Newbie: Running cost advice please? - Page 1 - Boxster/Cayman - PistonHeads UK

Hi all, I have decided to take the plunge and buy a 2.9l 2009- 2010 Cayman within the next few months Before i do so i thought it wise to gain an idea of the overall running costs of the car. Quite a lot of the threads have been around the 3.4 Cayman S, however i am interested in the basic 2.9 Cayman. 1) True MPG? Particularly motorway driving which tends to dominate my time behind the wheel. 2) Cost of a decent set of tyres and how long do they last on average? 3) Average servicing costs? 4) Would people advise biting the bullet and paying the extra to purchase through the OPC? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

I've had mine just over a year. It's a 2009 that had 24000 miles on it when I bought it and I did 16000 in my first year. 1. Summer months I average 31mpg, Winter 29mpg (I have winter tyres on for the latter, maybe explains the difference). That's mostly A roads and a bit of motorway driving. Best I had was 36mpg average on a motorway run to France. 2. I've got 19s so rears are about £190 each (Michelin PS2). Despite not hooning it my rears last 9000 miles. Fronts don't seem to wear much at all. 3. Servicing at an indy is a few hundred a year. Trouble is in my first year my transmission shifter cables snapped (£800 including "won't happen again" upgrade kit), needed a new clutch, flywheel, front shock mounts and a couple of other things at its annual oil service (£2200). It's luck of the draw really as I know people who've had not a penny to pay aside from servicing and tyre costs. That said, I didn't expect it to cost the same as a Golf to run and I have no regrets as I love every drive in it, even when stuck in traffic. 4. Not convinced an OPC warranty would have saved me much on the costs over the past year as most are "consumables" and labour rates are much higher. I just ensured I had enough money to cover anything untoward - the engines seem to be pretty solid compared to the 987.1 so that wasn't a worry. It depends on your own personal preference I guess. An OPC warranty gives peace of mind to some but is just a sunk cost to others. If was doing it all over again I'm undecided whether I'd go the OPC route or not! I think it would depend on the car.

Thanks John, yeh i guess it just comes down to the luck of the draw a bit.

shlord1290 said: Hi all, I have decided to take the plunge and buy a 2.9l 2009- 2010 Cayman within the next few months Before i do so i thought it wise to gain an idea of the overall running costs of the car. Quite a lot of the threads have been around the 3.4 Cayman S, however i am interested in the basic 2.9 Cayman. 1) True MPG? Particularly motorway driving which tends to dominate my time behind the wheel. 2) Cost of a decent set of tyres and how long do they last on average? 3) Average servicing costs? 4) Would people advise biting the bullet and paying the extra to purchase through the OPC? Any advice would be greatly appreciated I had one from brand new and covered 80,000 plus miles in 3 years. Great car...to answer your questions from my experience: 1. Pretty much 29mpg overall. 2. Total set would cost me £800.00 and would last me 20,000 plus ....but my driving style seems to be light on tyre wear!! (25K per set in my current 981 with 20" P Zeros). 3. I only had it serviced from OPC at their prescribed intervals....no extra costs above their menu price. 4. I would buy from OPC.....but I am cautious and would keep any Porsche I own under a Porsche warranty. Hope this helps. Good luck with your search...look forward to seeing pictures!

I can't really advise on running costs yet since I've only had mine a few weeks. I will probably be changing from 19 to 17" wheels and tyres are more reasonable for them it seems, roughly £100 a corner for PS2's, not the reason I a swapping but an added bonus. There are not many cars out there, the couple that came up privately were snapped up quickly, one is now for sale at a trader in west London. I did get mine in the end from an OPC so have the full warranty, nice to have but most of the items that needed replacing for the poster above would probably not be covered! I expect the running costs for the 2.9 are not that different to the 3.4 to be honest.

General rule for older cars - be prepared for annual maintenance 5% of what the car cost when it was new. This includes tyres and other wear items. So for a £50k car that means £2,500 p.a. Obviously you would hope to get out cheaper, but it avoids nasty surprises. The biggest mistake that can be made is to buy in the hope that an older car which costs Fiesta money will also have Fiesta running costs. It rarely works out that way.

Everyone else pretty much nailed all your questions. My quick tip is to always search for part prices yourself, even if you go to a mechanic. I've saved hundreds at a time by going to websites like https://www.vertexauto.com

No mention of brake pads/discs so far. I've not owned one yet (CGTS due in April) but I would have thought that these are significant additions to the running cost of a Porsche.

Brakes, so far one set of front disks and pads due to not enough work causing rusting. Must try harder. Beyond that, just oil changes and normal servicing. At specialist prices not too much to worry about.

I'm in an older 3.4 which may not help guide the OP but I'm running 19" SuperSports, after 20k on the fronts and 12k on the rears they are all still less than half way down.

At lot of this will depend on how you approach certain aspects of the maintenance and repair – for instance if you can spanner yourself then savings can be had on items such as brakes, routine maintenance etc. 1) There’s motorway driving and there’s motorway, but if you’re a fairly average somewhere between 70-80 mph driver without getting too excited then you should see 32-36mpg in a Gen II, probably the lower end of that for most people though. However as soon as you start to factor in the off-motorway country roads, towns and traffic, you’ll end up with an average in the region of about maybe 26-29mpg. 2) We advise generally that tyres will last anywhere between 10-20k miles, it all depends on how you drive and which make and model of tyre. Cost will also be dependent on the tyre size from 17" to 19" there is a difference. 3) Depends where you get it done – have a look at link below details of servicing costs at various places, OPC vs. specialist. 4) Depends on the price differential, but Gen II prices are still quite high at OPCs at the moment I’ve found. There are Cayman specific buyers guides here that will help with servicing costs etc. http://www.caymanoc.com/library/

Thanks for the advice all!! With regards to the warranty question, does anyone know any other Warranty's that are good for covering Porsche'? Or Is the OPC Warranty the one to have? Also, does anyone have any experience of selling a 9-10 year old standard Cayman? I understand that they can hold their value well and from what i can tell with reasonable mileage, they are advertised for around £15k. However do they actually sell well at that age?