Faults:

Nothing now, however when I bought it all kinds of stuff was malfunctioning. I mean everything but IMS. I made them a deal to get it right, give me my money, or cover the difference between this Boxster and a 911... Needless to say it was completely sorted out.

General Comments:

The car is absolutely beautiful. Let's open with that. I own a Lotus Esprit Turbo, a purpose built super car from the 80/90s. So to compare/contrast the Lotus has extremely low end torque and as you might imagine starts getting racy in 4th gear... and the sound is awesome. Now the 2005 Boxster I have only owned about 2 weeks. More than enough time to rate... like my Lotus it has a mid mounted engine... mid mounted makes a huge difference. The gears shift hard enough so you know what gear you're looking for and what gear you're in for urban driving. The sports car sound happens when you hit the freeway. Otherwise very suburban.

OK to sum up all in a word, this is a daily driver sports car. Here in Los Angeles it's about Mustangs and Vettes... a Boxster is real sports car, so YES I love my Porsche Boxster... a purpose built sports car you can drive every day...

Faults:

The engine blew up at 42k miles, causing a huge bill of up to £11,000 GBP!

Electric top struts snapped.

Rear body module failed.

Window seals leak.

General Comments:

Some things about this car are quite nice, it sounds lovely for example, but it is of terrible quality.

Interior plastics are pretty cheap for a more expensive car.

Sound system jumps and skips, even with brand new CDs.

Porsche is supposed to be a manufacturer of reliable and high quality sports cars. This isn't really the case, this car has been properly serviced, but the engine failed very prematurely. Dealers response was 'well it's a sports car'.

Staggering in my opinion.

The car was bought as a weekend vehicle. At the time our other cars were all high mileage, 162k miles Rover 618 (still own), 158k mile BMW 520i and 172k mile Toyota Celica. All still running, the Celica in particular got thrashed on track days and loved it. The Boxster was simply used on normal roads, at normal speeds, for cruising around.

Totally unacceptable in my opinion, and the dealers are disinterested, rude and inflexible, on top of other quality issues such as failure of the convertible top, and the module that controls the rear half of the car.

Will never ever touch a Porker again. A great shame they aren't what they used to be.

Faults:

Electric roof mechanism failed due to cheap nylon parts, 200 pound fix, not under warranty!!

CD player skips badly.

Rough idle on hot start, clears after a few seconds or upon gear selection.

Front luggage compartment leaked, traced to split rubber grommets.

General Comments:

1st off, I love this car I really do, but I don't get the hype, it really doesn't handle all that amazingly in normal driving, a "normal car" is better at medium speeds.

The steering is too heavy while driving slowly, and doesn't center well.

Also the car will understeer more the less fuel is in the front mounted tank, unless you are really rough with it and put your foot down, not the best in normal fast "ish" road driving, there is far more understeer than one would imagine.

However it does have incredible traction off the line, wet or dry, and you can really use all the power, and it inspires true confidence on the motorway, and particularly in wet weather.

Ours has the smallest 17inch wheels, in part to help deal with the appalling state of the roads, so the ride is firm but controlled and acceptable even over big speed bumps and potholes, I think with 19 inch wheels and sports suspension the ride would be appalling.

Its fairly noisy at 70mph or above, mostly engine noise, and the addictive flat 6 wail becomes an irritating drone at speed. It does sound lovely with the roof down while going for a blast though.

It's fast enough though, and the brakes are superb.

The transmission is silky smooth, and combined with the PSM you can make the most of what it has to give.

Standard equipment is miserly, definitely go for leather, climate, the wind deflector, sound package plus, parking sensors and painted wheel centers at the very least, as you only get the basics as standard.

Servicing is every 18k miles or 2 years, far too long in my opinion, but hey who am I to argue, it's not too expensive though.

We get around 28mpg on Shell Optimax petrol, seems to like this best. Avoid supermarket petrol, gets 4mpg less and feels slower.

Its also surprisingly practical, the front boot is especially roomy, and with some weight in it improves steering feel at speed.

2 areas are annoying though, the wipers are poor and so are the dip beam headlights.

I love the Cayenne 4x4, so would have another Porsche, but as a 2 seat convertible, I prefer the feel and drive of the 3.0 BMW Z4.

The cabin is still too cheap looking for a car of this type too, and there are a couple of rattles, and the problems we have had are not acceptable from a Porsche.

This is not to say I'm disappointed with the car, but I think others do it better if you can live without the badge and the amazing engine note.