It's has reached 100k.....the car has only 2 owners and it's a black beauty. Car Fax is clean. My only concern is the automatic tranny....has it reached it's life. Can anyone chime in on the reliability of the older automatics ?

The other huge issue is the IMS...this article seems to indicate the starting with the model year 2000, Porsche started to use single row bearings instead of dual row.https://www.oregonpca.org/wp-content.../ORPCA-IMS.pdf
How could I find out which set-up this car has ?
Could a Porsche dealer look that up based on the VIN ?

 

My 2nd hand info is the Tip is a pretty reliable transmission.

You want to be sure a thorough road test doesn't turn up any issues. For a Tip check out I recommend a k-turn be done with the Tip cold and then warmed up to verify that in both cases the Tip can handle rapid changes in direction with no signs of any problems. If it can do this and manifests no other signs of issues the Tip is good.

How long it will stay good is hard to say but my local dealer service department knows of some (at least one in a Cayenne) that have covered 100's of thousands of miles with no issues. Regular scheduled fluid services are important.

The word I get is if the Tip is starting to act up a fluid service doesn't appear to help. The Tip just continues its downward spiral after the fluid service.

After you have a test ride then a test drive in the car and then during the PPI have the car on the rack there can be *no* Tip leaks. With a leaking Tip you need to budget for the worse case and that is the Tip needs to be replaced.

However, my Porsche tech sources tell me the Tip can be rebuilt. Any large (and not so large) metro area should have a shop that can rebuild the Tip. The techs I talked too told me it is not uncommon for someone to bring in a Boxster with a sick Tip and have the Tip removed and shipped off to be rebuilt then have the Tip reinstalled. I don't know what the Tip R&R costs nor the rebuild but I dare say it is less expensive than having a new Tip installed.

The change over/switch from dual row bearing to single row bearing wasn't a clean switch over is what I have gathered. I have never heard of anyone having any success finding out what bearing is present even with the VIN. But you can stop in at a Porsche dealer and speak to the parts manager and see what he/she has to say.

For more info on the IMSB retrofits and what bearing the car in question might have start at this web page:

http://imsretrofit.com