Cayman S Gen 1 - Good buy? - Page 2 - Boxster/Cayman - PistonHeads UK

In search of a second hand Cayman, i found a 2007 Cayman S for €32K. Condition is excellent, manual gearbox, low milage (20000 km) with nice extras including ceramic brakes and 19" wheels. But.....No chrono pack and NO PASM. The car will be used nearly daily. I have two questions: How important is PASM. Is the Cayman S with 19" wheels too hard/harsh for daily use? What issues if any a 2007 Cayman has? What things should I check before buying it? Thanks

google cayman S bore scoring..... Sounds way too expensive to me. Buy a 2.9 gen 2 ...the safer option!

Agree I had bite scoring twice on a gen 1 3.2 PASM is fine on 19" Great car but expensive to run / rebuild when it dies, which it will

I have a 2006 , owned for 4 years - 56k miles Uses no oil , must be the exception as according to these forums it should have blown up by now Don't believe the hysteria , get it inspected and enjoy Great cars

Trotmant said: Agree I had bite scoring twice on a gen 1 3.2 PASM is fine on 19" Great car but expensive to run / rebuild when it dies, which it will I thought the Cayman only came with the 3.4?

FrankCayman said: I thought the Cayman only came with the 3.4? Me too, as far as I know there are three engine sizes 2.7, 2.9 and 3.4

How about the PASM. Is the Cayman S with 19" wheels too hard?

I think thats a really good spec. PASM is not something I like as it corrupts the chassis. If you find 19s harsh easy enough to swap to a nice set of 18s.

panicosc said: Me too, as far as I know there are three engine sizes 2.7, 2.9 and 3.4 The early 987 Boxsters had a 3.2....but that was replaced with the 3.4 of the Cayman...I think?!

panicosc said: How about the PASM. Is the Cayman S with 19" wheels too hard? I never had an issue with the 19"s on my non PASM 987's....plenty more grip..... If you want to have the tail flipping out...stick some 17"s on.....but I'm not Chris Harris, so I find all of that activity boring and unsuitable for public roads.

I'm guessing that you have to pay a premium for used cars in Cyprus as that would be a very high price for the UK. These are great cars so don't be frightened off by the scaremongers. Have the car inspected including a boroscope by someone who knows what they are doing and look into warranty options. Chrono is not a deal-breaker nor is PASM.

anonymous said: [redacted] This. My mates 997 C4S has just been repaired after his suffered the same issue. He was out of warranty and went down the Hartech fix with the revised parts. He was not happy, but now intends to keep the car for a long time. I fear the problem with having Porsche fix a car under warranty is....it will probably happen again...unless they've quietly used revised parts without telling anybody to avoid any hysteria?!

If I were looking at 987 Cayman...I'd be putting my money into something like this.... http://www.maundrelland.co.uk/porsche-cayman-24v-f...

The good ones far outweigh the bad ones. Just accept that they will all eventually require some attention to the bores and ims at some point, but exactly when can vary massively. http://www.planet-9.com/987-cayman-boxster-chat/10... http://www.planet-9.com/987-cayman-boxster-chat/10... Edited by Trev450 on Saturday 21st February 12:18

Surely if bore scoring was rampant there would have been a class action suit in the us - just like for the ims I also don't understand how you can have bore scoring then no issues for 10k miles - if the bores are scored surely you burn oil and lose compression / performance !?!

just to say i've had my 2006 987.1 Tiptronic since 2011, 33k miles total... not used a single drop oil... runs as well as the first day i bought it.. yes there are duds but you will always hear about the horror stories and not the ones where owners have had no issues...

Trev450 said: The good ones far outweigh the bad ones. Just accept that they will all eventually require some attention to the bores and ims at some point, but exactly when can vary massively. http://www.planet-9.com/987-cayman-boxster-chat/10... http://www.planet-9.com/987-cayman-boxster-chat/10... Edited by Trev450 on Saturday 21st February 12:18 I agree thats a very sensible way of putting it. Mine has made it to 72k miles with no issues, its on the original engine and was boroscoped little while ago and given the all clear. There are lots of threads on planet 9 with guys doing high mileage in them, there is another chap who has done 15k hard track miles and the engine has yet to explode. Obviously they do go bang but some people have a tendency to exaggerate, if there were as many as 1 in 4 going pop i think you would see a lot more threads from angry owners. Whenever I've asked porsche indy specialists about there experience they agree the issues are exaggerated by the internet, and sometimes by those who may have more than a little vested interest in doing so.

IMHO the whole bore scoring issue has been blown out of all proportion. There is not doubt that there are a significant number of caymans that have suffered from this issue, to an extent that it has required remedial engine rebuild, in fact talking to Porsche dealers they reckon that most Caymans will have some degree of bore scoring , the vast majority causing no issue whatsoever, but lets put things in perspective, how may may Gen 1 Caymans were produced? - whoever says its a 3 in 1 chance of there being an issue is merely indicating there own opinion rather than fact, and anyone looking to purchase a Gen 1 Cayman should bear this in mind, i.e. how many/what proportion of owners talk about issues with their cars versus those who have no issues whatsoever, and therefore don't post on forums. I myself, was aware of the potential issues, purchased an A1 condition car, noticed it was using a fair bit of oil and had a full report done by Porsche Main Dealer - turned out to be a faulty Air/Oil Separator....a £58 part plus labour. Not requiring a full engine rebuild as most people would have suggested. Car has a full bill of health from Porsche and since being replaced it hasn't used a drop of oil - runs perfect with no issues whatsoever. Being fully aware of the potential issues and buying with caution is credible, but don't be scared off from buying just because of issues some have faced and have publicised on a forum.

