I brought this home Saturday:
2001 Boxster S 6-speed in Rain Forest Green. 107k miles, pretty decent shape but with a few needs. First of which is the rear wheel bearings, which howled like banshees all 250+ miles home from Cincinnati. Already ordered new ones from RockAuto, they should be here Wednesday.
The paint could use some love. Most of the car is pretty good, but the hood has a number of spots where someone tried to touch up what I assume were rock chips, then buff or sand the spots, so the whole thing looks kind of blotchy.
Other than that, it's mostly deferred maintanence type stuff. Needs an oil change, and the seller told me the CEL comes on every so often and the code reads O2 sensor. He's just been clearing it, but I think I'll replace it/them. Also, when I got home, I noticed a gouge in the sidewall of the LR tire, which is a shame because there's plenty of tread.
IMS has not been addressed. Not sure what I'll do about that. It's an 01, so it could be a single or dual-row. With 107k, it's clearly been driven enough that it's *probably* OK, but still, it will lurk in my mind. So, TBD on that.
More pics to come.
Gotta be the first to come and congratulate Tom on this purchase. Also to note our wives are mildly suspicious of us as over the years we've owned racing Fiestas, Mustangs, SVT Contours and now Boxsters at the same time, plus both are prior NA Miata owners. Our wives are wondering when our coming out party will be hosted, post Covid of course.
P.S. Jealous on the S and the color, the green is way cooler than the silve that 90% of Boxster seem to be.
Well done! That's a beautiful 986 S!
CAinCA
Reader
8/10/20 1:42 p.m.
Congratulations! That's a great looking Boxster.
I've looked at Caymans on and off and one of my biggest turn offs is that 99% of them are silver, white or black. Once in a while I see one in their beautiful metallic blue.
dps214
HalfDork
8/10/20 1:53 p.m.
CAinCA said:
Congratulations! That's a great looking Boxster.
I've looked at Caymans on and off and one of my biggest turn offs is that 99% of them are silver, white or black. Once in a while I see one in their beautiful metallic blue.
987.1s usually aren't too hard to find in decent colors, but yeah, basically all the .2s are black, white, silver, or gray. That's one of the things that pushed me over the edge to getting a 981.
That's maybe the best color I've seen on a 986. I think the clear headlights help as well but I actually like it a lot.
The rear wheel bearings are kind of a pain. Are you planning to try to do them on the car, or by pulling the knuckles?
Honestly, with that many miles onit, I'd probably send the oil off for an evaluation and if it looks decent, just send it on the stock IMS bearing. At least for a while.
I really wanted dark blue, but the green was a close second, and I'm very happy to have "not silver".
Hoping to get it into the barn tonight. Been chasing a wiring problem on the car hauler, but I'm >this< close to having it done. Once I can get that out of the way, the Boxster goes in and then I can do a more thorough evaluation of what it needs.
Love that color. Excited to see what this brings.
Here's a better view of the hood:
Another angle:
Pretty rough, but fortunately, the rest of the car is decent. I don't THINK any of the damage is through the clear, so I should be able to make it look decent.
Eventually I'm going to want to put a stereo with Bluetooth in it. This is the current (stock) configuration:
So, useless cupholders, CDR-220, and even more useless CD holders. I'll probably end up replacing the cupholders and stereo with a double-DIN Android Auto unit, but I still won't have anywhere to put my phone. Ideally I'd like to replace the CD holders with a storage bin, but a quick Google shows that those are harder to come by than I would have thought. TBD.
Well, now I got a bigger issue than paint or cupholders. I noticed some oil spots on the ground, and the seller told me it was due for a change, so I changed it last night. This is the filter:
Bits of metal I pulled out of it:
Well, poop.
So, I need to address the IMS rightberkeleyingnow, don't I?
In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :
i would. find "the frugal mechanic..." thread on here, if you don't already have it bookmarked.
EDIT: I couldn't wait. the frugal mechanic...
OK, I just spent some time looking around at threads on the Porsche-specific forums, and lots of people are saying that by the time you have visible debris in your oil, the engine is already on it's way out. In other words, did I just buy another berkeleying German money pit? 
After seeing your thread, I got excited looked at my local Craigslist. Lots of options for sale in many colours- none IMS done
now seeing your above post - reminder for me to stay away from "cheap german" machinery
yikes! Good luck
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:
OK, I just spent some time looking around at threads on the Porsche-specific forums, and lots of people are saying that by the time you have visible debris in your oil, the engine is already on it's way out. In other words, did I just buy another berkeleying German money pit?
take a deep breath. consider that lots of people on those same forums will argue to the death over which chamois is better for drying your paint after a hand wash with cloth diapers and imported steam distilled water.
i've never owned one, but here's what i'd do: change the IMS. change the oil cooler and lines. change the oil and filter. change the filter again after 30 minutes of run time. if there's a pan you can drop, drop the pan and clean it out. then drive it into the earth.
i'd also ask AAZCD for his advice.
Yes, I'm hoping AAZCD sees this thread and pops in.
You may be right. I'm also seeing people saying that if there's debris in your oil, just use a magnetic drain plug and shorten your oil change intervals. At minimum I'll be replacing the IMS, so I'll be doing more than that!
In any case, I'm going to drop the pan and see how that looks. I also saved some of the oil in a Blackstone bottle and will send it in for analysis.
The metal is ferrous, by the way, I checked it with a magnet.
