3yrs of a Cayman S comes to an end

[RudeDog]

This week saw the end of an era for me... My 2006 Cayman S that I have owned since September 2010 finally went to a new home.

My ownership experience has been very mixed. It was my first Porsche and when I bought it I was over the moon with joy. Unfortunately this only lasted about three months when I met with my first taste of the legendary Porsche reliability... or not as the case may be! The gear linkage cable snapped and I was left stuck in 3rd gear. Back to the place I bought it from it went and was fixed under warranty. Not too bad, just a minor inconvenience.

You can see the full breakdown of costs I then incurred over the next few years on my summary page here:

http://www.pistonheads.com/members/showcar.asp?car...

Was I just unlucky or is this what others have experienced?

Overall, I really enjoyed owning the car and I absolutely loved driving it. What James May might call the "fizz" feeling never went away when I was sat behind the wheels. What gripes me about the Cayman is that although nothing major went wrong, lots of small things did and when they did, it cost a fortune to correct. Some might say that I should have bought a warranty and this would be a fair point but at ~£1500 per year, I still would have paid out £4,500 for a car worth less than £20k for most of my ownership.

Anyway, on the day it went, none of this was in my mind, I was just sad to see one of the world's best drivers cars leave my driveway.

[pete.g]

I think you've been unlucky. My total for 7 years of Cayman S ownership is about a third of yours for 3 years!

The only things I've had to pay for above the scheduled services/tyres/brakes have been a coolant temperature sensor and a pair of track rod ends.

[AndyWoodall]

I absolutely love the look of the Cayman in Atlas grey, theres one for sale at a non Porsche place in Uxbridge currently, looks brilliant.

Did you trade/private sale?

[RudeDog]

AndyWoodall said:

I absolutely love the look of the Cayman in Atlas grey, theres one for sale at a non Porsche place in Uxbridge currently, looks brilliant.

Did you trade/private sale?

Mine is actually Midnight Blue but its hard to capture the colour well in a photograph.



I sold it privately in the end after only being offered £11,700 from WBAC or a trade in.

[RiccardoG]

Thats a really good looking Cayman!

But, did you maintain it out of warranty but went to OPC for all work done to it? Thats not the best approach I'd say, out of waranty you would have been better off going to an indy.

So, what car next, why did you sell?

[RudeDog]

RiccardoG said:

Thats a really good looking Cayman!

But, did you maintain it out of warranty but went to OPC for all work done to it? Thats not the best approach I'd say, out of waranty you would have been better off going to an indy.

So, what car next, why did you sell?

Thanks. When I bought it, I wish I'd bought one with the SportDesign wheels but as the car has aged, I actually think the classic 5-spoke Carrera Classic alloys make the car look a bit less dated. There also aren't that many around with those wheels, so it makes it that little bit more special. I also really liked the silver touch to the edges of the front lip. Midnight Blue isn't a popular colour but when its clean and the sun is out, its got so many different tones, its really quite spectacular.

I kept the service history with the OPC network but I had most of the maintenance work done with indy's.

I'm not sure what to get next. This weekend I have driven an M6, an XFR and a C63 AMG. I moved in with my fiance a couple of months ago and we both had two seaters. We've begun to find it really impractical so we decided to sell one and get a four seater that also has a boot that you can use. We kept hers because it is a convertible and its been sunny recently.

[ChipsAndCheese]

Your experiences with owning and using your Cayman as a daily driver are pretty much inline with mine. Those who use their less, or as weekend toys will see much lower maintenance costs, but I have used mine nearly every day for the last 3 years and things wear and need replacing; sadly often after less miles than one would expect. Whether this is a reflection on the quality of components used by Porsche these days, designing in shorter life spans to make more money on maintenance, or just bad luck I don't know.

I opted to get a warranty put on mine after owning it for about a year. Unfortunately this didn't help for a lot of the work that has been done, as it has been classed as wear and tear, but this week the warranty has paid for itself twice over, which I will write more about in my maintenance blog when I get time (and when I get my car back from the Porsche centre later this week).

Edited by ChipsAndCheese on Monday 5th August 12:05