Would a Cayman make me happy?

After finally getting a decent job and dodging the bullet on a marriage (before it started) I find myself with more money than I “need” every month, and being the responsible type I am, I want a new car (who needs a house or savings…).

I currently have a 98 jeep xj for winter dd’ing, a 1989 corvette for non winter dd’ing; when it works, and an ’89 caravan turbo/perpetual project for hogging garage space and any spare money. The practical porsche GRM and my credit unions low interest rates got me jonesing a p-car. Not a 911, almost a boxter, a Cayman! This is not a what car thread as I am only considering cayman’s, volvo c30’s and elise’s, however the lotus is out due to unknown issues I would create driving a british aluminum car in the snow covered salty roads, and the c30 is the backup for when all my cars break at once.

I feel like I need a Cayman. I want a new cayman S but that is not happening. However, used caymans are currently high 20’s low 30’s. By low 30’s, I mean under 31000. I understand there are some great buys in the 911 market as pointed out by some magazine I read, but the engine is in the wrong place. I do not want a boxter because I do not want to dd a convertible. I have enough fun with my c4’s leaky windows and top that I don’t want to jump into a 10 yr. old convertible top. Plus I don’t like the looks.

I would apreciate any advice on the Cayman market. I understand the early (2006-2008) base cayman’s have issues with the IMS bearing much like the boxters (as per internet rumor), so that scares me away from the 2.7. Does anyone know if the cayman s’ 3.4 had IMS issues? I have not seen many 09+ with the 2.9 used for high 20’s low 30’s. Every other issue seems diy friendly. As I’m in no need for a cayman immediately I could patently wait for a “S” that looks good or a 09 2.9 to come out of warranty and thus into my price range. I really don’t want to be making payments on a cayman with a toasted IMS bearing that takes out the entire engine.

The big question is: would I be happy? The plan is to DD the cayman as much as I can and use the jeep when there is more than a foot of snow on the roads. I’ve always had the mindset that depreciated cars and tinkering is the fun and smart thing to do, but constant repairs only to have something else go has me second guessing my theory. So to keep me sane I decided to write a pro and con list of my corvette (which I would sell for a downpayment) and the potential cayman. Feel free to add anything I forgot , or skip over it and post pretty pictures of caymans!

Corvette

+positives

-Paid off
-American
-Torquey
-Targa top on sunny days
-6 forward speeds, 3 pedals
-Chevy 350, d44 limited slip diff. Lots of room for upgrades. Maybe rear mount turbo some day.
-Known history, familiar with repairs and non-functioning options, known repairs and likely future needed repairs.
-Hacked ECM, disabled VATS, familiar with reprogramming this ecm
-Galvinized frame, fiberglass body
-ABS system functional
-Capable of high 20’s mpg hwy
-New brass heatercore
-New clutch/AL flywheel
-New waterpump, new heavy duty/long life hoses everywhere, new belt.
-New (smaller)tires on OEM 17’s, new kyb shocks (prob negative….)
-Working A/C, heater and auto climate control (for now)
-Radio/stereo with blue tooth/mp3 etc
-Bright headlights, brand new battery -A blast at autocross

-Negatives

-MAF system(hates weather change, or maybe just me), old wiring (gives car “cranky” personality, or as most would say “unreliable”)
-Sticky throttle (will not return to idle without a “blip” of the throttle, sticks around 1000-1500 rpm, throttle body rebuilt with brass bushings, clean, extra helper spring, cable smooth, just something I’ve learned to live with. Tech at autocross does not like when they notice it.)
-Flakey GM circuit boards (digi-dash etc.)
-Terrible in poor weather conditions (rain/light dusting of snow)
-Steel fasteners and brake lines (will rust)
-Expensive tires(on Z06 rims), limited lifespan hub bearing units.
-Pillar-less doors, targa top, difficult to keep water-tight, expensive replacement seals.
-Interior falling apart (worn leather, cracked plastics, rusty fasteners)
-Needs starter reubild/replace
-Black
-“corvette tax,” $$ to get repaired anywhere
-Loud (could be fixed with muffler)
-C5 body kit
-Dash/auto climate control most likely on last legs, works 90% of the time
-Parents hate and will not ride in
-No ground clearance
-Tail happy/snap oversteer/or mostly I’m not a skilled driver and go backwards with every error
-Not competitive at autocross (could be mostly driver)
-Stock brakes/radiator would not be up for track days (brakes have faded at autocross school), hub bearings would need frequent replacement if tracked.
-No good spare tire options with exhaust routed current direction
-One (of 4) broken tire pressure sensors, neat option for the car (’89) but expensive to fix
-Driver power window does not work 50% of time
-Windshield washer has never worked
-Wipers lift off windshield at speeds greater than 80mph, or crash into each other and stall, both leave you blind and scared in a car that is skiddish in the rain.

