How much do you spend/budget on servicing & maintenance? - Page 1 - Boxster/Cayman - PistonHeads UK

Per year. Literally just servicing, maintenance and repairs. No tax, insurance and fuel. I’m currently at £660, and from another thread I started, a small rant about broken gear cables at £400, a few people are suggesting it should be £2000-3000. Over the 5 years I have owned it that is 50%-75% what I pad for the car, without all the other running costs!

Usually budget for £2400 / year. At just over £3k so far this year…. And I’ve managed a whole 550 miles since February.

This interesting as I’m thinking of getting rid of my 640d GC and having a fairly plain car for my day to day travels of 20k a year and then having a weekend car. I’ve been looking at M4’s but the Cayman has also caught my eye as a more grown up/civilised sports car. What mileages are we talking about for these costs.

Under £500. And that was why I didn't buy a Cayman as the evidence suggested I would need to budget 5x as much for an early 987.1...

Will vary depending on which version of the Cayster and usage. If you go on track it will be a lot more obviously. In general they are very cheap to run, often cheaper than much lesser sports cars (M cars, C63 etc etc)

Xfe said: Will vary depending on which version of the Cayster and usage. If you go on track it will be a lot more obviously. In general they are very cheap to run, often cheaper than much lesser sports cars (M cars, C63 etc etc) This. My 981 that I’ve had since last summer has cost me an oil & filter change (between 2 year services) and a tire (supplying dealer for the previous owner changed 3, bizarrely, and the 4th had ample tread but was getting old). There’s not much in the way of known issues with them - dynamic transmission mounts (on Sport Chrono equipped cars) being about the most common recurring 981/718 issue - at around 1500 a go. Pure lottery if or when it happens.. Otherwise, I wouldn’t worry too much about a 981/718. Eventually coolant pipes degrade and will need replacing, which isn’t a biggie. Distributor coils also go but that’s an easy fix; it also might be due to the conditions in which it’s kept and driven - mine has spent most of the last 3 years in dry car storage when not being driven and the coils look like new. Corrosion protection on these is also very good. Mine’s a manual (which is a wonderful box) but there are (rare) stories of PDK gearbox failures which require a new unit at 5-figures. Probably too infrequent to lose any sleep over. I’d use a reputable indy to keep on top of it and not give it too much though. They’re proven as being fairly robust, or if you’re wanting a hard cap on expenditure, you can always get a Porsche warranty for 1600 for 2 years (but you’ll need to use OPC for servicing. Aside from scheduled servicing, if you had to replace a transmission mount, coolant pipes and coil packs once over your ownership tenure you’re looking at about 3k all-in at a decent indy. YMMV but mine is 7 years old and has needed a replacement mount and a new battery. At this juncture, pipes/packs/condensers and everything else appear in fine fettle, touch wood. Granted, it’s a rather low mileage example. Early 987s had a couple of significant engine issues - bore-scoring and IMS bearing failure. The former is engine rebuild territory (again a bit of a lottery) and the latter can be preemptively sorted before it lunches your engine. Hope this helps.

2019 Cayman 718, budgeted £100 a month over 2 years - so far approximately half that and that's even including unplanned set of PS4S's. There are lots of benefits to buying nearly new, decent warranty being one of the 'majors', and not being forced in to using OPC's for servicing...

curvature said: This interesting as I’m thinking of getting rid of my 640d GC and having a fairly plain car for my day to day travels of 20k a year and then having a weekend car. I’ve been looking at M4’s but the Cayman has also caught my eye as a more grown up/civilised sports car. What mileages are we talking about for these costs. Good question, I am doing about 4K a year with no track days. I’m going to talk to my dad over the weekend as well, because he has had Boxster’s and a Cayman for ~15 years and I don’t remember him paying anything like the numbers some people are talking about.

In terms of required maintenance and repairs, I probably spend ~£500 per year (maybe less). I have elected to spend more than that on verious upgrades/proactive maintenance but last year it only actually needed a coffin arm (£77), a geo (£130), and oil/filters (I use Millers so ~£100 per time). That is with about 4k miles spread between road use and ~7 track days (I usually change the oil every 4 track days). I think a lot of it depends on whether you do the work yourself or use a garage. I opted to do my crossover pipes earlier this year and the parts cost me £200. If I had paid to have them done at a garage, it would have been £800+. Likewise, the gear cables themselves are not hugely expensive (about £150 if I recall) but add labour to that and it all starts to add up. My car is not worth a great deal (high mileage, stone chips, and a load of track day stickers under the bonnet) and so for me, DIY servicing/repairs makes perfect sense. On my other cars (which are newer and owe me more) I opt for main dealer servicing through a combination of laziness (I don't love them enough to do it myself) and resale. Hence, I totally get why some people would choose to pay this premium for their Boxster/Cayman. nonetheless, I think £3k a year on average seems a bit steep. £1500 sounds more nomal (regular servicing plus a few costly repairs every few years)

