HI, Iam Noob, have questions! - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Hi. guys, i am new, currently driving a 96 C36 AMG i am planning to purchase a pre owned boxster 99- 01..wats the differences btw them? any recall? issues about the car? how's the reliablilty?is there specially a year 's boxster have big problemS?wat are the common mods for the car?wat are the common options for the car? sorry about sooo many questions in my first post but i am reli into a boxster!! thx for help !!appreciates

The quick version is to get the newest one you can afford. 99's are 2.5 liter version, and that particular year had an unusual number of engine problems. An '00 or later standard Boxster has a 2.7 engine; the S also began in 2000 and has a 3.2. Forget about mods. Get the car you want and leave it stock. You can get an exhaust or change the wheels, but don't even think about chips or the myriad other options that exist for other cars.

Not to offend anyone but first of all I would only go with a 2000 and up and secondly I would only go with an S. The pre 2000 models had some "issues" that were worked out by 2000. If I had to get a 2.7 I would go with another car, like an M3 in the same price range or add about 15K and go with a 996 C2. As far as mods, to each his own I guess so get the car first and see if you get the itch. Good luck!

Right, but the newest you can afford. S or standard. I have a '99 with 71K on it, no issues. There is always the chance that an engine can fail, just read the other day at PPBB about a 2001 that had a catastrophic engine failure. So the newer model years, while better I suppose, are not totally immune from this. I have read about engine failures in other model years after the 1999 as well.

I agree. Get the newest you can afford, but if you plan to mod, go for it! Plenty of people provide aftermarket accesories out there that help enhance the boring stock look and poor stock engine performance that comes along with a stock version of these cars. Good luck with your purchase!

anyone know was there any 2000 S in canada BC?

i have a 98 and its runs fine, it all depends of how you drive them. I paid more for my 98 than what the 01 models are going for now as the first owner had only done 2,000 miles and couldnt afford the payments. The job i do has paid my boxster off in 1 year. I would never sell this car as its my first car fully paid for. I am looking for a 911 turbo. My boxster is just like brand new and very very quick, ok its a 2.5 but its had some mods to it as it gets 0-60 in 5 secs, 0-140 4 seconds quicker than a sub impretza wrx sti. I dont think it matters what year you buy your boxster on, hell its still a boxster. I have never came across any boxsters with engine faults and i ran the porsche-boxster.com website for around 3 years and we had a forum for boxsters. It was a UK only forum and again we had no problems with any members cars on that. All i can think of is your weather, as porsche are based on quality and in the uk our weather is balanced perfect. maybe this is the issue and not build quality? also be prepared to pay higher prices on anything. As soon as someone sees a porsche the price goes up. A good example for this is i have a BMW acs m3 and i wanted a leather colour change, I was quoted £1500 which was great, when i went to put a deposit down and he seen my porsche he changed his mine it was £1800 when i asked why the price change he got huffy and said do i want it done or not, i never got an answer for it, just be on your toes! It doesnt matter what car you get even the 911 turbos have problems at the end of the day owning a porsche isnt just about driving and looking cool, its about affording the costs when things go wrong. I just had to folk out £2100 on 4 tyres a service and a new front wheel bearing and 4 brake discs that i didnt intend to find in the service.

i have few more questions is Steel grey color available for 2000 or 01 boxster? is there any INTERIOR ( options) difference btw 2000 01 and 02 ?thx

Good luck finding an S in Vancouver. That's where I am from and in over a year of looking here....I couldn't find even one.

And by the way...I haven't had it for a heck of a long time, but my 99 Boxster which came with almost every option you can get on them (except for the cd changer of course as you can tell from my posts) hasn't had the slightest bit of problems. It has 48,000 Kilometers on it. MCL Motors in Vancouver checked her over from stem to stern and the only thing they could find wrong with her was the ashtray lightbulb was burnt out. I guess it just depends on the individual car, but mine has been great.

hey,if u are looking for porsches! did u try WEISSAH? is near MCL( i believe u had went there) ne way..any interioir difference btw them?

[quote]in the uk our weather is balanced perfect[quote] That's a funny one. Your weather in the UK really sucks! Balanced perfectly between lousy and what? OK, just a joke from a Southern Californian, don't take it too seriously. I hardly think weather has anything to do with it, porous engine blocks perhaps, but weather is highly unlikely.

what i mean is the weather is balanced for a car according to paint work. The reason i said the waether must be an issue as thats the only thing i can think of because in England we have no problems like engine damage ect... lol besides our weather is great, we can get snow on the monday and on thursday it can be red hot.

N e way, Hows the MaintainceS?? costs? i mean hows the car after warrenty? any commons problems? will the maintaince cost more then a AMG? like i need some more pacific example? in cdn$ plz.. i reli reli need help! thx!

Hi from another newbie shopping for a used 986... I'm just killing myself looking for something bad to say about the Boxster but haven't come up with anything yet! I am also REALLY concerned about reliability. My Hondas and Toyotas were of course perfectly reliable, and kinda fun. Then I got a Mercedes 190E that was a hangar queen and had crazy mysterious EXPENSIVE problems. So I'm once bitten twice shy and worried a bit about the Boxster. So I've done a few things to check on reliability: first www.alldata.com will tell you some about the tech bulletins. Check also www.986faq.com for a great summary of the car. And then the one thing that really got me was the Comsumer Reports used car reliability score... for the Boxster it was awesome, most categories were above average reliability. It was equivalent to the score for the Honda S2000. My NEXT step is that I want to go to a dealer or a shop and survey how much it costs for each of the standard maintenance visits. I understand that even an oil change is rather expensive because of the accessibility of the engine, and a large oil capacity, and synthetic. Does anybody out there have a comment on that? And maybe whats the one good example that I should ask to price out a major maintenance? Like how much for a new clutch? Or what would you ask? In any case I'm not so naive as to expect a free car, I know this car needs care and I'm happy to give it! I just want to know more... thanks gang, this is a great forum

Xavier, you are right about the huge oil capacity. Mine gulped 9 quarts of the mobil 1. Thats a good thing though because it protects the engine even better and oil change intervals are longgggg. Porsche says every 15k miles but I did my first one at 5k and will probabbly do subsequent oil at 7-8K intervals.

yeah thats pretty much how i do mine. I change about ever 6-7 k for mileage. I have found my 986 loves to run on 0w30 better then the 5w30