Porsche Cayman S 987.1 | Affordable With Risks

The Porsche Cayman S987.1. This car represents one of the last modern Porsches you can still affordably get into, with prices ranging from the high 20s for an automatic with high miles to the very low 40s for an exceptionally clean manual Cayman S. This car is in that price category that makes it somewhat attainable. However, it's not perfect, and in this video we're going to address some of the maintenance concerns, walk you through the engineering that went into this car, what it's like to live with day in and day out, and most importantly, how it drives. So with that, enjoy the video. Before we head into the shop and we put this Cayman S up on the lift, I think it's important we discuss the interior and exterior of this vehicle, starting with design. This car's designer was a gentleman named Pinky Lai, and if you're a Porsche loyalist, you should be familiar with that name as he was the designer of the 996 generation 911. And honestly, when you look at this car, it definitely has remnants of that design, particularly in the front end. However, this car does not have the fried egg headlight design, or at least nowhere as bad as that generation car. I think despite being nearly 17 years old, the Cayman S came out in 2006, it's 2023 now, it still looks relatively modern, and I think given the era of this car, it will continue to age quite well. From a practical perspective, this is essentially a hardtop variant of the Boxster. However, it does have a frunk and a hatch area, or a trunk, which makes it exceptionally practical. You could really use this car every single day. In fact, the owner of this vehicle, Greg from Chicago Auto Pros, uses this as his year-round daily driver. The frunk area is large enough for some bags, and the trunk fit all of my camera gear, which again, makes it quite practical. This car was an expensive vehicle when it first came out, being in the $50,000 to $60,000 range, depending on how you optioned it out, which in today's money, makes it over $90,000 with inflation. And I'm going to be honest, despite being over a decade old, it still feels expensive in here. Everything is well put together, there are no squeaks or rattles, and because this is not a full leather optioned out car, nothing has warped, and it's aged exceptionally well. There's an overall tightness from this era of Porsche that definitely you can feel in this cabin space. You sit nice and low in this car, all of the inputs are near perfect, the pedal box is great, the shifter falls right to hand, and the steering wheel has no BS, there are no radio controls, at least on this steering wheel, just a horn. This carries over the, let's call it the poverty gauges from Porsche models. Instead of the five-pack gauge cluster you get in 911s and more expensive Porsches, you get the three-pod gauge cluster. However, it does have oil temp, your tach, and a speedo. It's an easy gauge cluster to use. Because this doesn't have infotainment per se, it doesn't have a giant screen, the center stack is also aged exceptionally well. Things I know about this particular model, it has the sport seats and the sport chrono package. It is, past that though, a relatively Spartan-specced Porsche Cayman S. Past that though, I don't really think there's much else to talk about other than the fact that it has good visibility for a two-door coupe, and it does have good headroom. I'm at six foot tall, and I should be able to fit in this car with a helmet relatively easily. Past that though, I think it's time for us to head in the shop and put this thing up on the lift. Is this going to be another Porsche month, Jack, with 50 Porsches? It is, Mark. This is our first Porsche of April. We have some more coming for our viewers. Oh boy, Jack, you know, Jack sees the good weather and all of a sudden the Porsches start appearing. Are you going to start just like cobbling a few together to make new models to talk about? Yeah, so I can come up with fake models as well. Don't worry, we're going to do every Cayman that ever existed, every special edition. So this, let's just take this from a perspective of you know nothing about this generation of Porsches because, you know, let's be fair, this is getting old. Yes. So this car, explain to me where this is in the Porsche Boxster Cayman world. So the first Boxster was the 986. They did not do a Cayman of that generation. Those are cars you can buy now for dirt cheap. This is the Boxster Cayman generation known as the 987. This is a DOT1 car. The DOT1 cars ran from when they came out initially in 05 as a Boxster to 2008. The Cayman came out in 2006. The Cayman and Boxster initially were not mechanically identical. So the Boxster had a 2.7 or a 3.2 flat six. Then the Cayman S, there was no base Cayman in 2006 when it came out, had a 3.4 liter. And then by the time they both died to become the DOT2 in 2008, they had the same drivetrains, a 2.7 and a 3.4. In the DOT2 generation, it's essentially an all new car despite having the same body. New engines, new gearboxes. They're a vastly superior car from a mechanical perspective, but they're far more money. The joy of this generation, Boxster and Cayman, is they're still relatively cheap. We're talking mid-20s for an automatic car with higher miles and a manual. Like this car, you're looking at the low 30s. And then pristine showroom PCA, I never take it out ever, I'm going to die in this car, is in the low 40s. Okay, so that's why it's really attractive. So