Glyn

Glad you got it sorted

I assume you have tried the button on the dash to unlock the door? Not sure how you could remove the door card with the door shut without destoying it as the sides but up to the rubber seal on the door apperture. However once it is off you will be able to get to the lock and manually relese the door catch irrespective of whether the electronics have locked the lock, perhaps its time to speak to a good indie or someone else on the forum, there must be a way to overcome your problem.

atta, you can remove the lock so very easilly and strip it down, lubricate and reassemble. You can also remove the lock and connect it up electrically and watch what happens when you lock and unlock the car, remember to push a screwdriver or flat blade into the lock so the catch mechanism closes in the same way it would if the door was shut - then do your test. Should be able to nail this blighter easilly

Disconnect the battery for a few seconds - then reset the up and down of the window travel holding the button for fully up and then fully down for a few seconds after the window has reached its full travel. Most electronics are suseptable to logic circuit confussion from time to time - If this does not correct it then either there remains an issue with the new microswitch in the top latch. a break in one of the wires that attach to the microswitch or a bad connection on the new microswitch or it may be the microswitch on the exterior door handle has come adrift. Inside the door just above the lock is a microswitch - as you pull the exterior handle upwards the handle inside moves downwards and contacts a microswitch which tells the windows to drop a bit to allow the door to open, These microswitches are simply held in place by two push in plastic pins - they can and do come loose occassionally, each microswitch controlls the window for that door.

Disconnect the serpentine belt then start up, Has the whine gone? Dont run too long without the belt in place as the water pump will not be driven. This is very likely to be an idler

As with all integrated circuit parts - the logic circuit within the components may have got confused, simple disconnect of power - either to the radio unit or remove the battery cable - then reconnect (have you radio cade ready if pre 2003 car) is all may need to do.

The ballast resistors control the slow running speed of the two fans, If the resistors had both failed then there would be no fans running until the temperature was higher than normal running temperature, then both would come on at full speed, however, with the air con on both fans run at full speed all the time, so i cant see that the resistor theory is correct. Temperature control is achieve by the thermostat, the water pump and the radiators/fans, I have never heard of a Boxster having an issue with the thermostat failing but this is a cheap and easy part to swap out, The pump is clearly working and no water leaks suggest the system is sound. If the car didnt smell hot, no boiling up and the only indication is the gauge then this points to either the gauge, or the sender, The sender is just a waxstat in that the hotter it becomes the resistance to earth diminishes, the unit slowly earths the circuit, full earth = full gauge reading.

For stone chips the easiest to apply and cover up the white blob thats left where the chip occurs is a simply black wide tip felt tip permanant marker. Touch the spot, let it dry - about 30 seconds then a bit of polish over the top. It doesnt fill the chip but it does get rid of the effect of dandruff on the bonnet - front boot or whatever you call that bit over there dont know why no manufactures have produced a touch up paint based on a felt tip type marker pen

Before you rush out and panic this could simply be a faulty temperature sender, if you were close to the 250 you would have boiled up. Boiling point is 212 and for every pound of pressure the boiling point rises by 2 degrees, you have a 15 pound cap, therefore 242 degrees before boiling point is reached - If you had of boiled you would have known about it - my guess is the temperature sender is a little off track, simply replace it

Blundgren77 - now thats the sort of spirit we need on here - get stuck in and dont be afraid

Good point JeTexas - the oil cooler is actually a series of pipes that have water running around them to exchange heat, if a tiny hole occurs the oil under pressure would push into the water - however when turned off i would expect that the water being pressurised would push water into the oil. Water in the oil will enable the development of "Mayonaise" inside the oil cap very quickly - check it out. I cant believe that two garages cant find the leak but accept there is a problem - The problem is they just arnt very good at their jobs, a fault can be traced if the person who gets the job is vigilent and enthused and is proud of their work - many businesses are full of useless individualls who only go to work to socialise and moan - or individualls with delusions of adequacy. Get a third opinion from an enthused garage

