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550Anniv
Original Poster
289 posts
91 months
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...After six years of TVR ownership this left my care at Easter.  So the search was on for a Boxster S. I found this 550 Anniversary in the classifides here on Pistonheads and collected it from Stafford a few weeks ago. It has only done 30,000 miles,backed up by old MOTs and good service history. Not managed to do a lot of driving due to other commitments, but did manage to give the car a good clean,mechine polish and treat the paintwork with G3 Glasscoat this weekend. The results look like this;    The plan now is to drive and enjoy it! I hope you guys like it and wonder who else has a 550 Spyder Boxster on here?
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mayes911
1,254 posts
54 months
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nice hope you enjoy 
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SilverPorker
74 posts
12 months
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Hi Robert,
I too bought a 550 Anniversary back in Nov last year (my first Porsche) and I'm absolutely delighted with it. The Boxster is currently at an Indie having a major service, new coil packs and a brake fluid change. Also, although the car is generally in fantastic condition, the alloy wheels had corroded quite badly on the inner rims, so the indie has sent all four wheels off to Porsche for a full refurb. Unfortunately for me, this has proven to be quite expensive as the wheels are painted two tone, and therefore the labour to do the refurb is a lot more expensive than I had originally planned on. I was thinking of just getting them refurbed in silver, but one of the reasons I liked the 550 in the first place was the smoked grey wheels with silver rims. That said, looking at your car I think I may have spent the extra money unnecessarily as the car still looks stunning with all silver wheels.
My Boxster is a weekend car and I'm intending to hold on to it for the long term. I intend to make many trips and tours in it over the coming years? In fact I'm already booked on a trip down to the Le Mans Classics in July which is going to be brilliant.
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SilverPorker
74 posts
12 months
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Does your Boxster have the CDR-23 stereo head unit and Bose amp and speaker setup? If so, are you planning on adding IPod/MP3 integration and how?
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IMI A
2,096 posts
70 months
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Love it and I've covered circa 160,000 miles in 2 Boxsters. Think the TVR looks spectacular as well. Be interesting to see how you think the two cars compare.
Personally think my Boxster 550 is a better car than my current 997 turbo in terms of twsity b roads. Turbo is more comfortable though and if it wasn't for kids think I'd take the Boxster 9 times out of 10 for a sunday hoon on a hot summers day. Never bother anymore with the turbo.
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spyderman8
699 posts
25 months
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I have a 550, also with plain silver wheels. On about 36k miles now. Not Bose but with a stacker, but I fitted a Dension 500 to give me MP3 playback. Only other mod so far is a SmartTop. I've tracked mine quite a bit and the M030 makes a big difference. Annual oil and race brake fluid change; PZero Rosso tyres. Would like proper Nomex buckets and harnesses, but I'm not sure a harness bar is possible - driver's seat is already as far back as it will go. - 88 Chris.
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khushy
3,387 posts
88 months
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nice job - just in time for summer ffs!
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550Anniv
Original Poster
289 posts
91 months
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...Thanks for all your postive comments guys, looks like there is a handfull of 550 Spyder
owners on here,which is nice to see.
Mine unfortunatly doesnt have the Bose upgrage, it does however have the Satnav package. I
dont really have any plans to add a MP3 or iPod to it as I like it just the way it is.
I dont know why, but mine came with all silver wheels. The fronts are in fantastic condition,
however, there is some very light bubbling on the rears. The plan is to have the wheels refinished
later in the year and have the seal grey 'spokes' and silver edges as per the original 550 Spyder spec.
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SilverPorker
74 posts
12 months
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Just so you know, in order to retain the two-tone wheel colour I was quoted:
£110 + VAT per wheel for a refurb; or
£150 + VAT per wheel for a refurb that includes the inner rim also being painted.
I went for the £150 option as I thought this would be worth while in the long run. After the work had started, my Indie came back to me and said the Porsche bodyshop were asking an additional £25 per wheel as the corrosion was worse than they first thought. So you'd be looking at the best part of £850 to get all four wheels done which is about double what I think you'd be paying if you were to stick with all silver. For me, the extra money is worthwhile spending, but I do think the all silver wheels on your car look great too.
