Complete rebuild

 OK, slight exaggeration - I fitted the new window switches on the drivers door. Surprisingly easy - the trim bits came off quite easily, popping the door card out was a little hairy as I had to put in a bit of effort and the crack sound it made was scary, but all good, nothing broken for a change. The switch itself popped out very smoothly and the reverse fit was smooth as well. Drivers window switch now works every time as opposed to the 50/50 gamble before.

I also had a headlight bulb blow - quite impressed the car (18 years old, remember) told me about it. The bulbs were a bit steep (I replaced the other side at the same time, for some recommended brighter make, Osram Night Breakers - cool name!) at £45 for 2 but impressed by the change process - the entire headlight unit comes out of the bodywork after using a special tool (in the toolkit).

Went out on Sunday to meet my kit car group for a xmas breakfat at Frant Lakes. Only 3 kits turned up (not bad at this time of year):

....and a group of Elise owners (some of whom were ex-kit owners):

Spot the odd one out? Yeah, me...

Had a fun run there and back, including a short blat with that black Elise in the pic next to me. The owner has supercharged it and done some other tweaks so it makes 300bhp - didn't pull away from me though. However, we only managed a couple of miles of lairiness before traffic got in the way and I don't know how much he was trying.

Heated seats and proper heating were nice, as was the roof when the heavens opened on the way home. In my kit, it would have been much wetter.

The Daily Churn

 So I did plan to go out and put my door switch in but it was -1, I had a nice coffee and there was footy on the telly, so, yeah, that didn't happen - another day.

Today was a short run to a nice cafe, the Milk Churn:

The weather wasn't too bad, wet and 5 degC and it meant the roads were quite clear of traffic, so I had a fun drive back.

I am really enjoying my drives in the 'baby' Porsche - it feels like a supercar, not just a sports car. It's not hugely heavy but because it's small, it feels 'concentrated' and hefty and the engine feels like it should be in something much bigger. Between 2k and 4k revs, it sounds turbine-like, promising madness ahead. Over 4k, it's glorious - a real butch wail and it fires down the road. 

While the 0-60 time is not much faster than the original Zedster, Zedster2 is much smoother and gets to a speed that Zedster feels uncomfortable at (lots of vibration etc). So I find myself braking much more than I ever did in Zedster, which could just engine brake a lot of the time. 

A very different driving style is needed, much more squirt and brake in Zedster2, so it is faster but harder work...great fun in a different way.

Changed the wiper blades today - the old ones were not split but squeaked horribly, a sign that they're old and the rubber on them was getting hard. Much better now...

I can see clearly...

 So time to actually do some work of my own - a simple job to clean the headlights, which were looking a little yellow.

I've got a kit from Halfords which I didn't do a great job with on my daughters Aygo but gave it a go and it's worked out OK - before and after on one side:

...and what it looked like compared to the other side:

Not too shabby...

Doh! Forgot I've got the new door window switches to fit...going back out now...

Devils Punchbowl

Last weekend, went on an enjoyable short run from Dunsfold to the Devils Punchbowl with the Porksters:

Fun run, great little caff I'd not been to before - good day. This group are fairly new (been going a year or 2, I believe) but they're pretty active, although only for short runs (this one was 25 miles or so).

I've started a thread to try persuade a few of them to do a road trip like I've done several times with my kit car group. I don't have enough holiday next year to do the week-long trip my kit car people are going on, so will try arrange a 4 day trip to Wales. See how it goes...

This weekend, we met up on Saturday in a pub in Guildford for Xmas meal and beers, which was enjoyable. Today, I did a little run to a new cafe I've been trying to get too; Torque Motors Cafe near Rusper. I had a good run there and it was a great place; lots of car-related stuff all over the walls, F1 on a big screen, driving sim to hire, great food and coffee - perfect. Must take others here...

I've also paid for TomTom Go on my phone. Never been a fan of TT (my kit car people had so many problems with it) but it works with Android Auto and allows proper routes which can be shared with others (unlike Google Maps, for example). It's only £20 per year, which isn't too bad and it worked OK on this test drive today

Money, money, money

...it's not funny...

Before I depress myself, some pics of the Blackbushe meet last weekend - I thought it was a general meet for lots of cars but no, just Porsches:

The eagle-eyed will notice my son's car at the end - as I said, I thought it was a general car meet, so invited him along - whoops. Another 10 or so cars did turn up after this pic, so it was not as empty as it looks. The weather was average (spitting rain, so roofs up) and not the most exciting drive but I'm still in the honeymoon period, so any trip out is awesome!