what does it do? Why would you want to buy this? Namely the DOT1, if this is the more like less developed version. Cheap, that's the primary reason why you want to buy this car. So from a mechanical perspective, chassis wise, the Cayman and Boxsters were not identical when it came to spring rates and damping tuning because the Cayman is the coupe and it was far stiffer. It's anywhere I've heard between 50 to 100 percent more torsionally rigid versus the Boxster with a soft top. You have two different suspension setups for the Cayman S, which this is. You get cars with PASM, which is the adaptive dampers. It's 10 millimeters lower. It has retuned springs and shocks and sway bars. This car does not have PASM, but it is still relatively stiff for the era. You get bigger brakes for the Cayman S and if you have deep pockets in the era, you could get carbon ceramic brakes, which I'm sure are still an absolute fortune to replace. Chassis wise, the thing to know about this generation car, other than the fact that the body structure is steel and most of the suspension components are aluminum, is it is strut front and rear, just like the modern Caymans and Boxsters. And that presents unique challenges when it comes to chassis dynamics, which we'll talk about more in the drive. The other thing to note about the 987 DOT1 generation cars is they are all open differential and there is no way to completely defeat PSM, or as the Porsche techs call it, please save me. It is their stability control. While you can turn it off, the car is using the brakes in the rear to simulate a mechanical dip. So once you yaw out the car past a certain degree, all the fun will come to an end and you will see the little passive light, even with it off, flash on the dash. It is sort of a boner killer. I'll take a little mallet to the ABS sensor, Jack. That's how we do it in my world. So when it comes to drivetrain, this is the M97 engine. It is not flawless. So essentially they took the bore from, I'm going to probably confuse this, either the bore from the 911 of the era and the stroke from the Boxster, that's reversed, but it has the heads from the Carrera with the valve train of the Carrera S somewhere along the way. What does that even mean? So it makes 295 horsepower. It has vario cam, which is, think of it as a variable camshaft. So low RPM is smooth, high RPM is more vicious, and it does have a great induction noise, but there are some reliability problems with this engine. So this doesn't have the IMS bearing issues that the 996 has. Only 5% of the 987 cars had that issue, but the specifically Cayman S of the 3.4 had a problem with scoring the bores. The reason for that is it has oiling problems, and originally when this car came out, Porsche asked for 20,000 mile oil changes, which they remedied for later models. So if you own one of these cars, you should do your oil changes more frequently, and if you're going to buy one of these used, either get the engine scoped or be very confident in your... In the DOT 1. In the DOT 1. The DOT 2s have none of these problems. The base Cayman had a 5-speed, where the Cayman S had a 6-speed manual, but you could also get an automatic gearbox, what they called a Steptronic or... Oh yeah, the great automatic that feels like it's about a thousand years old. Yes, don't get that gearbox in this car, get a manual. From the DOT 2, you get a more modern-feeling PDK. So which is the one that you buy? What is the car of this era that you buy that's good, that should be the least amount of problems, but probably more money? Honestly, if you want a 987 DOT 1, you find a Cayman S the least amount of miles possible with a manual, and you get it inspected, and you roll the dice on potential reliability problems. If you can spend more money, and we will be doing a video on that car, because it's essentially entirely different from a mechanical perspective, you get a 987 DOT 2. They have less problems, they're more reliable, you can get a PDK. All of the cars get a 6-speed manual. That is the better car, if I'm going to be entirely honest. But Mark, I think it's time for us to go take this 3,000 pound steel wonder from Germany for a drive. I feel like I should have my Magic the Gathering cards and dice out for all this. This is already making me sick. You gotta roll your 12-sided dice to see if you're gonna lose your engine. Okay, good idea. Where's my rev match mode, my watts to freedom? How big is the battery pack in this? Mark, I hate to break it to you, but you're back in 2008, and this is the hot car of the moment, the 987 DOT 1 Cayman S. There's no way to turn off stability control? Not really, sadly. Where's my wire cutters? I'm gonna cut the wheel speed sensor. Fix that problem. Show me some flat-six sweetness. Oh, to be a little bit more careful, this doesn't have the brakes so far. My RAM TRX. What I will say is it does have a sweetheart of an engine. Assuming you get one without the problems we listed in the shop segment, this thing sounds very, very sweet, and it makes a lot of power. When you told me the numbers, I mean, obviously with Porsche, you expect the torque and the horsepower to be pretty balanced, but it definitely is. It is fast. That's a fast car for the era. Even by modern standards, Mark, I like how hard this pulls, particularly at the higher RPM. I will say, you know, the thing that's kind of caught me off guard with this a little bit is I thought it would be more of a connected driving experience, because