The Bargain Boxster
Discussion
So I've had this thing for a while now but thought it was about time I started a thread on it. I had a long running thread on my 944 rescue that proved quite popular but eventually ran out of steam so here's the latest project. I do still have the 944 but it's not really progressing quickly enough to be interesting. Post here for those interested https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
So at the end of 2017 a guy from work had a 2.7 986 Boxster that was making some nasty noises from the engine bay and had just failed an MOT on a broken coil spring and no brake lights. Before the MOT failure the guy was trying to get rid of it for pretty cheap but nobody was biting due to the horrible noise. The guy was convinced it was worth sod all and then it failed an MOT, the specialist that it was with for MOT wanted a hefty chunk just to get it through the MOT and then several hours worth of labour to diagnose the grinding noise.
Now with the MOT failure the guy just wanted shot of the car as he didn't have any off road parking and needed it gone by the end of the week. It was when he mentioned scrapping it and the lack of interest that my ears pricked up. I'd driven the car a few months prior as he wanted my opinion on the noise and I told him it sounded like a pulley and after some reason up suggested that it was probably the water pump.
So to cut the already long story short I bought the car from him for a steal and dumped it on my driveway. Here's a pic of it just before I got it
It hadn't been washed for around a year so the dirt was properly embedded into the paint and the roof had turned green.
After picking it up that evening I had a look around to take stock of what I had.
First up it had the later multi function dash computer
Climate control and air con
General look at the dash
Vinyl seats with alcantara inserts but they are fully electric with memory with seems pretty rare for a Boxster, especially a base non S car
Other things it had were litronic (xenon) headlamps, 2 keys and a fairly decent history
So what with being a bit excited I took a few days off of work in order to try and get it sorted out before the free MOT retest expired (we are doing this on a budget after all!). I ordered the new parts that I needed from Euro Car Parts so that I could get them the next day and spent some time tidying the car up while I waited.
First up was to remove the green from the roof
Then it came to tidying up the paint work.
Pre-wash. Just some grotty blue paint with dust covered wheels
After a good wash the wheels looked fairly decent from a distance but the paint is pretty shot up close. During the wash I could feel that there was a whole load of crap embedded in the paint
Time to break out the clay bar, it looked like this after tackling the first panel
And after that I realised that the paint was actually metallic, and a really nice colour!
So I replaced the brake light switch and took it for an MOT re-test only to be told that it failed again due to the broken spring. I questioned this because I checked the side mentioned in the failure sheet and it was fine. Pointed this out at the test centre and they realised that they'd noted the wrong side. Back to the drawing board to get a new spring thrown on the thing, after that it went through the re-test fine (even sorted the advisory of cloudy headlights after the deep clean)
After it was road legal I used it for a little bit just to give it a bit of a shakedown and see what other problems it had. The noise from the engine bay got worse and worse and then it started overheating and losing coolant. Pulled the inspection panel behind the seats to see that the water pump pulley was wobbling around like crazy with coolant leaking through the bearing
So after a quick chat with Max at Frazerparts a new water pump was on the way, just needed to book a bay at the local rent a ramp place and get it sorted.
After removing the pump it turned out that a previous owner had fitted a cheap item with a metal impeller that had just given up, the part was date stamped 2014 so hadn't fared well at all. The new part provided by Max was OEM spec so should last for many years to come
That pretty much sums up the first few weeks of ownership. It's been my daily ever since sorting the water pump so there's plenty more to tell but I'll post more later.
So at the end of 2017 a guy from work had a 2.7 986 Boxster that was making some nasty noises from the engine bay and had just failed an MOT on a broken coil spring and no brake lights. Before the MOT failure the guy was trying to get rid of it for pretty cheap but nobody was biting due to the horrible noise. The guy was convinced it was worth sod all and then it failed an MOT, the specialist that it was with for MOT wanted a hefty chunk just to get it through the MOT and then several hours worth of labour to diagnose the grinding noise.
Now with the MOT failure the guy just wanted shot of the car as he didn't have any off road parking and needed it gone by the end of the week. It was when he mentioned scrapping it and the lack of interest that my ears pricked up. I'd driven the car a few months prior as he wanted my opinion on the noise and I told him it sounded like a pulley and after some reason up suggested that it was probably the water pump.
So to cut the already long story short I bought the car from him for a steal and dumped it on my driveway. Here's a pic of it just before I got it
It hadn't been washed for around a year so the dirt was properly embedded into the paint and the roof had turned green.
After picking it up that evening I had a look around to take stock of what I had.
