First Porsche, first breakdown

tl; dr at the bottom My first Porsche: 2006 Atlas Grey Cayman S with a Sharkwerks RS350 kit on it. Sounds badass and is more powerful than expected. It somehow managed to live up to all the hype of the internet and my imagination. The CS passed a thorough PPI performed by Gerber Motorsports in Seattle, WA last week. I picked up the car Thursday morning and started the drive back home to Iowa on Friday evening. My girlfriend and I made it 180 miles before a Low Coolant warning appeared on the dash. A few minutes later, we were pulled over at a truck stop with steam billowing out of the side intakes and coolant running down the asphalt. We furiously read everything coolant related at 10:00 PM in the literal middle of Washington state. We took our chances and topped the car off with an off the shelf coolant. We never found out whether or not it was bad decision because the coolant leaked out of the car as quickly as we poured it in. At this point we're at a loss, we're in a town of 500 people and considering a tow. A 19 year old kid in the most beat up Ford Ranger notices us and asks us if we need help. "Uhhhhh......actually yeah we do." Instantly he pulls a hydraulic jack from his pick-up and an entire set of mechanics tools. He gets the car jacked up and removes the belly pan to inspect the coolant lines. We pour some more coolant so he can identify the source of the leak which is located directly above his face. Yeah, we poured coolant onto the face of the nicest stranger we've met. "Water pump gasket is bad, there's nothing I can do about that. I'm sorry I can't be more help mam." He's apologizing to us. Apologizing for spending an hour underneath a stranger's car on a Friday night. We're floored by his kindness. The previous owner of the car actually included a spare water pump and serpentine belt with the car. I briefly consider asking him to install it, but concluded the job would be too intensive for all parties involved. We leave a note on the dash asking the CS not get towed, and he drives us to a slightly bigger small town 20 miles away. We wake up the next day in a surprisingly nice hotel and start developing a new plan: Seattle is 180 miles away, plenty of Porsche dealers and indy shops. Gotta go back through the mountains though Two indy shops within 50 miles according to PCarShops.com. None of which are open on a Saturday. Porsche of Spokane is 130 miles away, but at least in the direction of home. We call up Porsche of Spokane and told them our sob story. Ben, the current general manager but the former service manager of six years, says he can fit us in Monday morning and it should be a straight forward install. We take the appointment and call up Progressive for a tow. THREE HOURS later Paul the tow guy shows up and we get the CS on a flatbed. Over the next two and half hours we talk about everything including Paul's life story. Met his wife in high school study hall, married for 44 years. Used to illegally drag race his 440 Dodge pick-up with Posi-Trac Three daughters. Nine grand kids Oldest daughter is currently going through a divorce with his asshole of a son-in-law 3 minutes before Porsche of Spokane closes, we roll up. I run out and see if anyone's still in the building. I find Ben (still not sure whether or not he waited for me) and we get the paperwork sorted out while Paul unloads the CS. We talk about the crazy Voodoo Blue 991 sitting in the showroom (Sport Techno wheels, PCCBs, Sport Design Kit, X51), how the 987 is hottest used car right now, and my concerns about mixing coolants. I sheepishly ask him if someone can run us to the local Hertz and he looks at me like I'm crazy. A puzzled Ben: "Why do you need a rental car?" A confused Me: "Sooo we can get around town for the next few days?" A smug Ben "Oh. I got cars ." Me: :dance: I assume for most of you a free loaner car is standard procedure. But this is my first luxury car and the idea of a loaner never crossed my mind. 10 minutes later the CS is in the service bay, Paul's driving off, and I'm holding the key to a brand new Cayenne Diesel. It's been a crazy 20 hours. I'm writing this from a hotel in Coeur d'Alene. Despite all the craziness, my Porsche obsession is still strong. I've wanted a 987 ever since I test drove one in the Fall of 2012. I woke up this morning and immediately continued researching wheels and writing this post. Car's gonna be fixed in about 30 hours and my girlfriend and I will be covering 1700 miles by Wednesday night. I almost lost my cool Friday night but now I'm determined to enjoy this trip. And this car. First picture of the car: Friday night: Saturday morning: Voodoo Blue 991: Loaner: tl; dr: My first Porsche broke down after 32 hours of ownership in the middle of Washington State. Met some truly kind people. Will be back on the road tomorrow. Regardless, still in love with my car.

