The car is very clean, and has always been garaged. the interior is perfect-still, Boxters tend to be driven hard. The seller is asking 20% below Blue Book-is this a good deal, or will I be bankrupted by repair bills?
Personally, I’d go for a 993.
Based on the 911SC I used to have, Porsches are very reliable cars. The air-cooled engines were bulletproof and long-lived. You shouldn’t need repairs very often. But if you do, they’ll be expensive. Routine maintenance will be more expensive than on your not-Porsche; but if you’re buying a Porsche, you have enough money to do regular maintenance without being bankrupted. About the worst thing I can think of to go wrong would be if your timing chain broke. It’s cheaper to replace them as recommended, than it is to rebuild the engine. (I had a 924 before the 911, and the timing belt broke. Fortunately, this model was not subject to catastrophic damage if that occurs.)
Jeremy Clarkson calls the Boxter “a hairdresser’s car”.
But if you absolutely must buy one, look for the S model and not the base.
You haven’t said anything useful about the condition of the car you’re considering…
Mileage, # of owners, service records, accidents?
Note that it’s called a Boxster, not a Boxter.
My brother bought a used Boxster in 2000; I think it was a '99. He sold it within a couple of years because he was tired of getting it fixed. He referred to the check-engine light as the “check-wallet” light.
After he sold it, for some reason the dealer kept his email address linked to the VIN; whenever the new owner brought it in for service, my brother would receive an email detailing the work done. He was amused for several years as he watched the car giving the new owner endless trouble.
Will you be bankrupted by repair bills? Hard to say, not knowing the first thing about your finances. But if it’s going to be your daily driver, you might be annoyed by the frequency with which it’s out of service. If it’s just for fun weekend cruises, I’d say go for it.
Initially read the title as: Buying an 11 year old ***a ***Porsche, and my initial reaction was “are you nuts?”
Carry on…
:smack:
And remember the ‘e’ in Porsche is pronounced. 
Everything will be more expensive; more expensive insurance, personal property tax, parts, service.
I bought a Porsche 944 Turbo 27 years ago. It’s been reliable for me - I still drive it every day. For the first 15 years, I had it repaired at the shop, and the cost was high, but not so high I couldn’t it. It was intimidating to think about DIY repair, even though I repaired all my other vehicles.
Finally, I decided to start doing my own repairs. It wasn’t hard. There’s lots of support and help on the web - including free repair manuals. If you have to go to the shop, the labor rate is higher than for other vehicles and the parts are at least twice as expensive.
My suggestion is to buy it if you want it, but first get in touch with guys at forums.rennlist.com and see what they recommend as a pre-purchase inspection and what the price should be.
Recognize that it will be more expensive than basic transport, but I still get a thrill out of each drive in my Porsche. If you are capable of doing some of the repair work yourself, it will be far more manageable costwise, but the parts will still be expensive. My experience is that the Porsche is very well designed for performance, and for long wear life, but it can be difficult to get parts out, which means labor time (at higher rates) is going to be high.
The Boxster has and had a water-cooled four.
The Boxster is a crap shoot thanks to the IMS/RMS issues - repairing those would be catastrophic, as they’d be a pretty good chunk of the car’s value and offer no guarantee the problems wouldn’t occur again; it’s worries about them that keep 986/996 values so low (even cheaper than older Porsches).
That out of the way, I think the internet over-states how often the issue occurs. Setting that aside, expect higher running costs all around due to it being a Porsche, unless you maintain it yourself. That can be tricky with the mid-engine layout.
Personally, I find it a little boring - I’m hoping to sell mine next year and get a 944S2. 
Oh, and the Boxster has always used the same water-cooled 6-cylinder as the 911, just with smaller displacement.
Oh, yes. I don’t know why I said four. I was only distinguishing the engine from the (air-cooled) 993.
Yes. I was just saying that based on my air-cooled boxer-six, I trust Porsches. FWIW, the 924 was pretty reliable too; but it’s really an Audi so it doesn’t really compare.
