Midlife Crisis Unlocked

My wife and I have been looking for a family fun car for a while. Something that we can take for day/overnight trips and bring the our daughter with us.  Ever since I met my wife, she wanted a white with blue 987.2 Boxster 6MT. Well, that wouldn't work for a family car.  So, after some causal searching over the last couple of years, the right car popped up at the right time in early May. PPI arranged and passed with flying colors.  Time to book a flight to St. Louis.

I got lucky.  I booked an isle seat. It was supposed to be a full flight. My row mate was a no-show.  Woohoo!  

The dealer's garage and show room had some impressive machineary. (They had 3 warehouses).

So, what'd we get?  2009 911 Carrera S - Carrara White with Sea Blue Interior 6MT. <50k miles on it.  As Received:

Flight out was at 8:40 a.m.  I arrived home at 8:30 p.m.  It was a great day and great drive home - except for all the rain.  At at least the tires on the car are in great shape.

Congrats on reaching midlife :) Nice crisis. 

Since I got it home, I've been de-modding it.  I removed the horrible alcantara steering wheel cover shown above. Luckily the leather under was in perfect condition once I removed all of the double sided tape.

I also took off the graphics.  They were not good quality, peeling up in places, and were stained.  They had to go.

I also replaced the tail lights. Common 997.2 problem is crazing and cracking. This car had both. So new shiny ULO OE replacements (anything of similar quality on fleabay or any of the Porsche forums was used already and no warranty. These have a lifetime replacement warranty for only a few bucks more.)

It also had an obnoxiously loud FVD exhaust on it that bypassed the main mufflers.  I found a used stock exhaust locally and snatched it up. The drone at highway speeds meant we couldn't talk to each other while riding in the car.  It will be for sale soon.

FVD:

Stock:

Good news is I should be able to sell the FVD and the tips from it and more than pay for the stock exhaust.  Bad news is now the car is a bit too quite, but that's better than previously and can be remedied later.

Since then, I've just been baselining the maintenance. It has been very easy to work on, just typical German. Lots of little jobs to get to the main task.  Oil and filter changes, cabin filter, air filters, new battery, etc.  It does need new bump stops as the stock front ones are missing and rear are disintegrating.  That's the biggest issue that the car has. Bump stops are in hand, but I need front strut mounts and rear shock mounts next (while I'm in there stuff).  It is lowered on H&R springs and has wheel spacers, but I don't mind those, they'll stay for now.

It is a joy to drive. I LOVE the steering. It's actually pretty comfortable on the lowered suspension, but has some wonkiness over undulations in turns which for now I'm crediting to the bad bump stops. My wife and daughter love the car. We'll just go driving for no real reason now. My wife is WFH but does go in once a week to the office and drives it in. I take it to work once or twice a week as well.

Hopefully we can rack on the miles (pretty slowly since it's not the primary driver) and have plenty of smiles per gallon!  

997 911 Turbo is on the short list for me, lovely car.

She has a friend at my office.

Woah - congrats! I would love to see more of the interior, I've never seen that color before

Awesome pick up. I'm about to pick up a 911 myself....can't wait.

I saw the first picture and thought, "that graphic has to go."  I'm glad you felt the same.  

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​​Fits the booster seat just fine.

The blue is much darker in person.  It's not an 80s or 90s blue.  

White with blue interior or Silver with blue interior is such a great '80's vibe color combo.  My 1983 Rabbit was silver with blue interior!  

The gray graphics were my least favorite thing about the car.  However, given the white blue, some slight and tastful Martini color stripes would be nice.  Or, side graphics akin to what was there but in a navy blue.  

I forgot to mention.  During the exhaust swap, I needed some misc. mounting nuts.  This Porsche officially has Miata parts on it.  The purists will cringe. 

Oooh, another 997 Carrera S on the forum! Congrats!

Congrats.

I had the same itch but it was scratched by an old air cooled 911.   Great looking car you have there. I actually don't think I have ever seen one of those in white before.  It looks really sharp!!!   

I was worried I'd just have to bite my tongue about the hood graphic. I think it looks much, much better without that one in particular.

Nice job on the midlifing!

Nice and congrats. Looking good. 

Sweet car! For the exhaust, Google Gundo hack. People seem to like it as a happy medium for sound. 

love the color combo.  beautiful car.  I love my 997 (.1 S not .2) 

Beautiful car. Thank goodness you removed the hood graphic. I didn't mind the door graphics, but that hood graphic was gross. It looks soooo much cleaner without the graphics.
 

It amazes me how wide the 911 has grown over the years. 

Cars and Coffee this morning.  My daughter loves the frunk.

Fantastic purchase! Good work on cleaning it up too. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed my base 986 boxster and a 997 is on short list for future mid life purchase. Where did you find this one listed? I watch BAT but most of the 997 go for crazy money. I know they are likely only to appreciate if cared for, but I don't know that I can swallow the BAT prices. 

In reply to crxmike :

Autotrader.  I had alerts on and this one popped up at a dealer in St. Louis.  Right color combo and fair price.

That really is a lovely car. I did a variant on that. Bought a 2011 C63 AMG (The last of the NA V8s). My son gets to use it as his daily as long as he keeps his grades up, and his graduation present will be the pink slip. In the mean time, I get to use it just often enough that it feels a huge treat when I do. 

I was very happy with the gundo hack on my exhaust.

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

That really is a lovely car. I did a variant on that. Bought a 2011 C63 AMG (The last of the NA V8s). My son gets to use it as his daily as long as he keeps his grades up, and his graduation present will be the pink slip. In the mean time, I get to use it just often enough that it feels a huge treat when I do. 

Nice! That was our favorite F1 medical car :) Too bad we never got the wagon here.