Boxster shopping advice

[Dave Diamond]

After crashing the 2002 boxster, and driving the "project car" 911SC for a month, I'm going into withdrawal syndrome. In looking for a replacement boxster, what advice do people have? Looked at a beautiful very low mileage 2005, but got some advice that with so little miles and that many years old, it could be more vulnerable to leaky seals & IMS bearing failure. What do people know/think about those issues? By what year did the IMS issue get better, if ever? How likely is that to be a problem on older ones, including early 987's? And did the same issues occur with 996s and 997s?
Thanks

[kjr914]

Dave,
You might search on the Boxster sub-forums on Pelican/Rennlist, etc. They will have a more active/focused boxster community, as well as a plethora of knowledge to provide hours (and hours and hours...) of informative reading.
http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/b ... -forum-67/
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/boxster-cayman-forum/

My name is Keith.
And I am a Rennlist-993 board addict.

[Jad]

The old adage applies, buy the newest version you can afford as they get better every year. The 911's do have the same issue with the IMS, but the issue is basically non-existent with rigorous oil changes or better yet the retrofit kit. The difference between a 997 and an early Boxster are really too big to even discuss. Drive everything before you decide and the choice is usually pretty apparent. I have owned all of them, so let me know if you have any specific questions.

[rshon]

RMS leak issues are mostly an annoyance, and should have been weeded out on most cars with upgraded seals by now.

+1 on Jad's comments about IMS bearing failures. Although they did change the IMS bearing configuration over the years from the M96 to the M97 engines, they are all subject to the possibility of the same failure mode until you get to the 2009 9A1 engines, where they eliminated the IMS completely (and added two more oil scavenging pumps!).

FYI, if you're going to pay someone (substantial) money to pull the tranny and pro-actively replace the IMS bearing with an LNE ceramic bearing, might as well have them change the RMS as well.

Also, with the exception of the Boxster Spyder and the Cayman R, the newer cars generally got heavier and more feature-laden. Some of the features you may like, some may not matter to you.

I will say that I would take a 3.2L or a 3.4L car over a 2.7 or 2.9 every time, so besides looking for the newest affordable car in good condition, think hard about buying a Boxster S...