mytime1

Buying mine for daily driving was the best decision I made in a while. Bought in 2017 06 Cayman S with 57K miles. It now has 140K miles. Drive it 3 x / week for work avg. rountrip is 75 miles and weekends. Such a fun car and I only have 1 speeding ticket in the timeframe!

Maintenance wise, I do all my own work whenever possible. I replaced water pump, coils, plugs, AOS, new suspension, LCA's, greased axle boots and replaced bands, added Numeric shifter kit, third radiator, Soul performance exhaust and headers, brakes and rotors. Regular oil changes, coolant flush, brake fluid changed every 2 yrs., etc. Never broke down on me. Just regular maintenance. Probably have to do the clutch soon as it is original.

Would do it again in a heartbeat.

Herbie555

Revisiting this thread eight months later...

My hunt continues. I've been trying to follow the advice to "buy the best I can afford", so I've set my standards high, but I'm also getting discouraged at the paucity of choices. Being mindful of the bore scoring issues (and to a much lesser degree the IMS thing), I've tried limiting my search to just 987.1 base Caymans and 987.2 Caymans... and come up with few options. (At basically any price.) I've come frustratingly close to a few cars that always seem to be "sold yesterday", and I've walked away from cars outside those parameters, careful to avoid signing up for big issues. Best I can tell, only a handful of people ever bought non-S cars, and even fewer bought 987.2s. (Or they simply refuse to sell them!)

At what point does it become worthwhile to just get a "problematic" car (987.1 S) and set aside $20k for the eventual rebuild? I'm still looking for a mostly-daily driver, so I'm not setting out for a "project", but OTOH maybe I'm denying myself the experience I'm looking for trying to thread a particularly small needle.

KCShelby

I try to drive my car every day.

I spent nearly a year poring through online sales before I found my 2008 Boxster S. It had just under 18K miles on the odo - over the course of fifteen years and three owners - when I bought it seven months ago (Sept 2023). I'm very, very happy with the car.

http://kenshelby.us/images/boxster-005.jpg

Shark Attack

What do I know now? What do you mean by what I know in 2023. I drive mine everyday. But I've also never only had one car to drive.

im not sure about what I know now? That I'm 55 and when im sleepy its kinda hard to get in to?

Herbie555

I guess I'm looking for the opinion of people with some actual experience with the cars. As an experienced owner, would you recommend a 987 as a daily driver in 2024? Or is that something you'd advise against for a first-time owner to sign up for? Like I could answer question for the cars I've owned. I know which 15-20 year old cars I would recommend for someone to drive now, and which ones I'd say "Eh, that was iconic at the time, but xxx or yyy would give you the same experience for a lot less cost/headache/etc."

NCcayman08

i just picked up my 08 Cayman S a few months ago but im not scared of daily driving it at all. Most cars listed ive seen have very low miles and Porsche owners seem to take much better care than other cars. Regarding avoiding the S model I know the IMS and bore scoring are concerns but the probability of those is very low in my mind. Prior owners had an aftermarket part put on to bathe the ims in oil as a precaution.

I will say this is a fantastic car to drive…mist fun ive ever had and i just love the car …maybe a little too much. For the price getting this much car for 25-35k was well worth it for me. Love the speed yellow too….never thought id own a yellow car but once i saw it….decision made. I intend to drive it daily except maybe in icy/snow conditions. My commute is under 10 mins but i will keep on the maintenance and will try to do as much maintenance as i can.

iflyjetzzz

Herbie, I bought my 2007 Cayman S 6MT 11 years ago. I now have 136K miles on it. It's been a daily driver for me; the only spare car I 'have' is my wife's and she also works full time.
No IMS bearing nor bore scoring issues for me.
As far as repairs over the years, most are to be expected. AOS, engine mounts (a weak spot; I recommend getting Function First engine mount inserts when you have the engine mounts replaced), water pump replaced well before failure, fuel pump recently replaced. The head liner fell down a few years ago and I took it to an interior repair shop to have it fixed - this is a weak spot on the Cayman. Transmission overhaul and brake replacement can get pricey. The rotors are slotted so they can't be turned - you can get by with doing a slap pads (new pads without turning the rotors) once between rotor replacement. These are very reliable cars - I change my own oil every 3-4K miles and do most minor maintenance. Anything requiring digging deep on the car is done by an independent mechanic.

This is the longest I've ever owned a car and plan on driving it daily for the next few years. Basically until it becomes too difficult to get in and out of (I'm in my 60s)
By the way, the reason why 987.2s are hard to find is that they were built during the 'great recession', where auto sales fell significantly. There weren't many built compared to 987.1s.

