The tip was ok, I understand rowing your own gears but for an occasional cruiser the hate for auto trans is a little odd. I drive a manual trans minivan but have an auto vette, have had AMG cars (all autos), etc..and they are still engaging. Oh well, discount a car for the trans.
automatic + sportscar does not compute
Look at what you can sell it for at the end, by the time you fix stuff will it still be worth the effort?
I'm not in it to make money, wouldn't be buying clapped out corvettes, a boxster or whatever. My wife doesn't drive stick and it isn't much fun parked in traffic with a clutch for me.
The tip was ok, I understand rowing your own gears but for an occasional cruiser the hate for auto trans is a little odd.
Major drawback of an auto in a handling car would be if there is less engine braking or more 'mush' on throttle application. Manuals are great for shocking the drive tires into initiating a desired skid on power on or off just because of how direct the connection to the engine is. Probably not a big deal for most people (possibly myself included) but i'd consider it valid if someone else claimed it as a reason.
I'm not even interested in a manual Boxster.
But I'm a weirdo who hates convertibles, so yeah, there's that.
For a flip, no. As other people already mentioned, you can pick them up at a discount mainly because nobody wants them, so unless you have a good reason for getting one with an automatic[1], I'd pass.
Converting to a manual also involves ECU changes or at least ECU work as the engine ECU on the slushbox ones wants to talk to the gearbox ECU and you run into a problem if there isn't one.
[1] I bought an automatic 996 so my wife could also drive it as she refuses to drive anything with a manual transmission.
Well I'm going to see it this afternoon. I'm now thinking of this as a keep it for a year or two then trade against a bigger, better faster Porsche or passing it to the youngest as her first car. I know Porsche replaced the engine in 05, I don't know what level of engine it that would be. Would it be:
A) An early duel row IMS Bearing 2.5
B) Would it be a 2.5L but with the later single row bearing.
C) Would they have just used the then current engine which would be a 2.7 with a single row bearing
I would expect that they put in a 2.5L, but re the IMS bearing it's a case of "whatever they had at hand" or what went with the engine they put in.
Check for service history and make sure they didn't stretch out the oil change intervals to the factory interval, that's generally considered to be too long (and we suspect the reason that my 996 engine needed that much work).
And so it's mine. Talked and texted Tom Spangler and Jeff (Geargeadotako) with Q's while checking it out. I think it's very well bought, but not 'stolen' on the price. Look out for a 'Running a dirt cheap Boxster automatic. What could possibly go wrong!' Thread with pics tomorrow complete with first breakdown and rescue by an 03 Land Rover Disco! I E36 M3 you not.
Cool!
If you don't have it yet, get a copy of Wayne Dempsey's Boxster book. He's the founder of Pelican. It's a very helpful book.
In reply to Woody:
Ordered it on Amazon as soon as I got home
Mine was an 01 S, it's a good weekend and DD. Comfortable and gets good fuel economy. Enjoy!
I would not, because I am well-versed in Boxster top mechanisms and all of the delightfully expensive ways in which they fail.
Automatic doesn't faze me, the convertible top does. Beauty in motion when it works, but when it stops working, OY!
Robbie wrote:Adrian_Thompson wrote: Well, would you if it cheap enough to keep for a few months, fix some minor things (tires electric seats etc) and flip or trade?Absolutely. If I could drive a boxter for the summer essentially for free, I would. The auto would probably make it slightly less fun, but it still sounds like a heck of a lot of fun for no monies. Plus, the auto probably has a bigger buyer market making the resale go faster.
Not with Porsches. The autos(non pdk) are a much harder sell when the time comes.
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