Just tough luck. Nice to hear about the friendly/helpful people. That's becoming more rare. Once you get the car on your home turf you'll be able to get a feel for it and do any preventative maintenance yourself. Let us know how the rest of your trip turns out.

Welcome to the Porsche family. Unless the wp was leaking, it would be hard for a PPI to know whether it was good or bad. If it's still the orig, it was defn time for a chg. At least you have the part in hand and don't have to wait extra days for it. We'll cross our fingers that once you're back on the road you'll have good luck. DON'T drive if there's any snow on the road - you won't stay on the road very long if you do. What part of IA?

Tough to hear a story like this and even tougher I'm certain to live it. Thankfully you found some very nice folks willing to help. Hopefully once you're back on the road you'll find why we all love these things and why an occasional painful experience is worth putting up with. You have definitely made me rethink putting off replacing my water pump. I have just over 30k miles on my '08 and so far everything is okay but; like your situation, you just never know when that time will come. Wishing you the very best of luck in the future with your Cayman.

What an unexpected experience! Good for you in keeping positive about the adventure! Enjoy Spokane if it's to your liking. As you seem to have found out, Eastern Washington is alright. I'm rooting for you and your girlfriend to have a less eventful rest of the trip. Stay safe! :cheers:

I remember driving my '04 Boxster Anniversary Edition through Eastern WA in 2006 heading for the Porsche Parade in Portland. As I recall it is quite desolate. Glad all is working out. I have a '08 Cayman 2.7 that I bought 5 months ago with 88k miles on it and the original water pump. I put 6K more miles on it since and now has 94.5K I'll keep my fingers crossed. I'm really not a preemptive kind of guy, cause at 74 years of age I know the failure you plan on ain't the one that happens.

Certainly a less than ideal way to start your Porsche ownership, but I applaud your positive attitude. No one is dead or hurt and the only thing out of whack is schedules so keep up the good vibes and best of luck with your drive home. Please keep us updated too. Eddie P.S. I would have made it known a few BF's were in the offering if a tech would fix my car that night. Might not be possible, but could not hurt to offer.

Owning a series of BMWs a loss of coolant feels more like SOP. If you don't get it watch out, it might not be the real German article. Dumping the water on the floor means you didn't get an Asian knockoff. Anyway, sorry for your troubles. FWIW I am very paranoid about reusing any kind of tube, gasket or other seals or anything else inside the cooling system around anything that got touched for a repair. If it's rubber it only gets seated once in my cars. It gets unseated, it isn't reseated.

Sounds to me you're the kind of person who keeps his head and sense of humor. You'll be back in your car before you know it with a good story to tell in the future. You have one good looking CS. Hope you're safely on your way soon.

Sounds like you found the soft spot on the 987s right away and it was nice that you actually had a spare water pump. Just curious, how many miles did it have when this happened? Mine went around 50k..

Oh, dude, that hurts! Good on you for remaining positive and recognizing the generosity of those who worked to help you. So many Americans (like me) become too entrenched in their own bubbles of self concern. It became a joke when I was motorcycling through Central and South America that wherever I was, just getting something out of a bag or looking at a map on the side of the road, someone would stop in a beater VW or a near-death 300,000 mile Chevy LUV with grandmother, five kids and a llama in the back, asking if I needed help. All of that kindness went away as soon as i crossed back up into the US. This story especially resonates with me, as just two weeks ago, I went through the same machinations of getting a remote PPI on a used 2006 Atlas Grey Cayman S in another state. I had to trust and believe (two things I am not built for) as I drove off 900 miles across rural Texas and Oklahoma in a car I had no experience with. It could have easily have been me. My 22,000 mile CS had its water pump done at 18,000 miles (but eight years in time). Let us know how it turns out. Did you have good AAA or roadside assistance for this?

