stating the car was sold as is with no warranty. The dealer has no responsibility unless they provide a warranty, and it's likely in a car this old, they didn't. OP is SOL. Fix it or sell it and move on.

 

I agree with your analysis of the futility of a legal remedy unless there was a signed contract with language specifying either the PPI-er or dealer's liability.

The PPI on my second Boxster S had all of those things done and this was at least 7 years ago and before any of the IMS issues were well known. I doubt I paid more than $400 in total. And yes, there were engines in pieces at many stations in the shop and race cars in the process of race prep.

A pre-PPI question to ask is what the PPI consists of.

 

Agreed. The shop I work at does not perform those unless requested, and our PPI is $225.

 

From planet 9:

Originally Posted by Vision Motorsports

Hi there - my name is Laura & I help run the motors division of Vision Motorsports, Inc. in Laguna Hills, CA. We are a Porsche-only operation and have built several engines currently powering Planet-9er cars.

. . . . We also have a crate engine program, should that ever interest you.