My son's car impressed/annoyed (I can't be sure which) other members as he started up and then smoked tyres out of the car park - I still love it but I'm guessing not everyone in the group agrees...

Sadly for him, he had a minor disaster down the road - he lost his brakes completely. Luckily, he noticed they were going (pedal went very soft) and he slowed down and just managed to get into a petrol station. After filling up, the car wouldn't let him drive off because it detected the complete absence of brake fluid - clever. I used my breakdown service to get him recovered home. It looks to be the link pipe on one of the calipers that has split. We tried to unscrew it ourselves but in too tight - booked in for a fix next week.

So I took my car to Paul Lewis (Torque Boxsters, link on the right) for the new/2nd-hand driveshaft to be fitted. I'd also bought gear mounts for him to fit because Parrs Porsche told me mine were 'split' - however, Paul couldn't see that being the case, so he didn't change them in the end. However, he had a nightmare with corroded bits to get the driveshaft in - he had to cut one of the control arms out completely and so I had to get both replaced - total bill of £925 !!!! Ouch...

Embarrassingly, he also told me my tyre pressures were very low (22 psi, should be 32) - man, how did I not check simple stuff like that? In my meagre defence, 19" wheels have so little rubber, it's difficult to tell just by looking at them...but, still, pathetic.

So now, the car feels VERY different and I'm not sure it's a 'good' different...before, the car was lovely and smooth over most road surfaces but floaty round corners and at speed, with a lot of tramlining. Now, on normal roads, it is hard - very hard, almost uncomfortably so. I haven't driven too much so I'm assuming it will also be better at speed and in the twisties - I'll have to see how it goes. I know this is what it should feel like and it is better/safer etc....but 50% of my driving is going to be in 'chill' mode - it's difficult to 'chill' if your teeth are being rattled.

I've created a 'Costs' page (link up at the top) to keep track of how much money I'm spending - definitely not for the wife to see and I may give up on it as well if it becomes too painful.

Return of the Roof

 Picked up the new roof switch and fitted it today - a bit fiddly but pretty simple and the roof seems to now be working fine.

I drove to Guildford Porsche to get the part and I was hoping to look round a lovely showroom - sadly, they are in the middle of a complete rebuild and so are working out of some fancy prefabs - bummer. I did get a mahoosif calendar for free but it's so big, it's probably going in the bin:

However, what was good was a sort of coin/medal that came with it - quite nice:

I have ordered gearbox mounts which I will take to Paul (Torque Boxster) next week and he will replace them at the same time as the 2nd hand driveshaft to fix the leaking one. My first big bill....yay!

Another meet planned for the weekend at Blackbushe airport - should be interesting...

Roofless

 I went out for a short drive in a break in the rain,  roof down, all lovely....get back and the roof refused to go back up - bugger. Worse, it started clouding over - the rain was on the way back. Luckily, there is a manual process to get the hood up, which requires popping off the 4 rods holding the roof and cover down.

Assuming the switch is the problem (a common issue), I've ordered a new one and will get it midweek. Installing it looks pretty simple and hopefully that will fix it.

This weekend, met up with a FB group...we met 10 minutes down the road from me:

It looked like rain when I left home, so I left the roof up. The sun came out but I was too embarrassed to manually put the roof down, so I left it up for the short hop down to a local pub where I was told another club was also turning up. I expected another 5 or 6 cars - oh no....

The Stuttgart Group, Porsche GB, maybe others - the place was rammed. I'd never seen so many Porsches...some oldies:

Lots of nice stuff:

...with this stunning blue 911 example my favourite:

Obviously, Zedster2 was the best, even with the roof up:

(Actually, probably the cheapest car there).

The ongoing 'keep it or sell it' decision is being made more difficult because my wife likes Zedster2 - I came back from this meet and we went off to a local beauty spot to walk the dog, with her even asking me to put the roof down. She's been out in Zedster2 more times in a month than Zedster in 6 years. 

Another possible issue has raised its head; the car feels a bit floaty. I wasn't sure if that was just normal but on a forum, someone else has mentioned it and a suggested cause from someone else is engine/gearbox mounts, which is what the Porsche specialist told me were knackered on Zedster2. Do I try get them done at the same time as the driveshaft? Seems sensible...