I don't know how particular you are as far as car goes, but just from glancing on Autotrader, I can see several cars that would interest me. You need to expand your search criteria, as there are a decent number of cars out there, but it's not unlimited.
For me, I had two 'must haves' - a manual transmission (it's a Porsche, not some girly car) and any interior color that was not black. I ended up with a Carmon Red Metallic (was looking for forest green/gray/silver) with a tan interior. Figure out your must-haves and accept that perfect is the enemy of good.
I lived in Tucson and traveled to San Diego to buy it, but I did a nationwide search - flying to another city is pretty cheap so don't limit yourself geographically. OK, probably avoid the north because bore scoring tends to happen to cars in northern climates.

Kattman

I absolutely love my '07 Base - 5spd MT. And if I lived somewhere that had amazing weather all year round... I would DEFINITELY daily drive mine!
Mine hides from 'old man winter' for roughly 6 to 7 months out of the year. And the fact I work from home means I typically only drive somewhere a couple times a week. So unfortunately it doesn't get driven daily even in the nicer seasons. But I take EVERY opportunity to drive it when I can.

My 'winter beater' is a mint 2010 Cayenne GTS, getting decked out as an overlander.. so I 'kinda' daily drive a Porsche product, at least.. haha

ehokana

'07 Base for me. I'm selling my N54 335 (which was incredibly comfy for long drives and turbo noises) to start daily'ing my 987. Apart from the clutch in SoCal traffic, there is nothing better. Post-covid, I just don't drive the miles I used to and the 987 looks good sitting in the office parking lot.

bellorr

I will be selling my low mileage, ~16.5K S guards red (very clean and has never gotten rained on - garage queen) sometime in Sept/Oct as I am waiting for the replacement... Let me know.. Thx!

BlueRidge20

I haven't owned a Porsche before, but like the OP, I'm looking to use a 987 Base as a daily driver. But I commute about 25-30k miles a year.

About half would be on rural two lane roads, and the rest would be large city driving. I'll probably buy a Tiptronic / PDK because of the city driving.

With this amount of miles per year can someone estimate a ballpark number to budget for routine service and tires per year? I would do oil changes and minor work, but most done by a mechanic.

Also, can you recommend a good independent mechanic in SW Florida? Thanks!

Ruby Star Light

New 987.2 owner here! I've driven mine about 75 miles daily for work and added 10k miles from the 70k that it had already. It's been fun and hard to use my CRV for the commute as intended!

My buying experience was with carvana, and it had a few big pluses. Selection was ok, and changed a lot during my short search. Cars are located around the country. There's a non refundable delivery fee if it's not local. BUT you get 7 days to decide if you want to keep it. In that 7 days, I had an appt for a thorough inspection. This inspection was less thorough than I hoped, but I covered a lot myself. I drove the heck out of it too. That gave me enough info to know what I was accepting. Following that 7 day period, there's a limited warranty that covered most of the repairs that were needed. This included things like the water pump, front strut replacement, small odds and ends, then ultimately the entire soft top was replaced (long story, probably unnecessary). Just before bringing it in for the soft top, after a few thousand miles, a transmission error occurred and the dealer found it to be a bad MAF that was replaced. Total cost of repairs almost equalled the purchase price. I would never want to take on that cost from a private seller

The downside was that there were a lot more paint damage than expected (scratches with bad touch up paint), but it was going to be "cosmetic" and not covered for repair.

I was skeptical about the warranty, but after my experience with it I was very satisfied. Unfortunately they don't sell extended warranties. Carvana advertises a special maintenance plan but Porsches are excluded.

andrewro

I bought my base '07 Cayman around 13 months ago. I drove around 5k miles in the first year, which includes a lot of short drives to work. I am trying to minimize the short trips now, but it has been a true joy and I look forward to whenever I get to drive it. I started out just under 84k and I've just turned 89k.

The PO had done a lot of service items and minor mods such as Numeric shifter and cables, AOS, new brake pads and rotors, etc. Since I bought it I've replace the starter, suspension arms all around (shocks/struts/springs tbd later on), water pump and thermostat, clutch kit and flywheel, plus other minor and cosmetic stuff, all DIY. I'm running Driven DT40 motor oil. That's a good bit of DIY work and I have more planned, but the car is a true joy to drive! I was in aircooled many years back when it was cheap-ish, so it's good to get into a Porsche again, not to mention one with reliable aircon!