I applaud your attitude and level-headed approach to this event. Driving a 987 is worth it! And that car looks great! Welcome to the club, and keep shifting..... :cheers:

Just outside of Iowa City. I’m an Iowa Alum. Thanks for the crossed fingers, should be on the road this afternoon. The 987 is right around 66,000 miles. Maaaan I left this detail out. I have roadside assistance through my insurance, but they only covered hook up and 15 miles. I had to pay 130 miles of the tow out of pocket at $5/mile. With tax it was a whopping $712, but I dipped into my emergency fund. I think this weekend qualified. Thanks to everyone for the kind words. It’s nice knowing people are rooting for us.

Than k s for sharing your adventure. Hope all gets sorted out and you get back on the road soon. You have a very nice looking Cayman....and that voodoo blue 991...isn't too bad either!

I had something similar happen a long long time ago.... so I know the sinking feeling. I am happy to hear it is a water pump and some nice folks stepped up to help you out. Enjoy the car!!

Sorry for the run of bad luck my friend, but believe me your going to love the car! I run a 2012 cs track car. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

Outstanding (and encouraging) display of helpfulness by a complete stranger! Glad you found a way to see the bright side/silver lining to this unfortunate inconvenience. Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

Credit, it gets better and the love affair more pronounced... enjoy in good health and glad you're backed with some really nice people!

How's the weather on the I-90? I'm making this trip on Friday. I'm coming from Victoria (Seattle) to Toronto on the I90.

Have we heard anything about how this all ended? There seems to be no input from the OP since Idaho.

I drove I-90 from Seattle to Butte and it was pretty chill. But I've been outrunning a storm since yesterday afternoon (more on that below).

Nic (girlfriend) and I ended up hanging out in Coeur d'Alene Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning. Went hiking, ate some decent food, and randomly got dinner with Nic's cousin. I picked up the 987 at Porsche of Spokane right around 2:30 Monday afternoon. They charged me $829 for the repair which included labor (install/coolant flush), OEM coolant, and a metal gasket. After reading about water pump replacements, I'm pretty sure I got ripped off considering I brought my own water pump. Then again, I brought the car in after hours on Saturday and they got me on the road mid-day Monday. So... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We're on the road by 3:00 and start heading for the hills, literally. We manage to be pretty efficient with our time and get to the I-90/I-15 junction by 7:30ish. Nic and I stop at Wendy's to eat and figure out our route. Our original plan was Seattle>Missoula>Cheyenne>Iowa City, but we're already passed Missoula and we need a good stopping point. We're juggling remaining distance for the night, road conditions, hotel costs, and scenery. Nic wants to take I-15 and stay in Jackson, WY. I want to continue on I-90 to Billings. Her reasoning: Eastern Montana and all of South Dakota is crazy boring My reasoning: A supposed storm is coming and I want to be as far from the mountains as possible We start pseudo-arguing in Wendy's and ultimately decide to head to Jackson, WY. She offers to buy me all seasons for the front wheels (the 987 has PSSs up front, and Pilot Sport A/S 3s in the rear) if I felt like they were necessary. I figure she flew halfway across the US to drive with me, she deserves a win here. I-15 was totally clear but the temperature started dipping into the mid thirties by 10:00 and I'm watching the roads and temperature closely. To avoid lower temperatures and possible ice, we detour around the range and drive along the Palisades Reservoir. There was a ton of moonlight last night and we got some amazing views of the reservoir and mountains. Also saw an elk for the first time. We get to the hotel at 12:45. 603 miles for Monday. Today was much less exciting. We woke up in Jackson and were on the road by 8:30. We swung through the village and grabbed coffees and souvenirs for the family. We encountered some snow and ice, but overall the roads were pretty tame. Nic thoroughly enjoyed telling me I was overly concerned about road conditions. We got to our hotel in North Platte, NE around 8:00 PM CDT. I got pizza delivered and started writing this post. 664 miles today. Now I'm hearing there's a Winter Storm Advisory for half of Nebraska starting tomorrow morning. I've decided this trip will forever be known as the Cayman Crucible. Our plan is get on the road by 9:30 and outrun it just like we've been doing for the last 30 hours. (In BTTF Font) To be concluded. Monday's Route Tuesday's Route Lake Coeur d'Alene: The CS this morning: Somewhere on ID-191: The CS in full road trip mode: Random shot: A friggin' key chain as a reminder of the trip