Scratch that...

 Not done much over the last couple of weeks - popped out for a few drives to keep everything lubricated and so far very grateful to not detect any leaks into the car, what with the torrential rain we've been having.

I did take the car to a scratch repair place and they said those scratches are in the primer and won't just buff out - £800 to repaint both wings. Yeah, that's not happening for a while...

Typically, just as I buy a convertible, we have the wettest month probably on record. I'm also getting every darn weekend taken up with university visits for my daughter but we just had the last one, so hopefully, I can finally get out at weekends. I've found a good, local Facebook group who get out a lot (I annoyingly missed an excellent looking meet up at Biggin Hill this weekend) and they have meets on both upcoming weekends, so I'll hopefully get to those. The only problem is, they are sticklers for only allowing Boxsters to join in (they even refused a Cayman owner!) and I wanted to include my son in these meets. Have to see how it goes...

The non-working 12v socket was just a blown fuse, easily fixed and I did get my camera working ok (annoyingly, I forgot to wipe the SD card so I only got 5 minutes of me lost in a housing estate). It will need some padding to stop it rattling but should be good for future trips.

My roof did have a bit of a freak out and refused to open once. I sprayed some WD40 into the roof lock mechanism and that cured it but not sure how long for. The switches do go and are about £60 to replace, so not too serious, hopefully.

The mechanic who I was talking to found a 2nd hand drivesahft on eBay for £100, which he says he bought and paid for, although he seems to have gone silent at the moment. No rush but I'll hopefully get that changed soon...

YOLO

 The quote came back from the Porsche specialist and it's even worse than I thought - a new driveshaft is not a mere £500 - oh no - it's £1,200....!!! (I saw one advertised for £500 but out of stock - must have been a site just wanting attention).

I was writing the Auto Trader ad when some comments on a forum made me re-think - I don't have to use brand new parts; second-hand will do and are much cheaper (the labour isn't actually that bad - around £200). I've also found a local-ish guy who has set himself up after many years of Porsche tinkering and reckons he can do it for under £500 (just the driveshaft) fitted, which is bordering on affordable. Admittedly, he has to find a 2nd hand driveshaft of reasonable condition, might be tricky?

I had a great weekend in Zedster2 - took the wife to the coast with the dog and it went really well (apart from me scaring her when some bloke in a Seat dared to overtake me - must grow up). Interestingly, the dog loved it and happily sat on the wife's lap all the way (he is normally very restless in cars - I think he likes the roof down).

Combined with the find of a reasonable mechanic, I'm feeling happier and really want to keep Zedster2 - I still marvel at the smoothness and banshee wail of that flat six - wonderful. As the yoof say, YOLO (You Only Live Once)...

This is what the leaking driveshaft looks like (that green goo is the leak):

I would also like to get the gearbox mounts replaced - £528 from the specialist but I think he is quoting for the mount plus the supporting bracket - you can buy the mounts alone for £200 and just re-use the old brackets (according to a YT video) - I'll see if Paul (the mechanic - link to the right) can do that.

Other items on the to-do list:

1. Brake lines/fixings.
2. Panel scratches on both rear wings. I tried some scratch remover this weekend and it did nothing (maybe I should have rubbed for MUCH longer? Dunno).
3. Reversing camera - very difficult to reverse due to the low seat/high rear combination.
4. 12v socket in centre armrest doesn't seem to be working - maybe just a fuse...I wanted to set up a camera to film a few drives and my cheap (non-GoPro) camera eats through a battery in 30 minutes, so I prefer to have a permanent power feed.
5. Drivers side window switch a bit sticky - WD40 may be enough?
6. A decent clean - there is algae growing in the rear boot gutters.

Reality strikes

 So Zedster2 (my kit car was Zedster) passed the MOT with a couple of advisories; the usual dirty headlights and a leaking CV boot. In my naivety, I thought, OK, £150 to replace the CV boot....oh no, no, no....

The MOT place only has limited options to write so they put "rubber boot leaking" - in reality, what is leaking is a metal part of the driveshaft, a common problem as the cars get older and corrosion sets in. The problem is, the fix is to replace the entire driveshaft, at around £500 just for the part!! And the other one isn't much better.

I knew that old cars (not just Porsches) need work and I knew that a premium car like a Porsche would need more expensive parts but you always hope it won't happen to you...well, it has...and it will probably get worse.

