Hi everyone!
Been a long time, and nice to be back.
I used to have a 1980 911SC, and frequented the 911 boards here until I sold the car a few years back. I did some light wrenching on the car myself - oil changes, etc - but never went as far as valve adjustments and the like.
Now, the wife is interested in a manual boxster, and we've located a 2003 S with 53k in the right color, etc near us for $19k, which seems like a good deal. I do have a couple questions and concerns after reading the threads on this board, especially on maintenance costs.
1) Is there a checklist of things I can look at? The car is not an auction car and has some papers, but almost every car we've found seems to be lucky to have the owners manual, let alone any records at all. I think so many of these cars were leases in this era, finding 1-2 owner cars is highly difficult.
2) What the average expectation of a clutch in these cars? Any estimates on what a service would cost?
3) I was close to pulling the trigger on this car (or any boxster) until I came across the many threads on the IMB bearing issue, which has caused me to pucker up severely, to the point of nixing entirely boxsters. Without a clear view on oil change frequency, how paranoid should I be? if i buy the car, I wouldn't be able to immediately drop another 2500$ into the bearing replacement and I do not have the wherewithal to do it myself if it can be done with the engine in the car.
This will be a third car for us, and something we'd like to keep for a long time. I also want to avoid making a bad decision and appreciate anyone's input, especially recent buyers.
Thanks!
Chuck