First up it had the later multi function dash computer
Climate control and air con
General look at the dash
Vinyl seats with alcantara inserts but they are fully electric with memory with seems pretty rare for a Boxster, especially a base non S car
Other things it had were litronic (xenon) headlamps, 2 keys and a fairly decent history
So what with being a bit excited I took a few days off of work in order to try and get it sorted out before the free MOT retest expired (we are doing this on a budget after all!). I ordered the new parts that I needed from Euro Car Parts so that I could get them the next day and spent some time tidying the car up while I waited.
First up was to remove the green from the roof
Then it came to tidying up the paint work.
Pre-wash. Just some grotty blue paint with dust covered wheels
After a good wash the wheels looked fairly decent from a distance but the paint is pretty shot up close. During the wash I could feel that there was a whole load of crap embedded in the paint
Time to break out the clay bar, it looked like this after tackling the first panel
And after that I realised that the paint was actually metallic, and a really nice colour!
So I replaced the brake light switch and took it for an MOT re-test only to be told that it failed again due to the broken spring. I questioned this because I checked the side mentioned in the failure sheet and it was fine. Pointed this out at the test centre and they realised that they'd noted the wrong side. Back to the drawing board to get a new spring thrown on the thing, after that it went through the re-test fine (even sorted the advisory of cloudy headlights after the deep clean)
After it was road legal I used it for a little bit just to give it a bit of a shakedown and see what other problems it had. The noise from the engine bay got worse and worse and then it started overheating and losing coolant. Pulled the inspection panel behind the seats to see that the water pump pulley was wobbling around like crazy with coolant leaking through the bearing
So after a quick chat with Max at Frazerparts a new water pump was on the way, just needed to book a bay at the local rent a ramp place and get it sorted.
After removing the pump it turned out that a previous owner had fitted a cheap item with a metal impeller that had just given up, the part was date stamped 2014 so hadn't fared well at all. The new part provided by Max was OEM spec so should last for many years to come
That pretty much sums up the first few weeks of ownership. It's been my daily ever since sorting the water pump so there's plenty more to tell but I'll post more later.
Brilliant work! I bought one in June, 2001. It's great fun, put around 5k on it since!
Also you should enquire if you have a local TIPEC (Independent Porsche Enthusiasts Club). The level of knowledge these guys have is incredible. And the social side is great too! (Excuse the shonky photo)
Also you should enquire if you have a local TIPEC (Independent Porsche Enthusiasts Club). The level of knowledge these guys have is incredible. And the social side is great too! (Excuse the shonky photo)
Thanks all. Yeah the headlights are litronics and make a hell of a difference at night compared to the woeful lights on the 944.
So after using the car for a bit it started to do my head in only having a single CD player as I'd be constantly changing the disc all the time and had all the storage pockets stashed with various CDs. I decided it was time to swap the CD player out for my trusty Alpine which has served me well across multiple cars now
So that gave me bluetooth and USB to plug my old ipod in which just lives in the car and I could tidy up the interior by removing the mess of CDs cluttering up the place.
Another small detail that was bothering me was the cracked buttons on the key and the fact the Porsche crest was missing so I ordered a replacement top case and a new crest, much nicer
And now that the car actually worked it as time to enjoy it with a few drives out with a mate in his supercharged MX5
After a bit of reading up on common problems it was clear that it was due a de-leafing and I was going to have to pull the front bumper off to clear out all of the crap. this unearthed some hidden issues. Turned out that at some point the car has either driven into something or something has driven into it.
The reinforcement bar behind the bumper is bent with the bracket being crushed and the surrounds for the radiator intakes being completely cracked to pieces. As this whole thing is on a budget and to replace everything back there would cost hundreds of quid I figured it was time to get the cable ties and drill out. After stripping the whole thing down and giving the rads a good blast out with a pressure washer to remove any crud that was hidden away I was left with this.
I also figured it was time to do some more work on the 944 wheels to try and return them to their former glory and what better way to test the practicality of the Boxster than to transport a set of wheels?
I also took the opportunity to tidy up my wheel nuts which were just brown with rust and black with brake dust. They came out pretty good considering they seem to be original to the car
After a bit more use it became clear that the car was developing a pretty nasty misfire so it was time to tick off the next common problem of cracked coil packs. The new ones have been redesigned to be significantly studier and come with new bolts in order to get them mounted properly
After plenty more use and general enjoyment of the car it developed some serious suspension clunks. That'll be the next common problem, suspension arms and engine mounts!
The old engine mount wasn't too bad but had started to crack so it got replaced before it got any worse.
I ended up replacing all of the suspension arms apart from the coffin arms (they're fine for now and I'll take them later). It cured all of the clunking apart from one which happened when using the throttle and sounded like it was coming from the gearbox. It took quite a while to figure out what the hell that was, you'll find out later.
