Tell me about: Porsche Boxster 3.2S

rG-tom

rG-tom

rG-tom

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Hey guys,

What can you tell me about the Porsche Boxster 3.2 S, around the 99-2001 Mark?

I know people will come along and say it's not a REAL porsche, but does that make it a bad car? It has a 3.2l flat 6 shared with the 911, and does 60 in just over 5 seconds whilst keeping a decent interior, and is a mid engined rear wheel drive 260bhp roadster at the end of the day.

What are they like? Servicing costs? Major faults? Anything to look out for?

Just throwing this into the mix against an elise as a more practical but still fun offering, and also considerably cheaper than the 111R which is the only one I'm considering

Cars like this one:

media


Advert said:
2 Doors, Manual, Roadster, Petrol, 83,600 miles, Metallic lapis blue with black leather interior, 5 Owners. ABS, Adjustable steering column/wheel, Air conditioning, Alloy wheels, Driver airbag, Electric mirrors, Electric windows, Electrically adjustable seats, Head restraints, Lumbar support, Immobiliser, Passenger airbag, Power assisted steering, Remote locking, Radio/Cassette, Rear headrests, Adjustable seats, Anti theft system, CD Multichanger, Central locking, Colour coding - Body, Cruise control, Foglights, Leather seats, Leather upholstery, Locking wheel nuts, Metallic paintwork, Spoiler, Sports seats
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£13,995....this is just an example there are absolutely loads around this price and going as low as about 11k.


Cheers,

Tom.
 
Running costs i think would be pretty high, and insurance, aside from that i like them.

And why are you only considering the 111R, ALL elises are absolutely superb, regardless of whether or not they have 120bhp or 190bhp
 
olv said:
Running costs?

And why are you only considering the 111R, ALL elises are absolutely superb, regardless of whether or not they have 120bhp or 190bhp
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I want the toyota engine and the 111S has awful brakes for road use? Also the S1 is a total PITA to take the roof off, has a commonly leaky roof and is no where near as smooth
 
Alex UK said:
I'd go for the Boxster. It's a proper sports car, has a top class interior and looks great. ;)
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Top class interior? You must be joking, I thought it was godawful when I took one out for a d(r)ive.

Also sounds like a bag of spanners on idle.

I can think of many better ways to spend the cash.
 
I'd register yourself on www.boxa.net to get information. I had this on my shortlist of cars but costs tended to put me off big time. If your going for an older one then you probably won't be bothering with a Porsche warranty so that saves a nice 900 quid a year.

I think the general opinion is get a good indy for servicing and hope nothing like RMS fails otherwise a nice tidy bill is on your way. You can find out porsche servicing costs from your local dealer if they have a web site (its fixed price anyway from what I saw).

If you after a 111R surely your looking at 17k+ (private) so would get a fair bit newer porsche. I'm cautious so if it was my money I'd go for S2000, Z4 or 350z.
 
Might be Z4 money as well 2.5/3.0L

I would love an S2000, but why is the insurance so daft on them. I can get insurance on a 3.2s Boxster or a Z4/Z4M hundreds of pounds cheaper.
 
Ive been looking at this range of cars recently, Around the £12-14k mark.

Ive always liked the Boxsters but the risk of something going wrong + the repair bill just scares me :p

My list currently consists of S2000, 350Z coupe, Z4 2.5i.

Leaning towards the reliability of the Japanese tbh.
 
There is a heck of a lot of anti Boxster predjudice around but you would be best placed to ignore most of it.

The Boxster IS without a doubt, image problems aside, one of the finest Sports Cars on the market. It has everything a true sports car requires, IS well built, DOES have a well built interior even if it is not to the asthetic tastes of everyone and it IS a proper Porsche with proper performance.

Some people think a proper sports car has to have a metal floor and be made of plastic, others think Boxsters are only for hair dressers despite running costs putting them out of hairdressers league. It's a proper sports car.

It does not, however, share the engine from the 911.

They are also VERY expensive to run and you won't insure one.