So what do I do?

My kit car is compromised and is about 70% of the car the Porsche is BUT it is 10% of the cost - the driveshafts for my kit car cost me £120 (for both) and I fitted them myself. BUT if I had to replace the driveshafts on my kit now, it might take me months to get up the energy/enthusiasm to do it (and getting that hub nut off will be a bitch). BUT my kit has only done 22k miles - it will be a while before corrosion gets as bad as the Porsche is now. BUT driving the Porsche is just as much fun as my kit was and far more civilised.

Lot of 'buts'...

The dealer (Parrs Porsche, Crawley) did a 'free' health check and also advised:

1. Brake fittings (not the pipes, the bits they go into) are corroded and could do with replacing.

2. Gearbox mount is corroded and needs replacing.

3. Some delamination of some suspension part.

No idea of cost (they said they would get back to me with quotes) but it won't be a small number. I can afford the costs (as long as it doesn't get REALLY bad) but I'm naturally a tightwad and it grates spending this much on a selfish toy. Although I don't have to do any of this work now, I could just wait until I hear the driveshaft crunching or it fails an MOT?

So is Porsche ownership worth it? I'm normally good at these sort of decisions - totally flummoxed at the moment...head says cut my losses and sell it, heart says keep the badge.

After the Beginning...

 I've always liked cars but never in the dedicated way of the show-going, polish-obsessed purists - I just always liked cars.

I was not one of those lucky people who's family owned a garage or a farm where they learnt to drive before they could walk. I passed my test at 17 (first time, 10 lessons - just saying) in 1987 and drove my mum's car for the first few years. Only after my university gap year did I have enough cash to buy my first car, a 1981 VW Polo.

I was only ever able to afford one car at a time and none were very exciting - until the car I built myself in 2015 (see the linked blog on the right).

Now, it's 2023 and as you can read in my last few blog entries for my kit car, I'm reverting to the mainstream, although something I'd hope to think is a little less dull - a Porsche Boxster.

I've always quite liked them but never thought much more about it until I realised how much I loved driving (but not fixing) my kit car - I needed a replacement with the fun of a kit car and hopefully less of the downsides (reliability and comfort).

I couldn't afford (or easily fit into) a Lotus Elise, an MX5 didn't really have the oomph and a BMW Z4 felt a bit chavvy (and I've owned the Z3 which was OK but not amazing). So Boxster it was...

This example has 88k miles, a full service history (with some rather expensive bills I hope I won't need to repeat), recent new disks and pads and a recently refurbished roof, all for a very reasonable £8,500.

I picked up the car from a private seller in Warwick after a brief inspection (I had little idea of what I was looking for), where the test drive alone sold it for me - it felt awesome!

I've had it for just over a week now and I've changed the head unit:

Before:                             After:

This unit works amazingly - I've never really tried Android Auto but it is very impressive in that it can read out text and WhatsApp messages you get as you go along in a very realistic way (not the robotic voice you might expect) and the voice recognition enables you to speak replies - very impressive and most importantly, it works at 70 mph, if needed, without taking your hands off the wheel.

I've also replaced the rear boot strut and put new car mats in - not earth-shattering changes but I've made a promise to myself to not go too mental.

The biggest job left is to repair the scratches I completely missed on my first inspection on the n/s rear wing - they look very bad but you can't feel them, which suggests the simple scratch-remover polish I've bought should improve it at least.

I've done my first road trip of 500 miles to Cornwall and back, to see family - the car was AMAZING! So darn fast and smooth, it feels like it is accelerating slowly but you suddenly realise everyone else is going backwards or the car in front suddenly approaches much quicker than you expect.

But that does show up one downside to the Boxster - the brakes are woeful. They are powerful enough, eventually, but there is so much pedal travel, you really have to start braking a fraction earlier than you'd like, just to allow for that travel. I've got the car booked in for a brake bleed and early MOT in a few days - see if that improves it. However, looking online, it's a known/common issue which I may just have to get used to.

With this car, I'm also not planning on working on it myself. I may have built a kit car but that had a nice simple 4-pot engine in the front, with no sensors, servos, power steering, ABS etc, etc, that make up modern cars. You should see the process you need to go through to get to the Boxster engine! It's in the middle and you have to remove carpet and unbolt a panel just to see the top of it.

So far, it's looking good but I may yet change my mind and keep the kit car instead....we'll  see.