Nice color (but silver with the red leather never gets old for me)... I was going to say make sure that it is ferrous metal and not plastic or bits of sealant, but just saw you say ferrous confirmed. That does not look like a lot of metal, but any pieces that size can be a concern. Don't panic.
Yes to:
It may or may not be related to the IMS bearing. It could be 'normal wear'. Talk to a good Porsche Specialist shop about the IMS replacement. They should discuss 'Qualifying' your engine for an LN bearing replacement. If you have already found ferrous metal that is from the IMS bearing, it may be a better choice to do a further rebuild or engine replacement.
Take a deep breath.
IMS is a real issue, but not as big an issue as I think it's made out.
I read ALL the old threads on IMS bearings on 986 forums, Rennlist and Pelican, and there were hundreds of pages over many years, a few years ago before buying mine. I noticed that the biggest doom and gloom merchants were Jack Raby, Flat six innovations, and LN Engineering who jointly developed and sell their IMS bearing upgrade. Strange huh? From reading everything I could, I honestly believe the IMS failure rate is in the low single digit % range. Also when they launched their IMS bearing fix was touted as a 'for life' fix to help swallow the $850 price tag. Now they are saying it should be changed every 75K or six years, which you may as well do with the stock part for 1/4 the price.
I'd go with a thorough flush, oil filter change like Angry said, but if you're at all concerned then I'd replace it with a stock Porsche part which is less than $200. The Porsche part has been updated several times and is a better part than original. I didn't change mine when the engine was out as I have less than 50k miles on a new from Porsche engine in 07. By that time the bearing had been revised several times and the 2.5L engines seem the least affected of the M96's. The oil cooler is attached to the side of the trans, so reaching it is a bitch, but if you do change the IMS bearing then you might as well change it, aftermarket ones are cheap. I didn't change mine as I have no evidence of issues. Do the clutch and AOS while in there. I don't know how people do the AOS with the trans still in THB. I think AAZCD must have multi jointed arms of about 1" diameter to reach in and get it!!
Look on the bright side, part of the reason these cars are so cheap is due to paranoia over the IMS!
One more thing, if you do pull the trans to do it, it's actually not bad. The reason I've had such a E36 M3ty time is being an auto I needed to unbolt the flex plate from the torque convertor which way more than doubles the work as you have to remove just about everything from the top side of the engine to remove the starter to access it and I broke a load of 20 year old baked plastic in the mean time.
It's your own fault for copying my car choices again!!!!
Good luck
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:
mr2s2000elise said:
http://986forum.com/forums/boxster-general-discussions/59779-ugh-ferrous-metal-found.html
have you seen this, Tom?
I hadn't, but it is encouraging!
A little follow-up on that thread... Viper1000 bought a used sump plate from me, replaced the IMS bearing with the kit from Pelican Parts (LN sourced single row to the original Porsche spec, but with an improved center bolt) and put an 'IMS Guardian' on the car. He sold the car a couple months later. The buyer was on the 986 Forum a couple times later and never came back to report any engine issues.
In reply to AAZCD (Forum Supporter) :
Damn dude, we'd all be lost on here with Boxsters if it wasn't' for you. Please change your screen name to 'Guru neun acht sechs' or something!
Regarding the stereo, if you don't hate the CDR-220 there are some options to add BT. When white_fly picked up his 'new' 986 we installed This:
Easy to install and works great.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:
I read ALL the old threads on IMS bearings on 986 forums, Rennlist and Pelican, and there were hundreds of pages over many years, a few years ago before buying mine. I noticed that the biggest doom and gloom merchants were Jack Raby, Flat six innovations, and LN Engineering who jointly developed and sell their IMS bearing upgrade. Strange huh? From reading everything I could, I honestly believe the IMS failure rate is in the low single digit % range. Also when they launched their IMS bearing fix was touted as a 'for life' fix to help swallow the $850 price tag. Now they are saying it should be changed every 75K or six years, which you may as well do with the stock part for 1/4 the price.
LN Engineering sells two different things. One is the replacement bearing for $850, the other is the "IMS Solution" with an oil feed for $1850. They claim the latter is a "life of the vehicle" solution, while the former is 4 or 6 years, depending on if it's single or double row. Info here: https://lnengineering.com/products/ims-bearing-kits-for-porsche-m96-97-engines.html
They also say this: "Retrofitting the IMSB of ANY engine that has wear metals, or other debris in the oil, will lead to collateral damages that can destroy the retrofitted IMS Bearing, as well as all other internally lubricated engine components." I wonder if some of this is CYA in case one of their bearings fails? Don't ALL engines have wear metals to some extent?
I love the color.
I had two options when I was shopping: Black and silver. The black car had a 2.7 and red seat belts... but I love colors. This is cool
IMS is way over blown based on what I've seen and some blissful ignorance. I did just do the second oil change and it's good apart from some sealant. No idea what that is from but it be like that sometimes. 85k on the original bearing, I might do it when it needs a clutch. I second the guys saying take a step back. If you're really worried about it find someone with a copy of the Porsche software and check the cam timing... or something like that. It's a good indicator of IMS health if what I've heard is to be believed.
Also coming from a normal car these things make all sorts of weird noises. I still cant get used to it. My anxiety has worsened. But they sure are fun!
I had the exact same center console/dash set up. I put in a Sony unit with CarPlay and the mount kit came with a center cubby. Easy. Love it.
The guy I bought the car from is actually sending me a cubby from one of his parts cars. But needless to say, the whole stereo/center console issue is on the back burner for now!
