Re: Oops. ....as in my other post

I've been long aspiring to get a 987 Cayman S. There are many anecdotes out there concerning dealer allocations, inventory, or and custom orders, this last being my intention. As we know there's the added complication of Porsche's factory deals fallen through, the VW buyout, Japanese manufacturing delays, and the big switchover to 981 production. It's been difficult to glean out useful, factual information. I would possibly get authoritative information from the dealer, but worry that it would at best be nuanced toward getting me into the showroom to put money down before I'm ready, which won't be for about a month.

So, have any of you had communication with dealers as to ordering availability?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2012 10:11AM by Laz. (view changes)

All Boxster and Cayman production stopped at Valmet's Uusikaupunki plant around the end of September. The new 981 Boxster and Cayman will be produced at the former Karmann plant that VW purchased. There's been no information as to when exactly 981 production will begin there as it's still being set up, but latest word is the Boxster will debut at the Geneva Auto show in March and will be in showrooms in late spring. The Cayman will likely debut sometime in the fall and cars will become available late this year.

So until around the end of this year, all the Caymans available are on dealer lots. What you see is what you get.

If you're looking for a car, you can check out the options that were available (some things like wheels can be changed by the dealer) as well as price for the options.

Unfortunately, you can't use it to order a car right now

Sour grapes, but that'll get me more MPG than the 26 of the current S. Electric steering anyone?

If you'd really prefer a 987C as opposed to a 981C, there's no reason that you couldn't do a search to see if a dealer has a car that's might be close to what you're looking for. It might involve purchasing a car out of State or a local dealer could do a trade with another dealer to get a car that's not available locally.

If you prefer to wait another month, I'm sure that if you worked out a deal, the dealer would hold the car for you for a month (with a down payment of course). (In my case, I made the deal mid February, but didn't actually pick it up and pay for the car until April 1st because I didn't want to drive the car while there was salt on the roads. The dealer happily stored the car for me indoors until I was ready to pick it up.)

Looks like a bit of a wait until the 981 intro and dealers being able to "ACKNWL." Hey, I went decades between my 912 and my 986; a few months more for the 981 is quite acceptable, if somewhat disappointing.

The early production units of the NEW car, from the NEW factory, might be problem-ridden.

"Speed yellow' might be replaced with "Lemon Adventure".

If I were in the market for a new Cayman, I'd either resign myself to waiting at least a year (or more), or looking hard for a suitable 2012.

Caveat Emptor.

I don't think that has to do with the first year of a new plant. The first year of the Boxster were fine. Its problems had to do with things outside of the plant (porous engine blocks from an outside supplier) or poor design (cylinder sleeves). The build quality of my car built in August 1998, was very good. No problems with the car. The water cooled engines have been through the ringer now. This will be a new car, but the major mechanics won't be new right out of the box, pardon the pun. No IMS, DFI and seven speed gear box have either been already tested in production/real world or will be in the new 911. The DFI and no IMS have been around for two years now. I just read in my recent Car and Driver that the vast majority of the parts for the 7 speed manual tranny will be shared with the PDK, which as been around since 2009. Top speed, in fact, is actually achieved in 6th gear as the ratio for 7th is for fuel economy on the highway. So, the manual should be in pretty good shape for a first ever seven speed manual. Even many of the other gear ratios are the same as the PDK, with a couple of exceptions. That should be helpful in having kinks already worked out.

While the drivetrain is a signficant part of any car, there will no doubt be lots of other new bits that can cause problems. Often new owners are driven nuts not by the drivetrain, but by all those "other things' that result in frequent returns to the shop.

I'd not be rushing headlong into ownership of a fresh-off-the-design-table-and-fresh-out-of the-new-plant Boxster.

I'd agree with both you and DB on whether this car should be problem free or not:

1) a lot of the new car engine/tranny parts/design will have been used in earlier cars so there should be a track record for reliability.

2) the new factory:
I would guess that Porsche and Valmet went to extremes when the first 986's came out to make sure quality was where it should be--and the products showed it. Now, we have a new assembler in a new plant that is closer to home, but there are a lot more things on Porsche's plate now than there were back in 1997 (VW). Valmet was dedicated to the quality of the product it produced; we'll just have to see if Magna can do the same thing. If I were looking to buy a new Boxster/Cayman now, I think I'd let the dust settle a bit until it was clear I was getting the same quality product out of Magna that Valmet was producing.

I had put in links to Magna Steyr, but forgot they lost the Cayman contract and Karmann will be the builder.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2012 03:12PM by Laz. (view changes)

Karmann went out of business and the Karmann plant was bought by VW. Boxsters and Caymans will be two of the cars built at this plant, along with some VW products. I guess it's in somewhat the same fashion that Mazdas and Fords were produced at the same plant in MI.

Not sure if Porsche is using part of the plant to build the cars or VW will build them for Porsche.

That's what I was trying to figure out after going through a lot of news releases; it wasn't clear who would produce the car--Porsche, VW or some assembler.
Since the car is due out this year, you would think that it would have been all worked out long ago because of the lead time to retool, hire and train employees on the building of the car.
This situation between VW and Porsche seems to be getting murkier rather than clearer, which would concern me regarding which organization will have the responsibility of building the car.