geoff

It's easy - you just need more Porsches :)

Phillip - I know from your previous posts you've been less than fortunate with your local dealer. There are a few Porsche dealers relatively close to me, and I've heard both glowing praise and horror stories about each. I didn't know anything about my local dealer when I bought my first Porsche, but they treated me OK and I kept giving them business. Several service advisors have come and gone, and my current one is definitely the best I've seen at any dealership, Porsche or otherwise. I know I'm lucky, and dread the day he leaves for greener pastures. I've come to realize it's a two way street with all these guys, at least the ones with some personality, and have become relatively good friends with the service advisor and mechanics, even to the point of helping them do their job (like grabbing a car tag and writing down the VIN and mileage on my way in the door). I never demand anything of the dealer, and find they appreciate customers who realize they're doing the best they can, even if they screw up sometimes (which they have, even big time once or twice, but always make it right). I always try to show my appreciation when I see them, and nice bottles of their favorite high-end booze (or dinner at their favorite local restaurants) at the holidays pays off way more in terms of service than what it costs me. And when they go out of their way for service I make sure they get something in return. My wife was appalled when I invited the head mechanic from the dealer to play golf at the country club one day. By the second hole, she turned to me and said he was OK and could come back any time, and she thoroughly enjoyed dinner with him afterward (he's been back to play with us since then). When I brought her Carrera in for the 60K service, he spent hours going through the car tracking down all the rattles and getting rid of every single one. There was no charge. Sure the dealer service costs more than most independents, but in the long run all the extra benefits even out the cost. Bottom line is if you are their friend, dealer personnel will go out of their way to help their friends. I could go on about other things they've done for me, or I've seen them do for other customers, but you get the idea. But as you realize, there are some service department people (both men and women) who could use a refresher course in charm school, and they are the ones best avoided.

Congrats on your new Porsche! Some dealers/service advisors will spend time with customers explaining how some features work - much easier than having customers think something is broken and wasting their time. I've seen my service advisor sit down with customers and show them how things work, and he also tops up their oil whenever they ask and does lots of other nice things. He gets lots of good presents from customers all year long, not just during the holidays

Congrats on the little one. Look at http://www.renntech....porsche-models/ for the parts diagrams

My '01 Boxster had the same problem. The cable is the issue. After lubricating the cable several times under warranty (temporary fix), the dealer gave up and replaced the cable. No more seat groaning noise problem after 5+ years

With the current state of the economy, some dealers around me are trying to be more competitive, cost wise, even for existing customers. My local Porsche dealer used to refuse to work on older, air cooled cars because they took a lot of time; now half the racks have 993s and earlier on them. They also have signs up that they will work on any other make of car as well. Their hourly rate is the same or less than a very highly regarded local independent. It definitely pays to shop around, but you should include dealerships in the comparison

Being good friends with a great Porsche mechanic is good, too!

Your old car looked so nice when I saw it, but this must completely blow it away! Congrats!

Don't count on this as a permanent fix. It won't make an old MAF brand new, so at some point you will probably need to get a new MAF. But cleaning the MAF will help you determine if it was the problem or something else before you go out and buy a new part

My '08 Cayenne S needed new tires late last year after 30K miles to replace the OEM Continentals. I tried to get the Michelin Latitude Tour HPs (19" size), but they were back ordered from late October and still are. My Porsche dealer was able to get them from the commercial side of Tire Rack, but you can't get them from either Discount Tire/Americas Tire or the consumer side of Tire Rack. I've been happy with them for 5+K miles. I recently had to replace one that got a nail off the tread so couldn't be patched. They are N-rated and handle well. Initially my dealer installed the Latitude Sports and the handling was amazing, but I wanted an all-season tire so they put the correct ones on the next day. The all season version (Latitude Tour HP) definitely do not handle as well as the Latitude Sports, but are usable below 40°F. They are basically an SUV version of the Michelin Pilot Sport tires I was about to give up and go for the Continental Extreme Contact DWS tires, which were highly rated by drivers but didn't have the Porsche N-rating, and then my dealer service writer told me he could get the Michelins I wanted. These looked like pretty nice tires as well

For the lower control arms, I've been told (by user seafeye) the replacement bushing parts are as follows: Control Arms Outer bushing part#996 331 241 04 Inner bushing part# 996 331 244 03 Ball Joint TRW 032 0002 032 009 P1-2 Elephant Racing has replacement bushings - see http://www.elephantr...berbushings.htm Vertex Auto sells rebuilt control arms. Search their site for control arm for your year Boxster and you'll get multiple results When I have to replace mine, I will probably spring for the GT3 control arms, which aren't much more expensive than the stock ones

Really a generic question, but since it's for an '03 996, I figured I would ask in this forum and hopefully others might see and respond Yesterday a friend who lives in the Baltimore area called and asked me what I thought about an '03 Carrera he saw on a dealer lot. It's a manual, about 35K miles, priced in the low $30Ks, two owner car. I told him about potential IMS problems and said if he's interested to definitely get a PPI. The first owner had the car until earlier this year, the second owner had it for a few months, then traded it in on some sport bikes, so it's almost a one owner car. My friend doesn't know anything about Porsches since the past 20+ years, but is mechanically adept and has some Corvettes. I also told him there are tons of cars out there, and if it's not perfect to just walk away. Any recommendations for a good mechanic - dealer or independent - somewhere about BWI airport that could take a look at the car and provide a qualified opinion on whether to buy or walk?