Get a second opinion on the required work. Cant believe valve work is relating to the inlet/exhaust valves as this would cost considerably more than the price stated. All the work descibed though is dead easy, Disks and Pads are a doddle and quite cheap to do all four corners - wheel nuts off, two bolts that hold the brake calipers and two screws that hold the disk on - simple as that. Spark plug tubes - just take the plugs out and pull out the tubes - new O rings and tubes and push in - not quite so easy as its a bit fiddly but a reasonable DIYer or home mechanic could do this job. The Serp belt - well a complete novice could change this part, Inspection panel behind the seats off (just a few 10mm nuts) and the belt is there to be seen, loosen the tensioner - fit belt - re-tension - job done And whilst the belt is to be fitted - inside this same panel is the water pump. If your not mechanically minded dont give it a go yourself but in all honesty you dont need a Porsche specialist to do any of these jobs - If you have a trusted mechanic in any garage then get them to do it - you get the parts and take them along - All these jobs together will take less than a day and cost you a fraction of what youve been quoted - You really can save a packet on this job even if you give your mechanic a big tip (total under 1000)

I think you are thinking of trying the most expensive option first, Pressure test the system, if the pressure drops and you cant see the leak keep on pressurising it - eventually enough water will be expelled that you will be able to see- perhaps even a water pump seal leaking along the shaft then being thrown by the pully system - that would show no water under the car - take the inspection plate off behind the seats and pressure test. After the flush is there more oil in the coolant? If no then considering dropping the engine and pulling the heads at this stage is madness. If yes - then perhaps

Get the system pressure tested, you can purchase a simple hand type pump with a gauge for home DIY, pump the system up to 15lbs pressure then watch for pressure drop - if it goes down in pressure then water is being forced out somewhere. My guess would be a pin pr**k type hole in the radiator which under pressure is expelling water - but so slowly that you dont get a puddle, If the water was getting into the combustion the oxygen sensors would pick that up and throw a code. If it was me i would simply bung a can of stop leak into the system, though some Porsche purists would probably have a heart attack at the thought - but at the end of the day it is a car - with all the same problems as any other car

You will have some oil residue in the pipes - thats what they are there for, In old money the AOS is simply a sealed breathing system, the AOS seperates the oil mist from combustable gasses that have blown by the piston rings - this creates a positive pressure inside the engine - left with no relief this would push oil by oil seals and create leaks, All manufactures apply a negative pressure to draw away the combustable gassess as they are carsinogenic (is that spelt right?) and burn them in the combustion chamber, Each manufactures calls their system something else - Porsche AOS. Of course the AOS cannot be 100% in seperating oil mist from gasses so a tiny amount of oil mist is inducted and burnt, this provides an upper cylinder lubricant - which is good - but also explains why the throttle body gets a bit gummed up over a period of time - which is not so good. When the AOS internally fails it allows much more of the oil mist to be drawn into the induction and creates massive amounts of smoke - when this happens you know the AOS has failed - clearly yours hasnt so stop worrying and drive the car. You will hear on these forums that if the AOS is not dealt with promptly it will discharge copious amounts of oil into the intake and cause the engine to hydrallic (liquids cannot be compressed - and oil in the cylinder will will lock the engine up and cause massive engine failure as a con rod breaks) however the theory is correct but it is impossible for the AOS system to send that amount of oil into the air intake - as it is located high above the sump and it doesnt have an oil pump to raise the oil into the AOS system - The AOS can only draw air - unless you massivly overfill the sump with oil.

Richard, thanks, very detailed reply but i dont have the piwis or ps2 - just the Durametric software. I think the wheel balance will sort the problem of the failure warning but was curious about the recalibration function on the Durametric

70 plus on the motorway and i have a little wheel shake - clearly i need to have the wheels rebalanced - however after about 10 minutes i had a "PSM Failure and ABS failure" on the dash. At home later i put the Durametric on the car and it read "Fault 4440 Steering angle sensor" - I put two and two together and gathered the wheel shake would have been picked up by the steering angle sensor as a fluctuating output and after 10 minutes it poped the fault warning up. Will get the wheels balanced Saturday, however - just had another play with the Durametric and i notice under the "Diagnostics" menu the last entry is "Recalibrate steering angle sensor" - well gave it a go, only instruction before confirming i wanted to do the recalibrations was that the wheels are in the straight ahead position. The indicator light on the durametric plug in simply appeared to flash between green and orange - seemed to sit like that for ages - There are no instructions for this option, so does anyone know how anything about this - do i need to turn the wheel from lock to lock? or leave for a period of time whilst it does its magic?