P-car

+positives

-New
-Good reputation
-Reputation for handling DD chore with charm, tackling most weather conditions
-Mid-engine
-Great brakes/engine if “S”
-Great club (every corvette club I talked to was interested in car shows, not much track time)
-Should be able to keep out the weather and live outside a garage all year round. I’m assuming it would be a good DD based on P-cars reputations of the wealthy dd’ing them when new, but don’t see them parked outside apartments anywhere around here.
-Decent (not great) DIY sources
-Reported decent gas mileage

-Negatives

-IMS bearing failures/oiling issues
-$$ to get someone else to fix your car
-Parts mostly mail order for DIY, no local resources for me

-Black and white are very popular colors in the used market. I want blue or gray.
-Some parts costs are outrageous, some about normal.
-Tires still pricy, not as bad as the 295 35 18’s for the vette, but the “S” gets some decent size 18 or 19’s.
-More expensive than the boxter, not quite fully depreciated.
-If 2.7, not sure if it would feel quick when compared to the torquey tpi vette it replaced, don’t think the 2.9 or 3.4 would give me concern, but there are none local to test drive.
-Payments
-Insurance hike (have minimal coverage on jeep and vette, since the bank would own the p-car for a while I would get full coverage)
-I’m assuming most heavy duty repairs/modifications would be out of my range for now, things like ECM hacks, scanners, computers to read info not quite diy friendly. Appears though most specalty tools could be rented.

The cursed C4:

What I want:

If I could justify a $30K toy the Cayman would be it, just because it is such a cool driver's car

This might be an unusual question to ask here but do have any sort of local-ish specialist who can potentially do bigger jobs on a Cayman?

They're probably a little more complex and if I've got a 30k car in the garage I want to drive the thing instead of having it off the road for weeks on end until I can get around to fixing it. Just my 3c.

Holy wall of text batman.

Yes a cayman will make you happy.

I know owning a cayman would make me giggle like a little girl

Actually, I appreciate the wall of text. You've thought about this a lot, and it sounds like a Cayman will make you happy indeed. I'm nowhere near your weight class financially, or I'd be considering a Cayman myself.

There's no way I'd take payments on a toy.

Would an Elise even rust? You'd think that would make it a "great" DD.

OK I understand the Cayman and the Elise but a C30? Not that there is anything wrong with a C30 but it isn't in the same category as the other two.

I have a reasonably good understanding of the Cayman market, as it has been pretty much all I've been thinking about for the past six months. For a while, I knew the asking price of every available Cayman East of the Mississippi and most of those in Texas.

I decided that "it was time". I sold my WRX and my Miata and bought a low mileage Cayman S about a month ago. It certainly makes me happy.

A new one was out of the question. After casually checking prices, I decided to check out a few CPO base Caymans at the Porsche dealerships. I suspected that these would be the best examples and the CPO warranty appealed to me (at least, at first). There were also a few three year old examples coming off leases with very low miles on them. Excellence magazine says that the average Porsche is driven 8,000 miles per year and I used this as my benchmark; What would a three year old base Cayman with 36k miles be like? Plus, I wanted to see if I would be disappointed if I didn't get an S.

I found that I really liked the base car and that I would be perfectly happy with one. I prefer a car without a lot of options and you're more likely to find a lightly equipped base model.

I also found a bunch of cars with less than 20k miles on them. In a nutshell, the CPO base cars with about 20k on them were all going for about $36,000. I made two low offers at Porsche dealerships, which were declined. I also took a deep breath and bid in three eBay auctions on cars that I had not seen in person (two cars, one of which I bid on in two separate auctions). I was pretty conservative with those bids and neither car made their reserves. I may have been high bidder.

About the CPO warranty, Porsche will give you two years and up to 100,000 miles, which looks great at first. But then I realized that time would be more of an issue than mileage, because if I got a 20k mile car, there was no way that I would drive it another 40k a year for two years. Also, I found that the dealers value the warranty at $2-3,000. They would offer the same car without the warranty for less. I decided that a private party sale would save me enough that I could essentially warranty it myself; an understandable risk.

In the course of my search, I wrote to one of the PCA Technical Chairs (who is also a very well respected shop owner), told him that I was considering a base Cayman as a three season daily driver and asked if there were any specific things to look out for. Among the wisdom that he imparted to me is that the RMS thing is far less common than the internet would lead you to believe. When it happens to someone, they become understandably vocal about it, everybody gets scared and it appears to be much more widespread than it actually is. He made a joke about the water cooled cars being so reliable that he can't make any money fixing them like he does with the older stuff. He also mentioned the the six speed in the S was completely different than the five speed in the base car (not just the same transmission with an extra gear) and it is much tougher.

I thanked him for the information and continued my search.

About a week later, he sent me another email. He had just gotten off the phone with one of his customers. This person is a PCA member with three Porsches, who just became a parent for the first time. He used the words "low mileage" and "motivated seller".

