secretdonkey

On the verge of trading my 986 Boxster in on a 2008 CS. Prepurchase inspection revealed an empty power steering fluid reservoir and evidence of fluid leakage. My mechanic said he couldn't discern the whole story due to the tight location of the PS pump. He saw evidence of dark fluid on the block and was unsure because PS fluid should be light in color, but the stuff he could see was dark-colored. I've read around that PS boil-over and failure can happen when the car is tracked, especially with race rubber. Wondering what to make of it. It's a Porsche certified car, the dealership says they'll take care of the issue and the car will be under warranty for the next 2.5 years, but I am speculating on a few things: 1. I'm wondering if the car may have suffered a boil-over / leak / failure at some point and the leaked fluid cooked to a darker color. Plausible? 2. Can a power steering problem be taken as evidence the previous owner tracked the car or otherwise drove it hard, or do PS issues often appear in cars driven on the street only? 3. Any suggestions on what I should accept as a "fix" from the dealer before buying the car? It's a reasonable suspicion that they'll do as little as necessary to remedy the problem, and I'll have to keep a close eye on PS levels and potentially return the car for warranty service. I plan to autocross the car and some DE events. Not worried about autocross overheating or stressing the PS system, but the DE events might. Where should I place my concerns? 4. The car shows evidence of being driven hard and treated like the leased vehicle it was. Clutch, shift cable and brakes all replaced by the dealer. I'm wondering if the PS issue may be further evidence of hard treatment that might lead me to opt for a different specimen? Thanks.

Ahh, thanks! The online article I referred to was indeed careful to mention a dirty MAF was an unlikely trigger for those codes. Since cleaning the thing cost me next-to-nothing to do and since the closest shop with full manuals and a Porsche code tester is about 100 miles away, it was worth a shot. Looks like I got lucky - I had been living with the CEL for the time being since I noticed no change in performance, but having it staring at me and feeling the need to keep checking to see if any additional codes were present was not my idea of fun. :)

Okay, my first post, and apologies if a little more searching and RTFM-ing would have yielded me an answer, but I didn't have any success, so... I just had a CEL disappear on my '99 2.5 - I didn't think a CEL would disappear without resetting, so I'm puzzled. Background: I was getting OBC-II codes 0410 and 1411, aka "Secondary Air Injection Signal Implausible" with each code corresponding to a cylinder bank. Per a good online article, I tried cleaning the MAF and pulling the battery to reset the CEL, but it came back. But now it's gone away. I haven't driven enough to see if it's going to come back, but I have a suspicion that electrical gremlins may have reset the code for me. It's been rainy and I had not driven the car for about two weeks. Strangely, I found that my key remote wouldn't open the trunk or unlock the door. I used the key to unlock the door and inserted the key and everything was back to normal after that. Radio works fine, so if there was a power interruption it didn't trigger a radio code reset. Also, the CEL bulb is not out because it illuminates when the key is in the proper position. Can a CEL go away if sensors haven't sent an error message in awhile? Is it possible I had a brief power interruption and the code will likely return? Any ideas? Thanky thanky in advance for any ideas!