When I had a check engine light a while ago (either P1128 or P1130, but not both, can't remember which), it was only for one bank. I cleared it and the same code came back after a while. I cleaned the MAF sensor and the problem disappeared, which indicated to me the MAF had seen better days. I replaced the MAF and haven't had another CEL ever since after a few years. Keep in mind the MAF is just one piece of the whole emissions chain until the exhaust, and one side out of whack doesn't necessarily trigger a CEL for the other.

This morning I got a targeted email from Amazon featuring the Vim XZN triple drive set. The XZN drives are used on our cars in a few places. Since I periodically see it discussed here, I suggested to Loren he include it as a featured item on his Renntech Amazon store (which helps support this site). He did and it's at http://www.amazon.co...Q5HTSNVQRTJCFN The best price seems to be from the ToolTopia Amazon storefront, and if you enter promo code TTO2O399 as described at http://www.tooltopia...e-shipping.aspx you save $1 on shipping ($21.44 plus $7.99 shipping, or buy more stuff and save on shipping). Very favorable reviews for the tool. I've been very pleased with my purchases from ToolTopia before

When I did my 2001 OBC, there was conflicting info on the wires. In 2001, Porsche changed the connectors and all the wires should be the same. You no longer need to cut and splice the 2 different VW wires, you will need 5 of the same. I'm on a business trip this week, but if you search you should be able to find the details. I'm pretty sure for 2001 and newer you will use 5 of the 000 979 009 wires. These go into stalk connectors 1 through 5. For connector 1, cut off the other end and add an eyelet to screw in to a good ground

Can you link a new member's ability to send PMs to having some number of positive feedbacks from postings with the new reputation system first? I hate spammers!

I've spent a lot of time with the head mechanic at my local dealer. He actually does use a PIWIS to check the oil level. Much more accurate than the dash display according to him. SOP is to fill the new oil, wait a few minutes, check oil level with PIWIS, add oil as needed, start up engine and check for leaks, etc., turn off engine, wait, recheck oil level with PIWIS and top off if needed. Every time he goes through the PIWIS functions with me, he shows me how he checks the oil level on newer cars I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not, but this appears to be standard procedure at my local dealer

If you've got 35-60K miles and have read a lot of posts on the subject, cleaning the MAF is a good place to start. If the problem goes away, you'll know the answer with a high degree of certainty

I'm on vacation right now and have been trying both Tapatalk (free read-only version) and my Droid browser. The Tapatalk app is OK, but not really all that better than the browser. It's OK to get a quick look at what posts are new, but I think it's less flexible overall. More to follow... Sent from my Droid browser

I had a similar problem recently. It turned out to be the front hood (bonnet). Search for a recent post by me for more details

How many miles on your car, and how long since you had an alignment?

Randy - since you're having the VF supercharger installed, you might want to check with Jake Raby to see if there are any particular plastic engine parts that should be upgraded while you're at it. Unlike the old air cooled engines, everything indicates all the water cooled flat sixes are designed by accountants as much as by engineers. Probably relatively cheap insurance

His GT3 sat a lot because he traveled for business, he has 2 small kids and for road trips it wasn't particularly practical. I think if he could have figured out how to put the Carrera back seats in he would have kept it longer. He and another guy drove it from LA to Las Vegas for a meeting shortly after he bought it, and the other guy complained about feeling every bump in the road. His wife was cool about the car - he hit 100 coming up behind me on a very twisty canyon (4x the legal speed limit), and his wife was smiling. But she wouldn't drive the car and it was costing a lot each month (lease + insurance was over $2K/month). Since it was leased, he was a bit careful about damage, since he would have to fix it before turning it back in, and like most new Porsches, he took a good size depreciation hit as soon as he drove it off the lot. And there were plenty of clients he couldn't drive it to because the car wouldn't send the right message. Add it all up and he decided as much as he loved the car, and he had wanted it for several years before he got it, the car didn't make sense for him. With all that being said, I see a surprising number of GT3s around here that people leave parked on the street all the time and use for daily drivers, so they can definitely be considered almost practical. When I drove the GT3, it certainly rode much smoother than when I drove my local dealer's head mechanic's 911S clone, which was a mid-70s vintage street hot rod

A friend had the first 987S that Ruf put a 3.8 Carrera S engine with the X51 power kit. Excellence did a spread on it a couple of years back. Loads of fun to drive through the canyons. I was grinning ear to ear the whole time I drove it. I thought it was like 80% of a Carrera GT at 20% of the price. The power was hugely addicting. But it didn't really handle noticeably better through the tight twisties. My friend would like more power, but is mature enough at this point in his life that he's not going to do anything about it. It's a slippery slope - whatever power you have is never enough. Look at all the guys trying to get more power out of their Turbos. I was lusting after a GT3 for several days after driving a friend's, but deep down knew it would be a much harder car to live with on a daily basis. His wife referred to it as their driveway ornament - I think he only had about 7K miles on it after a year and a half when he decided to sell it. We talked about it later and he half-heartedly admitted buying the GT3 was more of an ego and bragging rights thing than anything else. In retrospect, he would have just bought a Carrera S and would probably still be driving it. The nice thing about mostly stock street Porsches is they are so satisfying to drive all the time and so easy to live with on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the days of Porsche street cars as race cars ended a while ago

Don't you think everyone would be talking about how great all these mods are if they truly were?! Instead, everyone whines about how they wish their car was faster. If I really felt the burning desire to make my Boxster faster, I'd replace the little sewing machine motor with a Carrera S engine. Way more cost effective approach to lots more speed than any other alternative. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a good enough driver to take full advantage of my woefully underpowered Boxster, much less one with twice as much power