Post the details of your bill when you have time and if you do not mind. I will say that w/o providing the WP, this would have been a $1,500 job which is excessive by most anyone's standards. Pix are kewl and your CS looks great, and very glad to hear things are moving along and home is not too far away. Best of luck with your final leg. Eddie

Great story. Hopefully you're up early this morning and looking at radar. Right now (7am Wed) the radar is clear from NP to OMA. But the storm is behind you and brewing. Better hit the road and stay in front of it. Thankfully NE has a 75 mph speed limit. Be careful of speeding as the State Patrol is itching to pull cars over who may have come from a CO run (if you know what I mean). Your speedo shows 3mph fast. If you drive 83, (5 over 75 + the 3 for the speedo), you should be good. You're almost home.

I'd say you're lucky that the storm didn't pin you in Jackson. 10 hours to the South/South East, this dumped on Boulder, CO today. 13" of heavy snow and still going, windy, roads might be barely passable in my XC70 with ice tires, but I am not going out into this for any reason. Keep on rolling. I am very glad to hear you're back on the road. Did you change the serpentine belt while they were in there? FWIW, I put performance all seasons on my CS, also drove it back 900 miles on 2008 hockey-puck-hard Michelin PSS. Where I live, any time you gain altitude, you might hit slippery stuff.

The 2006 Cayman S is a great car. I still have mine from new and not a single problem. You've bought a cool car and I think a future classic. Great story by the way.

I would say your repair bill is about right. I was recently quoted by my local Porsche dealer $1200 to replace the water pump. I am doing it myself this weekend.

How did you know the speedo was 3 mph fast? Also, should’ve listened to you about State Patrol. More on that below. WHOA. That is an insane amount of snow. They didn’t change the serpentine belt, the CS came with a spare one…Probably should’ve had it swapped out. The PSSs were in fact hockey-puck-hard this morning in North Platte.

Happy to say the today was pretty uneventful. We got on the road by 10:00 and stayed ahead of the storm the whole way through. Husker Boxster warned me about the State Patrol, but I set the cruise at an indicated 86 mph anyway. I got pulled over 60 miles west of Lincoln. I didn't have a bill of sale on me, but after showing the officer a copy of the title application and a check on my DL number, I got off with a warning. Owned the car for less than a week and I already have one warning. Sounds about right for me. The CS consumed about 2/3s of a quart of oil after 2100 miles. The seller stated that the CS would take about half a quart after a long trip. Is this something to be worried about? Pulled into the garage at about 7:00 CT. 556 miles today. My longest road trip and definitely the most memorable. Thanks for reading my rants. This happened in our first two hours on the road: First picture of the CS in the garage:

That's probably about right for an 1800 mi trip. Keep an eye on it, as it could be an AOS starting to fail. If the AOS is still the original on your car, it could be on its way out. They contain a thin membrane that allows the oil fumes to recirculate into the engine. If the membrane breaks, it will allow oil to escape into the engine resulting in a bit of oil consumption. If the membrane tears bigtime, you'll get massive amts of smoke and you'll need to shut it down as you could hydrolock your motor and destroy it. An AOS is approx. $100 and is a doable DIY if you don't frustrate easily.