The car turned out to be a 2006 Cayman S with 17,500 miles and almost every conceivable option. Or, at least, way more than I was looking for. It was known to have a good history. It was also exactly the color that I was looking for. I looked at it several times over about two weeks, drove it (alone) a few times and went over the whole car with digital paint gauge to check for signs of damage. Everything checked out. After a little back and forth, we made a deal. And it was a good deal as far as I was concerned.

I am thrilled with the car. Some of that is just the fact that it's the new toy, but it is really a mind bending car. I can answer specific questions that you may have about various options and other stuff, but I'm getting tired of typing. I will say this though: I had read that people say that you don't want 19 inch wheels unless you have PASM. I didn't really want PASM but my car has it and I only have 18 inch wheels. After driving the car for a bit, I can understand that. I'm not a huge fan of 19's (though I love the Turbo wheels), but I don't think that I could live with them without the PASM in the soft mode most of the time. I mention this specifically because the blue car in your photo has19's. PASM Sport mode, even with the 18's, is insane.

I am happy.

I think it would certainly go a long way toward making you happy. It would make me happy, thats for damn sure. Sell the 'Vette if you must, get the S and get along with it.

The best piece of advice I can give a Porsche shopper is to pay an expert check out the car for you.

Oh, and buy used. Let someone else pay your depreciation.

I posted this a few months ago:

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/drove-a-porsche-cayman/37085/page1/

Thanks for the info woody. This would be my primary dd and there is no local Porsche garage, thus the primary reason I'm over thinking thinks. A leaky rms is mo biggie to me, a bad intermediate shaft bearing scares me.

Afak, does the 3.4 share the ims issues with the 2.7?

Around here an al lotus won't rust, but the corrosion from salt exposure would probably stress the glue holding it together..

There really shouldn't be any distinction between the 3.4 and 2.7 in that regard, or the 911 engines for that matter. It is a design issue with the M96 engines.

Porsche redesigned the RMS seal to a much better design and, I think, they came out around January of 1996.

Daytonaer,

You might find this interesting:

http://www.planet-9.com/reviews/g10-service-items-page3.html

I kind of skimmed the thread, but if you have a corvette, AND like the corvette, why not get a newer, better corvette?

HiTempguy wrote: I kind of skimmed the thread, but if you have a corvette, AND like the corvette, why not get a newer, better corvette?

Is your second wife going to be just like your first?

I liked my Boxster S as a three season driver. It never leaked, if I were in a position to be looking the Cayman would be on my list. Do it

Folks,

Please explain "Digital paint gage", what do they do, where do you get them, what do they cost? (I'm guessing ultrasonic?)

"PASM"?

Thanks,

Rog

PASM is Porsche Active Suspension Management. It is good, you want it.

A Cayman would be fun, and it would make ME happy.

Get one, you will love it. BTW, the Caymans don't have the IMS bearing problem.

Teh E36 M3 wrote: Is your second wife going to be just like your first?

I didn't realize they came with a trade in package. Dang!

emodspitfire wrote: Folks, Please explain "Digital paint gage", what do they do, where do you get them, what do they cost? (I'm guessing ultrasonic?) "PASM"? Thanks, Rog

The digital paint gauge measures the thickness of the paint in microns. You hold it up to as many points around the car as you wish. You are looking for low, consistent numbers. If it suddenly reads "infinity", or an unusually high number, you've found an area that has significantly heavier paint, indicating a repair.

At the push of a button, PASM electronically (and very noticeably) stiffens the suspension. In the Sport mode, the throttle mapping becomes much more aggressive and the electronic stability controls are relaxed. The real beauty of the PASM is that you can motor around on the soft setting until you decide that you really want to attack some corners. It makes life with 19's much more tolerable.

PASM equipped cars are also slightly lower from the factory.

Late model M cars have a similar electronically adjustable suspension system. I can't imagine how expensive it would be to repair or replace a few years down the line.

Update!!

First; thanks for the replies, they were all very helpful!

Second, to answer the question I asked;

Maybe. But not now.

I decided to skip over the cayman for now. Doing some soul searching I realized what I wanted was a fun car I could and would drive every day. My vette (and new vettes) are great fun, but impractical for driving every day. Even with magic tires you can't drive a 'vette every day in central PA mountains. Or if you can, you are way awesomer than I.

Honestly the only thing that scared me away from the cayman was reliability. Porsche puts a lot of marketing $ convincing me their cars are what I need for every day, and I believe them. Unfortunately I got scared off from purchasing a used cayman due to IMS issues (really, probably blown out of proportion by the wonderful internet) and the fact that the nearest P-car service center is 3 hours away.

What I got, probably is not going to be that popular here, but so what, its my car not yours.

If you think of this as a P-71 with style, maybe you'll understand it. It's that big.

At its new home:

Planned mods include cop charger steelies with snow tires and mudflaps. Thats it. And I'm happy.

I also agree with the '09 web video posted here, pretty spot on.

Now thats a friggin plot twist right there! I got all the way to the end with NO suspicion of a friggin dodge challenger.. lol Great fun!!