So what can you do
if the engine blows?
The Boxster engine is now almost 13 years old, being first produced as a '97 model in '96. There have been 3 displacements for the Model 986 (2.5, 2.7 and 3.2) with another for the Model 987S (3.4) until 2009 when a dew design was introduced. The same basic engine design was used in the Model 996 and 997 911s in varying displacements through 2008. There have been 3 DME (engine electronic control) versions by Bosch (5.2, 7.2 and 7.8) used over the years.
The engines are called M96 engines.
Fortunately, for most owners, you won't ever have a complete engine failure happen. But it can happen. So read on.
Boxster engines are most frequently replaced for any of 5 reasons:
1. Cylinder sleeve failures which typically have rendered the engines unrebuildable. Least common on 3.2 engines. There are improved replacement parts from non-Porsche sources.
2. Intermediate shaft failures (IMS) which occur most often on stick shift cars and on both of the IMS designs used. These typically rendered the engines unrebuildable. There are improved replacement parts from non-Porsche sources which can be installed as a preventative measure.
3. Oil pump failure. This allows bits of the oil pump to get into the oil system and generally makes the engines unrebuildable.
4. Rear Main Seal (RMS) degradation over time. There have been multiple seal designs used over the years. Even the newest can fail but they have gotten much better. Most common on stick shift cars but can also occur on Tiptronic cars. Results in an oil drip. Can be lived with though it is an irritant unless and until it affects the clutch. Cheap to replace when the clutch is being replaced. But if the car is under warranty and found to have certain measurements which say that even a new seal won't stop the leaking, Porsche has replaced engines.
5. Cooling system failures which cause the block to overheat and distort. Stop immediately if it gets too hot!! I know it may be inconvenient and expensive to get the car flatbeded but consider the cost and inconvenience of the repair if you don't.
All engines can fail and every manufacturer has a certain number that fail.
When I say "typically unrebuildable", I really mean only an extremely experienced person should even attempt it as the problem could be fixed but if all the oil passages aren't perfectly cleaned of failure residue, the engine can detonate quickly..
If you have a failure that seems like it could be one of these (or if the Check Engine Light comes on blinking), stop the car immediately and have it flatbeded to your local Porsche repair shop or dealer. Running it will only increase the damage and make rebuildability more unlikely. Find out if the repair mechanic has special experience in the internals of the M96 engine. And understand that any problem diagnosis may add cost when compared to a "just replace it" cost and may be wasted effort or may result in a fairly low cost way to save your engine and there is little way of telling before the expenses mount even for a mechanic experienced with the M96 engine..
Of course Porsche will if you are under either the original new-car warranty (always get your "in-service date" in writing as it starts the warranty period) or CPO period. A recent in-warranty repair bill that involved dealer engine replacement was $19k. This included a new motor, labor and a partial tear down of the engine by the local dealer to determine the cause of the failure.
How Porsche will react will, if it isn't under warranty, depend on many things...the age and mileage of the car, original owner status, the use of the car (they can tell from the DME if it has been abused), the relationship of the owner to the dealer or brand (had the car been bought from the dealer, always serviced by the book from the dealer, bought 3 cars from the dealer or have 3 Porsches in your garage you might just get treated differently as a measure of goodwill). It's worthwhile asking Porsche to help you...asking, not demanding. This is done through your dealer. And if you think you have a case, it argues for having the car flatbeded to the dealer's repair shop.
For the first years of the Boxster, engine failures were only handled as motor swaps, whether in or out of warranty. It was only a matter of who pays and how much. You went to the dealer, he pulled your engine, ordered a replacement crate engine from Porsche and shipped your old engine core to Porsche for analysis. Your car got a new engine with many of the small improvements Porsche designed into the engine over the years. The size of the engine remained the same, there were no up-swaps available under this program. The engines were expensive, but available. There was no alternatives to Porsche capable of providing new or rebuilt motors. Used motors were available from wrecking yards.
The parts to rebuild a Boxster engine have been only theoretically available through about 2008. I say "only theoretically" because the part numbers were in the PET (Porsche's price list) but they were never used because no one knew how to rebuild the engines, there was no training available. In 2008 Porsche started trying to encourage dealers to do local engine failure analysis and rebuilds with a program supporting that which made parts more available. While the rebuild program was announced in early 2008, as of mid-2009 I have heard of no one whose failed motor was rebuilt by a dealer. I sure wouldn't want to be the guinea pig. I want someone rebuilding mine who has done many of them before.
By 2008, the cost of replacement engines from Porsche had climbed to over $11k. And these were not engines which had had all the design problems fixed, but engines still with some of the same original design! The price of these new (or rebuilt by Porsche) "crate" motors influenced the price of motors out of wrecks which climbed from $2.5k to $4k to over $6k depending on engine size and age/mileage! And that doesn't include shipping or labor. and sometimes included the requirement for you to ship your broken engine to the parts supplier (the so called "core return" requirement).
Just as the rebuilding and improvement of the older air-cooled Porsche motors became a viable business as Porsche no longer supported those motors, it can be anticipated that some independent rebuilders will emerge over the next few years either to provide what Porsche will not (improved or more powerful Boxster engines) or to provide what Porsche does not (rebuilt engines). And there will come a time when Porsche no longer supports the older water cooled flat-6 engines used in the model 986 Boxster and Model 996 911. How well the economics of this will work out remains to be seen. Will owners of older Boxsters value their Boxsters the same way 911 owners do and will the resale prices of good examples of a Boxster hold up enough to make an engine swap viable? Or will the Boxster be just another car, scrapped when old and a major failure makes it too expensive to repair? Over the next 3 years, I think we will start to see the answer. With Boxster prices dropping as low as $7k for a running high mileage '97, I think we know the answer already...parting them out can make more sense than a new engine. And there are salvage outfits that will buy your Boxster for its parts value. Still for some there is the emotion of "its a Porsche" and they will want to keep the car on the road at almost any price.
