You are safe

After a few years without a Boxster, my wife and I are considering a return to the fold, with a used car. It would be her car, and she says it has to be a PDK. So, that puts it at 2009 or newer. For my peace of mind, it has to be the new engine without IMS, so that prompts a question: Does the base 2009 car have an IMS? I know that this particular engine (non-S) does not have direct injection, but what about the IMS?
Thanks in advance.

No IMS in any 2009 Boxster or Cayman.

Thanks, Mike. We will be looking at a base 2009 today at our local dealership. Red with tan interior, 19000 miles.

...We will be in PD again this winter. Hope to see you guys then.

Yes, Dennis. I've dealt with them a couple of times already with the Carrera, once for regular service and once for a clicking noise in the clutch mechanism that turned out to be a major repair. They seem to be very professional, knowledgeable, and thus far from my experience their work is good, if a bit expensive. If you did not make it over here for the summer to test the weather, you did not miss much. It really did not get that hot until about the last two weeks. If anything, I think it was a little more humid than you'd expect for the desert, but that seems to be the trend now: more and more humidity as time goes by. Let me know when you come this way this winter.

Once the clutch is out, and someday it will be, its a $1500 job to replace the IMS with an LN unit. Problem solved (or, so we hope, i know, i know we'll be sure in 10 years). So i would simply add $1500 to the price of an earlier care and proceed.

The car he is looking at has no IMS.

You are right about the LN replacement, but only for certain cars. I believe the cars with the "upgraded" factory IMS (most of the cars in model years 2006-2008, but not all) can not have the LN bearing installed without disassembling the engine.

Looked at the car, but it did not "hit" with my wife, so we are passing on it. She did not like the color (the standard red) with the tan interior ("too traditional")). About 12,000 miles, good apparent condition (did not look in detail), asking about $47K, I am sure negotiable. It was a fairly basic but nice car, with the only serious flaw from my point of view being the lack of bi-xenon lights, which I've come to regard as almost mandatory now. We'll keep on looking.

his (Tino's) wife didn't like the car. Not much Pedro could do about that.

Minus 40 degrees... Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?