aron in toronto

The only body rust issues that I've heard of pertain to the door strike plate on some early models and rust/paint bubbling around the side engine air intake and vent openings located to rear of the doors. That said, I've never actually seen rust in either of these areas, and assume it to be fairly rare. On the strike plate, rust can occur where when the strike plate damages the paint of the body surface that it's mounted on. The solution and/or retrofit to this is a thin gasket between the body and strike plate to prevent them from coming in contact and damaging the paint. If rust is present here, it should be easy to spot. I have an early '97 w/o the gaskets and I haven't noticed any rust here (yet). The cause of the paint issues I've heard reported near the air intake and vent openings is more of a mystery as to why this area is affected. My personal speculation of the cause is that the plastic vent trim has scratched the body paint and overtime has allowed moisture to get under the paint, but this is gust a guess. All in all I'd say rust is not really an issue with these cars. Aron

They are fine in the snow as long as you have snow tires installed. The limiting factor is their low ground clearance. In my area of Central Toronto the city does not clear the majority of side streets and what snow we do get tends to stay around for quite a while. The residential streets end up filled with chunks of ice that have fallen off other vehicles and street parking becomes scarce with all the surplus snow accumulation. I will say (and many will disagree) that other cars, including my Volvo V70- and a Mazda CX9 also equipped with snow tires, handle much better in the sloppy stuff. Without snow tires my Boxster barely makes it out of my driveway if there is more than a 1/4" of snow on the ground. Aron

Unfortunately my wife never wanted a Porsche. "You have money for an unpractical car? We need a dining room set" we don't even have a dining room, eat-in kitchen. We are kind of broke but if you waited till you could afford everything you will never get it. I took another look at the car last night in the dark and started it up for a bit. It looks like the radiator bracket didn't even get damaged, a little hard to tell with the damaged condenser and radiator stuck to it. I hope I didn't run it too long in case the coolant is empty, it was leaking some. Just waiting on the title to see what state that is in to start haggling with the seller. They want $9950, I think it is worth $7000 tops with a clear title, I'll start at $5500 (if my wife will give me the $). The interior is a bit rough, looks like the previous owner had a dog that needed nails trimmed. At that price it doesn't seem worth it. As an owner of a '97, it pains me to say it, but you should be able to find a clean car for less that what they are asking for this one. From a quick look at your photos it looks like the front tub may have been pushed toward the passengers side. If this is the case, you'll need to have the "frame" pulled back into shape and this requires a specialized jig to bring everything back into spec. These jigs, Celetteis is the maker most Porsche specialty shops use, are $$$ to get access to unless you know someone with one (and they owe you a favor). Before you go to far with this one, look around to see what nice running Boxsters are going for. You may be surprised. :)

http://boxster.wikia.com/wiki/Hard_Tops Spinlocks link: http://www.suncoastparts.com/product//986HSL.html

Loren, don't you mean the top is aluminum. Sladder, it's difficult to tell from the photo how bent the top is, but if it's not to bad you might be able to carefully bend it back using your hands. For the trim I'd follow Loren's advice.

The easy and possibly costly way to do what you want ( F to C) is to have the dealer hook up their Porsche System Tester and reset your car's computer to the settings for your country. IIRC this switches all the digital imperial units to metric. You can change the HV/AC temperature display units youself by doing the following, but I don't think it changes the outside temp display on the OBC. The following was posted by MEANROB on 6speedonline "Porsche AC Diagnostics (undocumented, unsupported feature) The AC Climatronic unit is actually manufactured by Audi. There is some sort of serial data stream (not CAN) that allows the AC unit to display engine parameters. This works on 1997-2000 boxsters. Same as 996.... To switch from F to C: Hold down the recirculating button then push both the temperature + - buttons. To access diagnostics: Hold down the Recirculating & Air up buttons for 5 seconds. The + - buttons go up and down through the list of "c" codes. The center vent button switches the left display between the "c" code and its actual value. Press the Auto button to exit. I have yet to verify all these, this info was copied from wonderful people on PPBB! Here is a list of what can be seen: 0c - ERL 1c - Oil Temp? 2c - Inside temp. Sensor mounted in the aspirator assembly at the side of the dash. 3c - Outside temp. Sensor located inside the air inlet of the A/C unit. 4c - Outside temp. Sensor located in front grill of the radiator. The data is fed to the Climatronic from the instrument cluster. When not moving, the instrument cluster OBC temp display retains it's last setting until moving. This is to prevent heat emanating from the radiator affecting the temperature sensor. The A/C unit uses the lower of the two outside air temp values in determining fresh-air temp. 5c - Outside temp. (matches OBC outside temp display) 6c - Coolant temp. 7c - Footwell discharge temp. 8c - Sun sensor (dash top) 9c - Sun sensor. 10c - Passenger compartment fan speed. 11c - Passenger compartment fan voltage. 12c - Temperature mix Flap command 1=COLD, 100=HOT 13c - Temperature mix Flap position 14c - Central Flap command 15c - Central Flap position 16c - Footwell/Defrost Flap command 17c - Footwell/Defrost Flap position 18c - Recirculation Valve command 1=OFF, 100=RECIRC 19c - Recirculation Valve position (feedback) 20c - Vehicle speed in kph, updating only once per second. (real speed, not speed+safety margin as in the speedometer) 21c - Engine RPM in hundreds. This too only updates once per second. 22c - ? 23c - ? 24c - Sun sensor, exterior lights switch & panel lights control (term. 58 & 58d voltage) - used for A/C panel display illum. 25c - ? 26c - ? 27c - ? 28c - Fan speed? 29c - ? 30c - Engine run time in seconds (255 max.)(=0xff) 31c - Timing counter 32c - Displays test 33c - Software version? Mine states 3.4 34c - ? 35c - Outside temp. from inlet sensor (filtered?) 36c - temp?" Aron