A lot depends on your local resources...the capabilities and labor pricing of your mechanic. And a lot depends on how old your car is and how much it is worth as a running car. To some, it is priceless and they will spend anything to get it back on the road. To others, it is just a car and the economics dictate if it will be rebuilt or scrapped.
I have heard of one Boxster owner rebuilding a Porsche Boxster motor with Porsche parts for about $3.5k. (http://www.986fix.com/) And I've heard of a few owners swapping motors. And getting them to work. To me those are very rare individuals and I salute them.
For most people, the options are:
1. Sell your car for parting-out or for use as a Boxster-spec race car. I've heard of dealers offering ~$3k for older Boxsters with blown engines. Maybe you can get a little more if your car is newer. Contact the rebuilders and see if they are interested in your car as-is.
2. Buy a "crate" motor from Porsche. Does it make sense to pay $11+k for the motor and another ~$2-3k for labor to install a new engine into a car worth what yours is worth and with the age of the other parts of your car?. Granted you do get a 2 year warranty on the engine if it is installed by a Porsche dealer. But you also get the potential for the same problems down the road because the design cause of the problem hasn't been eliminated in the "crate" motor (yes, we have seen two time losers!) And what would you be tempted to update while the engine was out that would add to the cost? Half-shaft boots? Clutch? AOS? What else?
3. Buy a used motor for $2.5-6k and get it installed for another $1-3k. Because of the position of the engine in a Boxster, even cars that are totaled can offer good engines. You have to determine if it make sense to install a used engine into a car worth what your car is worth. With a used motor, you generally get no (or a month long) warranty. You also get the potential for the same problems down the road because the cause of the problem hasn't been eliminated in the used motor. See this wrecking yards list or browse eBay for used engines.
This is the cheapest get-it-back-on-the-road approach. It does, however, carry the risk of any used part so know your source and read any warranty carefully.
4. Investigate the rebuilders who are starting to emerge who rebuild Boxster engines with designs, parts and processes advertised as better. The cost is approximately the same as the Porsche crate motor. There may or may not be a warranty. And the warranty may have restrictions. Despite the marketing, the reliability of these "improvements" may or may not be better than the Porsche crate motor. Few of the rebuilders have any number of motors with any significant mileage on them. Since Porsche engine designers run dozens of engines through 100K mile long simulations and still design and process problems slip through, I'm thinking these rebuilders will need several years of proving that their improvements don't introduce a new set of problems before we can fully trust their products to be totally proven as "better". But they sure sound tempting, their on-the-road examples now near the several dozen mark and they are starting to accumulate serious mileage.
An article on the M96 engine used in 1997-2009 Boxsters was in the December 2008 Excellence magazine. It is now somewhat dated as there have been more discoveries and more improved parts created to fix things that have since been discovered.
Shops in the US which have rebuilding M96 engine programs:
http://www.strasseauto.com/index.html (Costa Mesa, CA)
http://www.flat6innovations.com/ (Cleveland, GA) in cooperation with http://www.lnengineering.com/boxster.html
Musante Motor Sports (South Windsor, CT)
As of Mid-2009, rebuilders all seem to be a work in progress in terms of satisfying an immediate need for an engine available within a week or two shipped to your local dealer/mechanic. Part of the reason the rebuilders can't ship one immediately is that the engines are custom built in various sizes and with various optional parts and varying optional upgrades. Ask to read the warranty in writing in advance of purchase. Know any restrictions on use (track, DE, Auto-X, over-rev?). And on how who does the installation affects the warranty. Their pricing is about the same as or slightly more than a Porsche crate motor.
Obviously, rebuilders vary in quality. So do your on-line due diligence. Trust but verify.
5. An engine swap but with a larger engine. The most common is a 3.4 engine from a wrecked 996. The cost of the used motor is not that much more than for a stock used Boxster motor. The used 3.4, 3.6 or even 3.8 motors all share many of the same design characteristics as our 2.5, 2.7 and 3.2 Boxster motors. I've heard of people installing 3.6, 3.8 and even X51 engines. These may come with a limited warranty or no warranty and they may be of original or questionable quality. Know your source.
http://www.flat6innovations.com/ has a 2.7 litre bored to 2.9 and a 3.2 bored to 3.6 available. These are rebuilt with many improved parts used in the process so many of the original design issues are no longer the same as with a crate motor from Porsche. See the comments re rebuilders above relative to the testing of these improvements though. They aren't cheap, $11-15k depending plus removal and installation labor charges. And I haven't heard of any problems with them.
Unfortunately, you may get the impression from reading here that all Boxster engines will have problems or that the problems are common. They won't and they aren't. It is just my style to be brutally honest about what can happen to a very small percentage of the M96 engines. (2009 and later S engines are of a different design.)
Neither of my Boxsters ever had more problems than any of my Hondas. The enjoyment was high and the cost of maintenance was low.
Whatever you decide to do, I hope I've made you aware that this wasn't the same as when the motor needed to be replaced in my '89 Dodge minivan. There the cost of replacement with a rebuilt warranted-for-1-year motor was about $2k. It was warranted for 1 year by the company who rebuilt the long block and that warranty included the cost of removal and reinstallation of the replacement motor (and I collected on that when the first remanufactured engine smoked badly at 1600 miles and one month) .
For your Boxster, there are more options and all cost significantly more.
Sorry.