Before any more issues, the car enjoyed, a lot! It's been my daily driver since I got it in late 2017.
The gearknob gaiter was a bit of a mess and had split so I found a shop on ebay selling replacement leather than you just fit yourself so I figured that was worth a punt. I took the opportunity to repaint the plastic part as the silver paint had worn away in places and I was never a bit fan of the bright silver so went for an Audi dark grey instead
That went so well I ended up ordering one for the 944 and finally replaced that which had been torn since I owned the car.
Obviously things were going too well and it was time for a common problem to arise, or two. First one in the form of a really rough running engine, a lot of smoke and an engine warning message on the dash. AOS had given up and was throwing oil into the intake meaning cold starts ended up with a whole load of blue smoke!
New AOS in which was a pig of a job, also noticed that the spark plug seals were leaking pretty badly, added that to the to-do list and fixed later on.
The other issue that cropped up was the indicator stalk breaking internally. I'd read about it being a problem and was half expecting it so wasn't too surprised when it happened. It did make the drive from Oxford to Devon interesting with the AOS issue and indicators that needed quite a bit of force to make them work.
New stalks
And the bit that broke off
While I had the car in the garage and in pieces I decided to address the brake calipers. I'd put new pads in and new discs on the rear but the look of the calipers always bothered me. It looks as if somebody attempted to tidy up the wheels with silver paint at some point but didn't bother removing them from the car, so the calipers had uneven flashes of silver paint on them. After an attack with some thinners they were looking much better although the little bit of "Porsche" script left on them didn't realy survive
Before
After
So that was around another year of use without too many issues considering it was used daily. The next big thing to happen was the weird clunking noise from the gearbox decided to make its source known very clearly in the form of a failed gearshift and then a clutch that wouldn't disengage leaving me stranded in the middle of a very busy junction (luckily just down the road from where I live).
Clutch had well and truly s
t the bed. After some reading on how much of a pain the job was and considering I didn't have the tools for it (most of my stuff is in my parent's garage in Devon) I asked around to see who would be willing to take on the job short of a specialist who had already quoted over £1k to get the clutch, flywheel and IMS done.
...nobody wanted to touch it with a bargepole. Something to do with the badge, the engine layout and the ballache of the job.
Only one thing for it, accumulate some tools and get stuck in! I'll save that adventure for the next update as it was a saga that dragged on for a while.
soxboy said:
That's cleaned up really well, what did you use to clean the hood?
Nothing special, just AutoGlym soft top cleaner. It came in a kit with the sealant which was fine for a bit but didn't seem to last long at all, still better than nothing which is what it did have.So after using the car for a bit it started to do my head in only having a single CD player as I'd be constantly changing the disc all the time and had all the storage pockets stashed with various CDs. I decided it was time to swap the CD player out for my trusty Alpine which has served me well across multiple cars now
So that gave me bluetooth and USB to plug my old ipod in which just lives in the car and I could tidy up the interior by removing the mess of CDs cluttering up the place.
Another small detail that was bothering me was the cracked buttons on the key and the fact the Porsche crest was missing so I ordered a replacement top case and a new crest, much nicer
And now that the car actually worked it as time to enjoy it with a few drives out with a mate in his supercharged MX5
After a bit of reading up on common problems it was clear that it was due a de-leafing and I was going to have to pull the front bumper off to clear out all of the crap. this unearthed some hidden issues. Turned out that at some point the car has either driven into something or something has driven into it.
The reinforcement bar behind the bumper is bent with the bracket being crushed and the surrounds for the radiator intakes being completely cracked to pieces. As this whole thing is on a budget and to replace everything back there would cost hundreds of quid I figured it was time to get the cable ties and drill out. After stripping the whole thing down and giving the rads a good blast out with a pressure washer to remove any crud that was hidden away I was left with this.
I also figured it was time to do some more work on the 944 wheels to try and return them to their former glory and what better way to test the practicality of the Boxster than to transport a set of wheels?
I also took the opportunity to tidy up my wheel nuts which were just brown with rust and black with brake dust. They came out pretty good considering they seem to be original to the car
After a bit more use it became clear that the car was developing a pretty nasty misfire so it was time to tick off the next common problem of cracked coil packs. The new ones have been redesigned to be significantly studier and come with new bolts in order to get them mounted properly
After plenty more use and general enjoyment of the car it developed some serious suspension clunks. That'll be the next common problem, suspension arms and engine mounts!
The old engine mount wasn't too bad but had started to crack so it got replaced before it got any worse.
