All posts tagged porsche

Fixing Dents on the Porsche Boxster S

The Porsche Boxster S I purchased had a salvage title because it had a massive dent in the left rear quarterpanel, as shown in Figure 1, and a broken tail light. Fixing dents on a car requires real talent and experience, neither of which I had. Nevertheless, I gave it a try in late 2019 by buying a hammer and dolly, and a stud welder set. However, I failed to achieve a good result so ended up giving up after some effort. About 14 months later, in 2021, I decided to hire a cheap body shop guy off CraigsList to get it fixed up so I could make the Boxster my daily driver going forward. I had sold my actual daily driver, a 6-speed manual transmission 2017 VW GTI S, since I was not driving it due to the pandemic.

To make the Boxster my daily driver and to get the salvage title converted to rebuilt title in NJ, I needed the dent fixed. Below is my experience trying to fix the dent myself and then hiring a profesional.

Oil Change on the Porsche Boxster S

The Porsche Boxster S had not really had a full oil change since I procured it. After having driven it about a few hundred miles over the last year, I finally found time and decided to change the oil and the oil filter. ECSTuning.com was running a sale on the LiquiMoly 0W-40 oil change kit along with the OEM Hengst Oil Filter for under $100 with free shipping, so I purchased the kit. This post is to show how to do the oil change. It is quite simple.

Changing Brake Pads on the Porsche Boxster S

The Porsche Boxster S came with brakes that squealed when you drove it to a stop, so it was in desperate need of change of pads. Finally, I spent the ~$400 and purchased original Porsche brake pads from Pelican Parts. Turns out compared to changing the brake pads on the Miata it is much easier to change it on the Porsche Boxster S.

Jump-starting the Porsche Boxster S

First I added 2 gallons of gasoline in the Boxster. Then I tried to start it with the key in the ignition.

The Boxster was completely dead. So probably the battery was dead and needed a jump-start.

The battery is in the front trunk and the trunk does not have a manual lever to open it, in the event that the battery is dead. The Boxster fuse box (Figure 1) has a special red terminal (Figure 3) for a spare battery to turn on just enough electronics in the car to pop the front trunk. Once the front trunk is popped, you can access the battery and jump-start the full car.

A Copart Experience - 2001 Porsche Boxster S

Randomly in July while getting bored at work I was surfing Copart, a salvage auction site, that I saw a Subaru BRZ that had some hail damage but looked fine otherwise. Getting excited, I registered on Copart and placed a bid on it for about $600, but I lost. Over time I kept losing bids on similar BRZ/FR-S cars and decided to expand my horizons. So I started bidding on Porsche Boxsters with minimal damage, raising my maximum bid limit to $1500. I ended up winning a 2001 Porsche Boxster S (Figures 1-5), with 142,000 miles, for $1400 which had a dent on the rear driver side (Figure 3a and 3b), a broken tail light and was in driving condition. Despite having a Miata that needed work, I took on another project — classic project car mistake 😊 !