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SilverPorker
74 posts
12 months
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Spyderman8, I was going down the Dension route too, but after speaking to these guys (http://www.audiofile-incar.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=58) I decided to replace both the CDR-23 head unit and the Bose amp. Still have the stock Bose speakers, but these are now connected to a JL Audio XD400 amp and the most asthetically sympathetic aftermarket head unit I could find which is a Kenwood KIV-70O. Audiofile build some custom crossovers and the whole installation is very neat. Amazing the difference in sound quality. But enough about in car hifi - none of bought our Spyders just to listen to the stereo, particularly when the engine sounds so frickin good 
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spyderman8
699 posts
25 months
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550Anniv said: I dont know why, but mine came with all silver wheels. Ditto - it was a no-cost option, like the grey leather and grey roof (that mine also has). 550Anniv said: The fronts are in fantastic condition, however, there is some very light bubbling on the rears. Ditto! 550Anniv said: The plan is to have the wheels refinished later in the year and have the seal grey 'spokes' and silver edges... I'd like that too - but I'd probably kerb the damn things as soon as I'd had it done!
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spyderman8
699 posts
25 months
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SilverPorker said: ...I decided to replace both the CDR-23 head unit and the Bose amp. Still have the stock Bose speakers, but these are now connected to a JL Audio XD400 amp and the most asthetically sympathetic aftermarket head unit I could find which is a Kenwood KIV-70O. Audiofile build some custom crossovers and the whole installation is very neat. Amazing the difference in sound quality. Photos! Photos! There's a good few guys on BoXa.net who would be very interested in what you've had done. SilverPorker said: But enough about in car hifi - none of bought our Spyders just to listen to the stereo, particularly when the engine sounds so frickin good Ah so you want a different exhaust too...!
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550Anniv
Original Poster
289 posts
91 months
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Silverporker....£850.00 for the wheels!! ouch. But, I have to say I bet they will look fantastic when
you get them back (that also means you will need to post a picture or two) I had in my head a figure
of £125.00 per wheel, but it does look like I am a long way out.
There is a fair rim protector on the tyres, so I hope to keep the wheels away from the kerbs both now
and when the wheels have been corrected.
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Actus Reus
1,446 posts
24 months
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Just a quick one to recommend Audiofile as mentioned above - very good guys, nr. Jct 8 of the M11.
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cayman-black
2,695 posts
85 months
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nice. both cars look mint.
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SilverPorker
74 posts
12 months
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I get my Boxster back tomorrow, so if the weather is okay I'll take and post some photos of the wheels and stereo installation tomorrow afternoon. I haven't seen it for a month as I've been working out of the country, so really looking forward to having it back My car has the Cocoa Brown roof and leather interior, and the seal grey two tone wheels really set it off. If it had the grey roof I think I'd have the all silver wheels though...
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martyspain
55 posts
38 months
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Lovely car! I've got an Anniversary with the two-tone wheels, and they're in need of a decent refurb. The previous owner had them done on the cheap, and the paint is beginning to flake off. Didn't realise you could send them off via Porsche to get this done - I've been considering using a specialist like Excel Wheels or Lepsons, though not sure there's much in it price-wise between them and the prices mentioned above.
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SilverPorker
74 posts
12 months
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I tried a good number of local alloy wheel refurb specialists before the Indie recommended sending the wheels back to Porsche. A couple of them said they could paint the wheels in Seal Grey all over, then diamond cut the rim edge to make that silver (which I didn't want), but none wanted to take on the job of actually painting the wheels in 2 colours.
Most frustrating aspect was all 4 alloys were perfect on the outer face having never been kerbed. Its just the inner rims were all bubbling. Unfortunately to do the job properly the wheels needed to be stripped back completely therefore it didn't matter that the outer faces were pristine. Out of the factory the inner rims are not painted on Porsches apparently, hence why this corrosion sets in eventually. I've paid extra to have the inner rims painted during the refurb work, so hopefully this should improve longevity going forward.
I'm picking my car up this afternoon and fingers crossed Porsche will have done a good job. As promised, if the weather is okay I'll post some photos on here later on.
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550Anniv
Original Poster
289 posts
91 months
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SilverPorker, I look forward to seeing the pictures later. I still plan on having the wheels done in the two tone mainly because the colour of the wheels feature so strongly on the 550 Anniversary,even though my car is GT Silver with dark grey leather.
I have head some good reports concerning Lepsons who are in Swindon for wheel
refinising, so i plan to have them take a look at the wheels when I am ready for the work to be carried out.
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aigwilson
1 posts
98 months
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Hi there. I've got 50 Anniversary 550 S #0273. I've had the car for almost four years and it's now covered 78K, 60K of those with me at the wheel. I've been delighted with it's build quality, performance and it's flexibility. Recent thoughts have been wandering to either a newer RS60 or perhaps a Cayman S (in GT Silver of course) but to be honest I've had such fun with the spyder that it's more likely that I'll tidy it up (it's been my daily driver) and hold on to it a while longer. Apart from a coil pack, a gear linkage and an oil separator over the years it has been a loyal servant and companion. Using an independent specialist means that it is cheaper to run than my old Golf GTD which was serviced by a main dealer.
Hope that you have as much fun with your spyder!
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