LennyM1984 said: In terms of required maintenance and repairs, I probably spend ~£500 per year (maybe less). I have elected to spend more than that on verious upgrades/proactive maintenance but last year it only actually needed a coffin arm (£77), a geo (£130), and oil/filters (I use Millers so ~£100 per time). That is with about 4k miles spread between road use and ~7 track days (I usually change the oil every 4 track days). I think a lot of it depends on whether you do the work yourself or use a garage. I opted to do my crossover pipes earlier this year and the parts cost me £200. If I had paid to have them done at a garage, it would have been £800+. Likewise, the gear cables themselves are not hugely expensive (about £150 if I recall) but add labour to that and it all starts to add up. My car is not worth a great deal (high mileage, stone chips, and a load of track day stickers under the bonnet) and so for me, DIY servicing/repairs makes perfect sense. On my other cars (which are newer and owe me more) I opt for main dealer servicing through a combination of laziness (I don't love them enough to do it myself) and resale. Hence, I totally get why some people would choose to pay this premium for their Boxster/Cayman. nonetheless, I think £3k a year on average seems a bit steep. £1500 sounds more nomal (regular servicing plus a few costly repairs every few years) Now, see that is interesting. They toy cars I had before, a Westfield and S1 Elise, DIY servicing and maintenance was a given and expected for the first and the second was not unusual and not a problem. But I bought the Porsche at 6 years old and was very conscious that the expectations about servicing and maintenance were very different in the market place, and it is for a <10 year old car. But on a much older Porsche, a bit of DIY is not a problem, at what point does that relationship change? I think I need to be less scared of doing a bit of work on it and it’s future value as much.

I figure (I'm an economist/numbers nerd by education and profession) that the money I save by self servicing my Cayman will more than offset any potential reduction in resale price if I ever come to sell it. Even if I had to take a £3k hit on price versus the market rate, I'd probably still be better off. Numbers aside, getting under the car on a regular basis allows me to spot problems early and fix them before they become expensive - There are a lot of low mileage garage queens out there with problems developing unbeknownst to their owner.

my 2.9 PDK 987.2 is used daily and the service reminder has just come up again. It was last serviced June last year so ive done just under 20k miles. Ive had no breakdowns thankfully or any mechanical issues. At the last service I had new pads and discs at the front plus the PDK gearbox oil changed which cost £1000 at Autostrasse Coggeshall who are a local independent garage. It will be back with them very shortly for a basic service. Ive had consumables like tyres etc but although a cost they are no higher wearing than other cars ( driven the same) I have also averaged 28.13mpg overall which is a mixture of A roads and Motorway ( if M25 is a motorway not a car park!) which also includes 2 trips to Wales. Id say the car is driven properly overall ! Hope that helps

Servicing isn’t that bad at 2 year intervals but it’s when things like batteries and tyres need replacing. A battery is £400 which had to be done at main dealer for warranty. Tyres about £250 each for rears and £200 for fronts on 20 inch wheels. It seems quite gentle on the tyres though for normal daily driving.

987 2.7 here on 61k used as a second car. Gets oil change most years regardless, although not this year as it's done less than 1k since the last time. Generally anything up to £1k a year is what I have in my head as a rough budget. Had a few where it's just been a few hundred quid but others where I had to replace all the coolant X pipes and AC front to back pipes (circa £1500). It's due discs and pads all round shortly, and next year is a scheduled major service, brake fluid, and spark plugs effort so going to be over my £1k headline figure next year. This year just a MOT.

I budget £1500 per year for my 2.9 manual 987.2 Cayman, although I don't expect to spend that much so any extra left over is for contingency. Mine is a daily, although I do work from home quite a bit so annual mileage is only ~4.5k miles. I think (hope!) my usage profile is quite sympathetic, ie it does get used every few days, never on short journeys and is over-serviced. Costs (since I bought it in September 2020) are £480 for the major service and then £250 for all four lower control arms to be replaced after a bit of play was found in 3 of them. The battery is at around 75% so this will be replaced next year and I will get the oil changed at the same time despite my low mileage. I'd expect that lot to total about £350-£400. All work carried out at the Cotswold Porsche Specialist not an OPC.

I like my cars to be 'right' when I get them. I also like to chop and change quite a lot. That combination doesn't always make for the most economical motoring. I bought a 996 C4 earlier in the year for £12750. It had had £10k spent on it over the last 10k miles or so sorting all the niggly 996 bits out. I have spent another £4000 on it since then, all control arms, all suspension struts, top mounts, and Michelin PS4 all round so it feels night and tight like a new 996 would feel. That is great if I keep it for the next 5 years, but reality is I will probably buy a 981 or 991 before too long and that money spent will only benefit the new owner.

I had a small rant on another thread because maybe me was just about to cost me £405 for gear cables, but in hindsight what I was more pissed off about was this is the only car that has ever needed transporting home in 26 years and the recovery took 5 hours. In that other thread, a fleet manager of transport company, suggested that I was deluding myself and needing to budget £3k a year to run it. This, admittedly, small data set suggests him is the tool I thought he is.

The maintenance cost on my 2011 997 is up to £8,500 over 27,500 miles and 3.5 years, or 31p per mile - excluding fuel, tax and insurance. I paid slightly less overall as a couple of services were thrown in with the sale price. By means of comparison, my 2004 182 is currently at £2.39 per mile (in fairness it has a lot more track miles & most mileage is done on track) and the family 2017 Golf R estate 7p per mile.