IMHO the whole bore scoring issue has been blown out of all proportion. There is not doubt that there are a significant number of caymans that have suffered from this issue, to an extent that it has required remedial engine rebuild, in fact talking to Porsche dealers they reckon that most Caymans will have some degree of bore scoring , the vast majority causing no issue whatsoever, but lets put things in perspective, how may may Gen 1 Caymans were produced? - whoever says its a 3 in 1 chance of there being an issue is merely indicating there own opinion rather than fact, and anyone looking to purchase a Gen 1 Cayman should bear this in mind, i.e. how many/what proportion of owners talk about issues with their cars versus those who have no issues whatsoever, and therefore don't post on forums. I myself, was aware of the potential issues, purchased an A1 condition car, noticed it was using a fair bit of oil and had a full report done by Porsche Main Dealer - turned out to be a faulty Air/Oil Separator....a £58 part plus labour. Not requiring a full engine rebuild as most people would have suggested. Car has a full bill of health from Porsche and since being replaced it hasn't used a drop of oil - runs perfect with no issues whatsoever. Being fully aware of the potential issues and buying with caution is credible, but don't be scared off from buying just because of issues some have faced and have publicised on a forum.

I would normally agree....but after my mate got caught with his 997....it made it all a bit too real for me!!!

Thanks for the input guys. Is bore scoring mostly happening on the 3.4 engines? If so it sounds wise to search for a 2.7 or 2.9 Gen1 or Gen2. Is this correct?

The 2006 3.4S is the classic for scored bores. Some 2007 cars seem affected. Other Cayman models hardly get mentioned for engine problems. Gen 2 is the easy answer. I bought a Gen 2 997 because of engine woes. I'm on my second engine now, but I was unlucky.

panicosc said: Thanks for the input guys. Is bore scoring mostly happening on the 3.4 engines? If so it sounds wise to search for a 2.7 or 2.9 Gen1 or Gen2. Is this correct? Yep......2.7's and 2.9's seem to be the safe options. I've owned one of each and covered 90,000 miles in each of them without a problem,

If anybody is interested the statistics being discussed recently on this very issue of bore scoring on the 3.4, 3.6 and 3.8 engines reckons on something like 2.5% of 911, Boxsters and Caymans in the UK with those engines have been affected. To add to this, the incidence of bore scoring is higher in the 3.8, and also a lot higher in Tiptronic cars. So take a manual 3.4 Gen1 Cayman S, understand the risk and drive accordingly and fit the parts to help protect it and you'll likely have around 1/100 chance of being affected...very low indeed There is a good article in the most recent copy of GT Porsche magazine which includes a number of Porsche engine specialists providing their first hand experience of the issues affecting M96/97 engines and how common or not they appear to be.

Common enough that 4 out of 5 of the Porsche specialists I know have done plenty of business replacing/fixing these engines. One in particular Hartech have made it the cornerstone of their business, a very healthy one at that. Still though context is everything, just look at the prices for monthly warranty schemes and the two I know doing it (Hartech & JMG) put a much lower price on the modern cars than late model air cooled for example. Yer pays your money you take your chances as they say.

Beanoir said: If anybody is interested the statistics being discussed recently on this very issue of bore scoring on the 3.4, 3.6 and 3.8 engines reckons on something like 2.5% of 911, Boxsters and Caymans in the UK with those engines have been affected. To add to this, the incidence of bore scoring is higher in the 3.8, and also a lot higher in Tiptronic cars. So take a manual 3.4 Gen1 Cayman S, understand the risk and drive accordingly and fit the parts to help protect it and you'll likely have around 1/100 chance of being affected...very low indeed There is a good article in the most recent copy of GT Porsche magazine which includes a number of Porsche engine specialists providing their first hand experience of the issues affecting M96/97 engines and how common or not they appear to be. Is PDK increasing the risk as well or just the older automatic ones? "drive accordingly"........means keeping the revs mostly on the hight range?

I ran two 3.2 Boxster S from new over an aggregate 160k miles Cmoose. Now admittedly I do not know if they were borescored but they ran with zero faults and have probably been the two of the most reliable cars I have ever had. I also tracked the hell out of them. That car OP has said he's looking at sounds lovely and hardly difficult to check for bore scoring.

anonymous said: [redacted] A group of specialists, which I believe also included Hartec. I can't be bothered to post the entire article on here, but needless to say, you should probably read it.

anonymous said: [redacted] Sorry, I assumed you were at the same level as me. Start here and move on.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIrn7DLuIzs

Beanoir said: anonymous said: [redacted] Sorry, I assumed you were at the same level as me. Start here and move on.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIrn7DLuIzs