Peter pays the piper for dream car
REPAIRS: Peace of mind doesn’t come cheap when you own an aging Porsche Boxster
Ihad paid for the car, I had paid for the rail transport from Vancouver to Toronto, and now it was time to pay the piper. My Porsche Boxster’s check-engine light was glowing — who knows what mysteries would unfold there? — and also on the menu was an IMS bearing retrofit for the 250-horsepower 3.2-litre flat six.
These first-generation engines harbour hidden perils that pertain to a small bearing supporting the intermediate shaft, an integral oily bit that keeps valve timing on the up-and-up. It’s a sealed bearing, which means the lubricant is (theoretically) locked in there for life, but historically about eight per cent dry out, which can cause the bearing to fail, the intermediate shaft to come off its mooring, the valve timing to go berserk and your sweet-singing six to turn into a bucket of bolts — all within a matter of seconds, they say.
Granted, this is a rare scenario, but having come this far with my white-over-red Porsche, I wasn’t about to play Boxster roulette. Peace of mind, however, does not come cheap. Porsche will sell you an upgraded version of the original IMS bearing, but the accepted fix is a retrofit kit by LN Engineering of Momence, Illinois, that features a dual row bearing with hybrid ceramic balls. The kit costs about $1,200, and that’s before installation, which requires removing the transmission.
On the recommendation of my colleague, Dan Proudfoot, I chose Refined Motorsports of Toronto to do the work. Henry Costa has spent his life servicing Porsches. Originally from Portugal, he trained at the Porsche factory in Stuttgart, Germany, eventually landing at Toronto’s Downtown Fine Cars, where he worked for nearly twenty years before leaving to start his own shop.
I felt reassured pulling into his garage; it was full of Zuffenhausen’s finest, from 911s to Boxsters to a sweet 1960 356 Convertible.
The clutch is generally replaced when doing the IMS bearing, but since my clutch was only 4,000 kilometres old, I avoided the extra hit. With the LN kit installation along with some shifter-cable fine tuning, the bill came to $2,300 plus tax. The check-engine light was reset and as of this writing has mercifully not returned.
The only other issue was the need to turf a Kenwood subwoofer hogging most of the front trunk space. Are you kidding me? It wasn’t even secured to anything, but there was bunch of wiring and a controller in the cabin that needed professional removal. Arlindo Silveira of Oakville’s Audio Illusion did the deed.
Turns out the installation was a complete hack job, but lucky for me, Arlindo specializes in Porsches. He carefully restored the mangled wiring to factory spec, all neatly routed and wrapped. One thing I am finding about owning a Porsche: people who work on them take pride in their craft.
So it was time for my Boxster’s coming-out party, and Porsche Centre Oakville provided the venue. Twice a year, this dealership hosts Cars and Coffee, and while Porsche is, of course, the featured marque, Joshua Spagnol (quality control coordinator) says it’s an inclusive event, open to all enthusiasts. Official hours of this Saturday-morning shindig were 9 to 11 (get it?) but cars were there as early as 7:30 a.m. And what a display. More than 100 Porsches rolled in, representing everything from the earliest 356s to the current crop of super coupes.
It was quite a celebration of all things Porsche, and timely when considering the one-millionth Porsche 911 had come off the line in Stuttgart only three days before.
But who was I kidding? My little white Boxster S was like a sardine among the caviar. Heck, it was even assembled in Finland, which in the eyes of the cognoscenti could paint it with the bastard’s brush. No mind. I manoeuvred it in front of a few classics and snapped some pics.
Someone said, “Nice car.” Thanks. For a tick over 20 grand all-in — purchase price, shipping from Vancouver, IMS bearing fix and taxes — I’m thinking it’s a pretty great car.