You will also crash and die horribly if you drive it as hard as you do that Mondeo :p

The Z4 is a tamer approach to the sports car genre, is easier to live with, easier to run and very good in 3 litre form but it's no Porsche Boxster. Less hassle, though.
 
[TW]Fox;10127591 said:
It does not, however, share the engine from the 911.
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It shares the engine model number :s m96, but i think they call almost all their engines that.

So they're considerably more expensive to run than a BM then, despite being the "poor mans" porsche?
 
[TW]Fox;10127591 said:
There is a heck of a lot of anti Boxster predjudice around but you would be best placed to ignore most of it.

The Boxster IS without a doubt, image problems aside, one of the finest Sports Cars on the market. It has everything a true sports car requires, IS well built, DOES have a well built interior even if it is not to the asthetic tastes of everyone and it IS a proper Porsche with proper performance.

Some people think a proper sports car has to have a metal floor and be made of plastic, others think Boxsters are only for hair dressers despite running costs putting them out of hairdressers league. It's a proper sports car.

It does not, however, share the engine from the 911.

They are also VERY expensive to run and you won't insure one.

You will also crash and die horribly if you drive it as hard as you do that Mondeo :p

The Z4 is a tamer approach to the sports car genre, is easier to live with, easier to run and very good in 3 litre form but it's no Porsche Boxster. Less hassle, though.
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HI there

I agree with all your points, but why do you think a Boxster is very expensive to run?

Porsche Wilmslow have excellent service pricing for Porsches. A 911 Turbo is cheaper to service than an M3 from Porsche in Wilmslow.

So I am sure a Boxster cost less to service than a 911 Turbo and I am also sure the services are quite far apart.
Reliability wise well it should be fantastic, if something does go wrong then it could be expensive but thats when a warranty of a 3rd party company can come into effect.

Yes it will cost more to run than his Mondeo, but Porsches are not as expensive to run as so many people believe, my M3 cost more to run than a 911 Turbo (996).
 
Yes, it's not a poor mans Porsche at all. This is a stupid name, especially given they were hardly cheap new and not the sort of car you could afford to run were you a 'poor man'

Always amusing that people calling them 'poor mans Porsches' are hardly ever 911 owners..
 
From what I can gather they're actually damn good cars but unfortunately suffer an image problem.

I considered the Boxster myself when I bought my Elise but after driving the Elise I was convinced that a Lotus was for me. I definitely don't regret my decision, I just love the Elise. Realistically though you won't get a 111R as high milages ones start at £17k and most normal ones start at £19-20k. You will however get a decent ordinary S2 for £12k upwards and for normal road use they've got enough power to have plenty of fun.

As usual, go test drive both and see which you prefer, both are good cars but just in different ways.
 
if you can do that to a mondeo then god knows how much it'll cost you to run a sports car :o
 
eidolon said:
From what I can gather they're actually damn good cars but unfortunately suffer an image problem.

I considered the Boxster myself when I bought my Elise but after driving the Elise I was convinced that a Lotus was for me. I definitely don't regret my decision, I just love the Elise. Realistically though you won't get a 111R as high milages ones start at £17k and most normal ones start at £19-20k. You will however get a decent ordinary S2 for £12k upwards and for normal road use they've got enough power to have plenty of fun.

As usual, go test drive both and see which you prefer, both are good cars but just in different ways.
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the 111Rs ive been looking at have been ~21k
 
Gibbo,

Routine maintaince wise, servicing is reasonable for the type of car it is - a high end, premium sports car. Compared to his Mondeo, the costs will be huge. You have to remember your idea of reasonable costs is different to the norm becuase you've had some pretty special machinery.

It's not eye watering, but it isn't much cheaper than a 911 (They are quite similar cars) and yes, although they are reliable if something does break, and there are a few common faults (Rear oil sseal?) its going to cost proper money to fix.

More money than the average under 21 has kicking around, anyway.

Plus most of the ones at the bottom end of the market will be higher mileage or pretty old and thus outside the scope of most good warranties.
 
they are very cheap to run in porsche terms, pretty dull to drive and you must remember that whilst your steering wheel says porsche on it your engine and chasis dont really agree ;)

nice enough if you are a bird
 
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