Yep. The display on my CDR-210 is faint on one side. I can still read it but at night its looks brighter on one side than the other. I assume it’s a burnt out bulb in the faceplate but haven't investigated further. Yours maybe different if they all went out at the same time. You can try removing the faceplate and cleaning the connections with a pencil eraser and see if that helps. Aron

There are several descriptions of the operations of Z-Art Automotive on the web, that indicate they are or were connected to ZeinTop and were responsible for sales in parts of Europe and the Middle East. This info may be incorrect, but clearly needs to be addressed before anyone starts sending $ to Z-Art & expecting a new hard top in return. This is one of the first google hits when you do a search for "Z-Art Automotive Inc." "As the general sales agency of the company Zeintec Suisse automotive, Z-Art is responsible for Switzerland, Austria and the Middle East. This company supplies a hard top for all Porsche Boxster models. The Zeintop, whose contours are reminiscent of the new Cayman, is equipped with a tailgate and supplied with a complete respray. The hard top is now available for ordering at a price of 3,980 euros net."

MM has recently added M96 series motors to their engine "rebuild" menu, so I expect to see more of this type of unfortunate post with the Boxster and 996 crowd. MM has several rebuilt motors on eBay now. For more Google "Motor Sheister" and you'll find lots of similar experiences on several forums.

Next time you can ask if the shop doing the install will match TR's price. Some (maybe all) tire shops can get better rates from TR and are able to make some $$ while still giving you the same price as if you had ordered them directly yourself. And $66 to install and balance 4 tires is a good price, or at least it would be around here.

I think the entire seat backs are interchangeable. Although I've never done this in person I recall reading about 944/968 owners swapping seat backs to even out the ware on the side bolsters. Good luck and let us know what you find out and how it works.

The mounting points for the posts (on the top) that insert into the spin locks are adjustable. There are removable plastic panels that snap on/off, located behind your shoulders. Removing these panels, you should be able to see how adjustment is possible. You can make adjustments to up/down and side to side. I found on my top that if I tried to adjust the top as tight as possible that it actually made more (a lot) noise, so there seems to be a balance of not to loose not to tight as far as squeaks and creaks are concerned. I still have some minor squeaks but I am going to try conditioning my seals this year and hopefully that will eliminate the remaining noises. I’ve heard good recommendations for Gummi Pflege rubber seal conditioner. However they recently changed the formula for this conditioner so I’m not sure if the older recommendations still apply. It is/was available through BMW dealers as well as online.

Here are a couple of photos of the buckle, that may either help you track one down or perhaps modify one from a dismantler. I have heard that people have modified a 944 buckle to work and there is a least one template floating around on the net that can be used to fabricate a buckle out of flat stock. Try googling "Boxster air bag deactivation buckle template/pattern" and see what you can find.

Halo, Where did you find the 5-speed shift pattern to fit that knob. I have a similar knob in leather that I'd like to use on my early Boxster.

Philip, In addition to changing out my ignition switch that solved my goofy key issue but w/o the electrical gremlins, I also had a dash back light problem. It only affected the digital display under the analogue gauges. My tach and speedo were fine and I could see that my digital gauges were also still working if I looked at them in the right light. The problem was that there was no back light illuminating the display. The strange thing was that they all went dark at the same time so I figured it was more than a burned out bulb. The stranger thing is that before I could get around to fixing the problem the lights came back on all by themselves. Since this happened I've read that it could be the symptoms of a faulty light switch. In your case it may be more or different than a failing light switch as your analogue gauges aren't working either, but it may be worth searching back posts for light switch issues. Aron