Greetings!
This is sort of a new member intro with a question as well. My 17-yo son and I recently bought a 1998 Boxster with 157K miles. Far from perfect cosmetically with some paint blemishes and trashed leather seats. But well-sorted mechanically as we can tell so far. I think a fair number of buyers were scared off by a mysterious chirp-chirp-chirp noise from the engine. Which we pre-diagnosed as a likely loose spark plug with the help of some research here and decided to take a chance. It turned out to be exactly that. So overall it starts, idles, runs and drives great now.
We live up near Lake Tahoe and on Thurs I took it down to Reno for a new set of tires. (Michelin Pilot Sport 4 All-Seasons on the upgraded OEM 18-inch rims it came with). I decided to take Mt. Rose Hwy. on the way back home which is fun road that climbs from Reno (4500 ft elevation) up to the pass (8900 ft) over 8 miles and then back down to the north end of the lake.
At my next stop I noticed that the exhaust had totally fried the bumper cover. The crescent moon heat shield had fallen off and the part of the bumper cover it was protecting looks like a roasted marshmallow now. I’m trying to figure out what happened here.
As best I can tell, the oval exhaust tip is maybe a little bit tweaked from backing into something at some point, so it’s slightly angled up. And it appears the bumper cover itself is maybe misaligned somehow (even before this incident) so that the bottom is bulging out in the center a bit, making the exhaust tip kind of recessed into the bumper notch. With the net effect being that the exhaust was kind of blowing directly onto the heat shield instead of the exhaust tip passing under it.
Any other diagnoses or things to check? I want to be reasonably we’ve got a handle on it before we invest in a replacement bumper cover.