Based on my old 911SC, I would get a 993. They’re older than a 2002 Boxster, so they won’t be as expensive as a water-cooled model. (No idea how prices of 993s compare to Boxsters in general, though.)
993 prices are through the roof, being the last “true” 911. Boxster and 996 prices are significantly lower. An 11 year old Boxster will probably be half the price of a 993. They have their problem areas to be sure, but as long as you know what you’re getting into, the 986 Boxster and 996 911 are one of the best performance bargains on the market, IMO.
I bought myself an 11 year old Boxster S almost exactly a year ago and I couldn’t be happier with it. Nothing has gone wrong with it yet, and it will be expensive when it does, but I do all my own mechanical work so I’m not terribly worried. Now if you’re paying dealership shop rates for every little thing, you’re going to be seeing some frighteningly large bills. Even a standard oil change will be $100 plus… The thing takes 9 quarts of oil. I would not say they are easy cars to work on, but they are well within the scope of a reasonably competent DIYer for most repairs.
Definitely do some research on the common failures, but it is my belief that, while they are absolutely real problems, things get blown out of proportion on the Internet. You should also have the car inspected by a Porsche mechanic before deciding to buy. Even if no major issues are found, minor problems might give you some ammunition to lower the price…
Get a 914 
It’s a fun drive, very reliable, and if you look enough and are patient you can get one for a song. If you do find one the first thing you should do is have the transmission looked at. They have problems with first gear.
Sadly, this is not always true. It’s an all-too-common situation for someone to buy a European car, often at a bargain price, and often straining their budget to the max, only to then discover how godawful expensive they can be to keep up. Just because someone can come with the money to buy one doesn’t necessarily mean they have the money to maintain one.
Porsche builds very good-looking, very expensive-to-fix grenades. Have lots of money, though, because Porsche maintenance and insurance are not cheap.
2001 Boxsters, though, seem to be OK. You roll the dice and take your chances.
Have you driven it yet? I considered an early-model Boxster for my first Porsche, they are great cars - and I LOVE mid-engine coupes.
That said:
- Get an independent PPI. Seriously, do NOT buy a used Porsche without one. A good shop will have software that can tell you how hard the engine was driven.
- You probably know all about the IMS issue. LN Engineering makes a retrofit kit you might consider budgeting into the price of the car if you want the peace of mind.
- As the saying goes, you can’t afford a Porsche until you can afford two Porsches, and that’s been true in my (so far) limited experience. The maintenance bills are jaw-dropping; parts are expensive, labor is expensive, and Porsche has seemingly engineered the car so that even minor repairs require tons of work (e.g., if your horn goes out, they have to go in through the bumper to replace it).
I don’t mean to insult the Porsche owners in this thread, but…
I was turning a corner this morning and saw a Boxster approach. I thought, “OK, who’s the 50-something dude behind the wheel…” It never fails.
It just seems like a car where the owner is just trying too hard. I feel that way about BMers, Audi convertibles, that kind of thing. Dudes who have something to prove.
If it’s for the thrill of the drive and beauty of the machine, is the Boxster really where it’s at? It’s a low-end Porsche. It’s cynical “positioning” in action.
What is the car to drive these days if you want to be cool? I would say a Tesla for one. It kicks the Porsche’s ass in terms of performance, you’ll have no maintenance, and it’s the future, not the past.
That’s a very pricey car, though. How about a Chevy Volt? They look cool and are status-y without screaming “conspicuous consumption.” They might not drive like a dream, though.
I dunno, gasoline engine sports cars just don’t seem very 2014 to me.
We had a Porsche Cayenne for about a year. It was on one hand a wonderful car. I have never driven an automatic with adaptive shifting - it knew what you wanted. I liked the adaptive suspension, seats, the 4WD. On the other hand the maintenance was VERY expensive and, living in the middle east, a crap shoot. We sold it for a loss. I miss the 500 horses occasionally and the camouflage it provided.