bought 03 S today - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

I finally found a boxster ! I picked up this 03 today with 45,000 and full service history . It is a real clean car with red interior. it has a factory Nav. but I have never seen this particular model . Doe's anyone know what it is and if it is any good ?

Congrats bro! i'm sure you've done your homework before making your final decision. i'm not quite sure about the Navi option, but i'm sure you'll have that permagrin from now on! enjoy.. t2-bxtrs 04S

Congrats ! Best of luck. p.s. What ever happened to the Roock boxster ? Does chambers still have it ?

the Roock is up for sale at Chambers boston. they want 25k for it but i know you could get it for 22k

Nice full leather interior. Not a common option!

Awesome looking car....

Any plans for some mods in near future ?

really would like to do the gt3 front bumper and side skirts. springs and dampers too.

I love red interior and it is an option. Mine is a 2000S with red leather interior with matching steering wheel and red hand painted gauges also with a TIP. Love it. Check it out. http://s768.photobucket.com/albums/xx325/OldHippieYoungHeart/Boxster%20S/

i am actually not a big fan of the red interior. this one seemed nicer than others i have seen and my girl loved it so that sealed the deal.

Love the red interior.

Watch out for carpet fading on red. Turns pink if you leave it parked in full sun with the top down.

Hey man congrats an a beautiful car. I bought mine used and picked based on condition, as a result I ended up with my first white car, glacier white. All these years later, it has grown on me, enjoy the unit, the red is unique.

Looks like a nice find...my friend recently sold a 996 Aero silver/red interior when he purchased his 997 CS Aero. I've found the red goes a long way and gets balanced nicely when you substitute black floor mats for the red ones. I have beige interior on my Box and the beige mats were too much for me (though they were like new) and did the same substitution.

that's funny because the first thing i'm going to do is get black floor mats.

the first option you should probably look into is upgrading the intermeditate shaft. Honestly. People spend thousands on upgrades (like I did) while crossing their fingers that they'll make it until it's time to change the clutch. And even then many don't upgrade the IMS. I think the cost is about $1200-$1500 if you only wanted to do the IMS. Seems crazy now that I think about it that one would spend $1500 on new wheels and tires, or aero or a great stereo system...only to wake up the next morning and discover that your engine just imploded with the repair costing nearly the value of the car. It's a Russian roulette game of sorts, highly unlikely that it will be yours that bites the dust but why take the chance if your going to committ extra funds to the car on mods anyway? I'm sure the average Boxster enthusiast spends at least $4K on non-maintenance upgrades over the course of ownership. The other big advantage in doing this upgrade in my opinion is that it makes your car much more desireable to a buyer if you do decide to sell. Well if you sell it as having this upgrade that most won't have. I have my doubts that grenading engines is a big problem (compared to other engine makes) but as we see older and older boxsters pushed up in mileage it remains to be seen whether we start to hear of more IMS failures. Many current owners replaced clutches without upgrading the IMS and it seems crazy to think that a poorly though out item will hold up indefinitely. I'm having this done right now because my clutch bit the dust after 10 years. I found an independent Porsche shop to do it at $85 an hour x 12. Seems like a piece of cake for an experieced shop that's used to working on older more involved Porsche work. Unfortunately I'm also having to do the axle boots, starter and alternator...ces't la vie **************** doesn't last forever. The black floor matts are good idea but you'll have your work cut out for you. Red interior is by far the easiest to keep clean looking. You wouldn't think so but a red lighly maintaned interior will look nearly new for years. I think I'd go about a half day on black floor matts before that just cleaned look was gone. And after a few weeks of not cleaning and it really starts to require some elbow grease. I use a 1 part woolite to three parts water mix in spray bottle and it looks good as new. Recently I picked up a portable Bissell carpet vac at Costco for the house ($60) and have been using it in the car. It does a nice job. I highly recommend using 1Z leather cleaner on the seats with terry cloth, it leaves no shiny residue. I have a black steering wheel, picked up a silver painted center console and black carbon shifter to break up all the red.

i would only do the Ims when the clutch goes.

Perfect Lap - can you explain what the IMS upgrade is that you spoke of? thanks

^Read the link below, they are a forum sponsor. As far as preventative measures for a car, this one has probably by far the biggest reward should there be a problem. The one problem with waiting for the clutch to go is that your driving style can add a few extra years to the life of the clutch and push you past the break point on the IMS failure (if you are in fact in that small danger pool). If I'm not mistaken 'most' of the failures have occurred after 70K miles. But it's not unheard for it to happen well before then.... p.s. If you have a December 2008 issue of Excellence they discuss the procedure and there is a more in depth article coming out later in the year. http://flat6innovations.com/saving-an-engine-ims-retrofit I love this picture

bump, LN IMS is going in today...with a new clutch and flywheel. i wasn't counting on that last part. But apparently I waited too long too for the clutch change. The flywheel had dark purplish scoring all over. My indy said it was a 50/50 on getting chatter if I kept it in. After this much work I decided to just to spend the extra $600. Talk about a repair job: six different parts in one shot. The more I think about it the more I think it makes sense to do this job sooner than later if you're car is over the 50K mile mark. If you lose out on the last couple of years of clutch life, its not really that big a deal. Say a new clutch runs $1200 and lasts you 6 years or 60K miles, that works out being $200 a year. So you pass up $400 but you still have a new clutch at the end of the day and the probably less than 1% chance of your engine grenading comes down to a fraction of 1%. I think that's worth $400.