Buying a 'cheap' 987 Cayman S

[CountZero23]

I'm going to be in the market for a car in the new year and had all but settled on a Z4 3.0. Reliable, cheap to run and well within budget.

As is often the case I've been looking at what I could get if I stretch myself a bit further and early 987's seem to be available at around the £14,000 mark.

The horror stories around bore scoring / IMS etc have put me off going for one of the earlier Boxter/Caymans but I've seen this 2006 model at 79,000k with a full engine rebuild. There was another one going recently on e-bay for the same money with a Hartech rebuild.

https://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Porsche-Cayman-987-3-4S-...

I don't expect to be able to run one on peanuts and at those kinds of milages then I'll be needing to plan refreshing various bits but would I be a million miles off if I managed to run one on between 1/2k a year?

Is there anything else I should be wary of with these rebuilt ones or are they a fairly safe bet?

Would be great to scratch the Porsche itch but I'd rather not bankrupt myself in the process with a dog!

[CountZero23]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks, I've read a number of your previous posts on this issue and found them very informative.

Looks like you could get an engine rebuild and all six cylinders replaced with the Nikiski enhanced version for not far off that (http://www.hartech.org/rebuild-prices); though a call to Hartech to find out exactly what work was carried out would be a wise move.


So it looks like my options are:

Get a 1st gen Cayman 3.4 but wait until a decent Hartech rebuild comes up

Go for a 3.2 Boxter with a recently upgraded IMS as these are unaffected by bore scoring (according to haltechs post here https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=12...

Buy a decent looking Cayman and drop £675 to get Haltech to do a full inspection then go on their maintenance plan which would buy me a serious piece of mind.

[CountZero23]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Thanks for the tips, I haven't quite managed to scare myself off the prospect of a porker yet.

Two of my friends have had 996/997's with the affected engines and not had any issues.

Right, off to watch some 2.7 vs 3.4 Cayman vids too see if I can talk myself into one of those.

I was looking at a cheap Celica to tide me over up until recently, these things have a habit of snowballing....

[CountZero23]

TroubledSoul said:

I was scared off when I asked about this recently.

If you have a Hartech inspection at the £675 quoted, do you still pay the non Hartech car price on the maintenance plan? Or does that get you onto the lower price band?

The inspection is just the requirement to get on the more expensive plan. You'll only get the cheaper price when buying from them.

Last time I seriously looked I came away with the conclusion that in my case it would be safer to wait until I had the cash for a gen 2 without the issues and I think I may have ended up in the same place.

The 2.7 Cayman looks like a safe(r) bet, but while it's the better car it would still be slower than the Z4 I was originally considering. Hard to justify the extra 10k it commands.


My man maths is good but when you can buy 2 decent Z4's for the price of a proper engine rebuild even I'm struggling.

[CountZero23]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Well put, I don't disagree with any of that!

What I want is a grown-up MX5 which will be fun to take out on a Sunday b-road blast but won't fill me with abject horror when I'm setting off on a long motorway drive home on a hungover Sunday night.

I've bee obsessing over my choices for far too long and it's easy to keep nudging the budget up a few grand. The Cayman is right at the top of what I want to spend right now and if like futies mine started to drink oil, I'd have too many sleepless nights about bore scoring.

Lot's of great success stories muddies the water further, I came across a load more horror stories on www.boxa.net last night.

Deeply conflicted!

It's my 37th in February and will be getting myself something fun. I'll keep my eyes open for the right car. If something very sorted came up I'd be sorely tempted. Z4 is a great car but certainly, more of a GT compared to the Cayman/Boxter.

Edited by CountZero23 on Tuesday 28th November 22:49