I ended up replacing all of the suspension arms apart from the coffin arms (they're fine for now and I'll take them later). It cured all of the clunking apart from one which happened when using the throttle and sounded like it was coming from the gearbox. It took quite a while to figure out what the hell that was, you'll find out later.
Before any more issues, the car enjoyed, a lot! It's been my daily driver since I got it in late 2017.
The gearknob gaiter was a bit of a mess and had split so I found a shop on ebay selling replacement leather than you just fit yourself so I figured that was worth a punt. I took the opportunity to repaint the plastic part as the silver paint had worn away in places and I was never a bit fan of the bright silver so went for an Audi dark grey instead
That went so well I ended up ordering one for the 944 and finally replaced that which had been torn since I owned the car.
Obviously things were going too well and it was time for a common problem to arise, or two. First one in the form of a really rough running engine, a lot of smoke and an engine warning message on the dash. AOS had given up and was throwing oil into the intake meaning cold starts ended up with a whole load of blue smoke!
New AOS in which was a pig of a job, also noticed that the spark plug seals were leaking pretty badly, added that to the to-do list and fixed later on.
The other issue that cropped up was the indicator stalk breaking internally. I'd read about it being a problem and was half expecting it so wasn't too surprised when it happened. It did make the drive from Oxford to Devon interesting with the AOS issue and indicators that needed quite a bit of force to make them work.
New stalks
And the bit that broke off
While I had the car in the garage and in pieces I decided to address the brake calipers. I'd put new pads in and new discs on the rear but the look of the calipers always bothered me. It looks as if somebody attempted to tidy up the wheels with silver paint at some point but didn't bother removing them from the car, so the calipers had uneven flashes of silver paint on them. After an attack with some thinners they were looking much better although the little bit of "Porsche" script left on them didn't realy survive
Before
After
So that was around another year of use without too many issues considering it was used daily. The next big thing to happen was the weird clunking noise from the gearbox decided to make its source known very clearly in the form of a failed gearshift and then a clutch that wouldn't disengage leaving me stranded in the middle of a very busy junction (luckily just down the road from where I live).
Clutch had well and truly s
t the bed. After some reading on how much of a pain the job was and considering I didn't have the tools for it (most of my stuff is in my parent's garage in Devon) I asked around to see who would be willing to take on the job short of a specialist who had already quoted over £1k to get the clutch, flywheel and IMS done....nobody wanted to touch it with a bargepole. Something to do with the badge, the engine layout and the ballache of the job.
Only one thing for it, accumulate some tools and get stuck in! I'll save that adventure for the next update as it was a saga that dragged on for a while.
Excellent thread so far. Having purchased a Boxster In April 2016, I've had some of the issue you had, a dead water pump 1 month into ownership was a highlight for me! Mine exploded spectacularly when it happened! Steam coming out of the driver side vent, rough noise from the engine bay. To be honest, it was quite scary when it first happened, but upon removing the back panel, you could see all the coolant around the engine bay.
As of last October (2018), I had the engine out of my car and it had quite a bit of work done, but the good news is its pretty well sorted hopefully for years to come! The only job on my to do list is the engine mount, how bad of a job is that to DIY?
Looking forward to your next update.
As of last October (2018), I had the engine out of my car and it had quite a bit of work done, but the good news is its pretty well sorted hopefully for years to come! The only job on my to do list is the engine mount, how bad of a job is that to DIY?
Looking forward to your next update.
227bhp said:
Sorry, but we need to know how much you paid for it 
Take a guess, I can't make this too easy for you.Bashiar0 said:
As of last October (2018), I had the engine out of my car and it had quite a bit of work done, but the good news is its pretty well sorted hopefully for years to come! The only job on my to do list is the engine mount, how bad of a job is that to DIY?
It's not too bad at all really, just depends on how much access you can get to it. Just a case of removing the undertray, jacking up the engine slightly to support it and then removing the bolts at the bottom of the mount, the most awkward part is the top bolts as they're not hugely accessible. I was expecting to have to go in through the top but I managed to find a combination of tools that worked but it's tight in there.Good thread.
What does your colleague at work think of your progress with the car?
I sold a subaru impreza to another member of scoobynet and i always felt a slight pang of jealousy when he posted updates on what he'd been doing. It felt a bit like watching an ex girlfriend join a gym, lose weight and get a promotion.
What does your colleague at work think of your progress with the car?
I sold a subaru impreza to another member of scoobynet and i always felt a slight pang of jealousy when he posted updates on what he'd been doing. It felt a bit like watching an ex girlfriend join a gym, lose weight and get a promotion.
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