At a guess i would think this is some dirt from the bottom of the tank getting through to an injector or two, this dirt could be jamming the injector valve open, causing fuel to dribble rather than spray, at higher revs this wouldnt be a problem but low revs and the mixture would lean too much to the point of stalling. Dont belive it could be the pump otherwise it would not start so readilly after cut out, I would change the filter though as i believe it has failed to filter effectively

Honeycombes and hoops - The hoops are the roll over hoops above the rear of the seats - the wind deflector sits between the two hoops - the honeycombes are the plastic inserts which sit in the middle of each hoop - plastic and full of holes like a honeycombe - this reduces draughts to the back of your neck - They are pushed into place and held by three plastic springy clips - put a felt pad on each of the three plastic clips so it forms a filler between the honeycombe and the hoop frame The clamshell is the part to the rear of the rear window and in front of the rear boot lid - this part goes up when you raise or lower the roof - with the roof just halfway open you will see the clamshell sticking up as high as it can - look on the underside of it and you will see two male locating lugs that fit into a female lug, just a bit of vaseline in the female lug will do it Silicon spray - no its not just a lubricating oil - ask for silicon spray, and dont spray it wildly - certainly i have not noticed any stains though i am carefull to just give a quick squib on the moving parts of the roof Roof to windscreen joint, Look at the sun visors - towards the outer side - you will see the A pillar plastic trim and the horizontal roof trim come together - there are two torx screws as you look upwards, with the roof open you will see this part has a female locating lug - this is the part to check the two screws are tight. The male projection lugs that locate into the females are the one to fit the felt pads to - i used one large round one on each and simply wrapped it over the male lug then trimmed the excess off with scissors - If you get the pads in black you will never notice the pad is fitted

Krypt, The Boxster is full of rattles and a real pain to track them all down, but with persistance you can get rid of them. Doors clicking sound - Adjust the door lock striker Windows creak - adjust the amount of pressure the glass pushes against the rubber seal (done from bottom of door) Wind deflector rattles - Use felt pads or hot melt glue the deflector in Honeycombs within the hoops rattle - Fit Felt pads to the three locating lugs Sun visors creak - Felt pad on the rubber bump stop Passenger seat creaks - Push it back as far as you can and adjust the recline with the switch to just apply a little pressure against the back panel Lubricate the door rubbers - I used "Son of a Gun" (STP product) Lubricate the roof to windscreen rubber Vaseline the clamshell locating lugs - these creak and rattle as the car flexes over uneven ground Silicon spray the roof mecanism with the roof halfway up or down (easy access to the bits that move) Tighten the locating lugs for the roof to windscreen joint (there are two Torx screws and this part secures the sun visors too) Put a large felt pad over the roof lug - this prevents creak within the roof to locating lug joint as the body flexes over rough ground Have fun

This is the AOS, huge smoke - very alarming but an easy fix, send Shiman a pm, he did his own swap out of the AOS and he claimes he is not mechanically competant.

cant see the allure of hearing the induction - Stick with stock

I think the fault is with your idle speed control unit, either the solenoid activator has failed or there is still gum in the slidy flap inside the control body, take it off again and ensure the flap retracts easilly. Secondly check for air leaks - either around the idle speed control valve itself or the pipework, sounds as though air is being sucked in somewhere, Is the idle steady when strting from very cold or does it fluctuate? If no fluctuation then youve ruled out the air leak. Any difference when air con is on?

I guess you have nailed the fault - what is the chance that the master and slave have failed just as the line ruptured. In order to rupture it must have been under pressure - If either the master or slave cylinders were defunct then there would be no pressure to rupture the line

Your welcome