typically, cars of this era, you know, with hydraulic steering and all that, what it feels like is a Porsche. I mean, it's a blessing and a curse, because it lacks some rawness. You know, the pretty much over-boosted and lifeless until you get the front end completely loaded up. It feels to me like I'm on top of this car. You know, we were talking about the 86 or the GR86, how that feels like a real driver's car in the modern era. I expected more of that from this, but I just feel like driving this is super comfortable on the street. It's super usable. The visibility is good. It makes good noises, but other than that, this doesn't feel like a very connected driver's car, Tony. I feel like this car is somewhere between a GT car and sort of a weekend sports car, and I think there are two reasons for that. A, by modern standards, again, this doesn't have, like, the optional active dampers. I think that the dampers are pretty soft feeling in this car, and it could be a byproduct of the age of this vehicle. It's in very good shape, but it's still a 17-year-old car, so the bushings could be a little worn out. Putting that in perspective, I get it. I'm just saying overall. But the open diff and not being able to feed stability control, and it does come in hard, even with PSM off. It does allow you to defeat traction, but stability, once you get past a certain angle of slip, it'll come on in. Well, let's take a listen to the engine again. Yeah, that's the biggest selling point of this. You know, when we talk about cars from this era, that's the standout part about this Porsche. Now, granted, you know, in a bubble, assuming that you would never have problems with this, it's probably one of the more exciting cars of its era, because what else can we compare this to of this generation? I guess an E46 M3 sort of comes to mind, and maybe something like a C5 or C6 Corvette. But an E46 doesn't have the solidity of this Porsche over these bumps. It's sort of the body of this vehicle. It feels, I know it's that cliche Porsche thing, but it feels ultra solid. Literally, again, factoring how old this vehicle is. Yeah, so, you know, taking away what I said, clearly, it's not a driver's car. But again, when you drive it at the higher speeds, when you're driving it faster and you're driving it like that GT car, that's the big thing, you know. And when you get into cars in the $30,000, $40,000 price range, like in the modern era of what you're going to get, you know, the cars that come to mind are like the S2000 as the immediate comparison, even though it doesn't have a convertible, that car feels like a tin can compared to this. You know, you're like, where is the extra money? It's in the body structure of this car. It's something that you could drive every day and have zero issue with, and it still flies. Really, how often are you needing? Yeah, and you're not, and that's what this is good at. I mean, even though I kind of bag on the overboosted hydraulic steering, once that kind of gives up and you go into the corner, it's like really, really solid. Can you feel, like feedback the wheel? Yeah. Which you don't get even in modern Porsches. Like it's simulated in the new EPS racks. I will say there is some level of feedback, but it's nothing like the hydraulic steering cars, though they're not as direct as modern steering racks are. Right, no, I'd agree with that. And obviously, you feel the deficiencies with all the Caymans and Boxers strut front and rear. You're definitely on really bad bumpy pavement like this. Yeah, you can feel it. It does. It feels more like you're riding on top of it, like the body is kind of like on top of the suspension versus everything being hyper direct. But that's not this car. Even in that era, it wasn't supposed to be that car. This is in a Lotus Elise. Right, right. It's supposed to find that balance. You know, like you're trying to go back in time and talk about what this car was good at and what it wasn't good at. It was that do everything sports car. So, Mark, with that, I think it's time for us to wrap this up, sir. Thanks. Final thoughts on the 987.1 Cayman S. I first wanted to say huge thanks to Greg, the owner of Chicago Auto Pros for giving us this car and Porsche for providing us some technical support. We talked about what this car is not, and that is a hardcore track car that you can beat on endlessly at racetracks and not run into any problems and have the maximum amount of raw, hardcore feedback. That's not what this car is, and it's definitely not what it was intended to be. This is that do everything weekend car that you can drive every single day to work. You can find fun with it eight tenths and under on your favorite back road or even potential track day. That's what this car is intended to do. It has great flexibility. It has great steering. Once you load it up, you have feedback for the wheel, which is gone in today's modern era. You have a good manual gearbox, perfect pedal box, and a sweet sounding flat six. It's also affordable, and that's one of the reasons why so many people love these cars. Again, they are between $20,000 to $40,000 depending on mileage and options, which makes it an easy way to get into a Porsche. Combine that with a car that's probably not going to depreciate all that much and potentially appreciate, and a timeless feeling interior space. There's a lot to like about this car. I love Porsche products. If you've been watching this channel for a long, long time, you know that about me. I'm definitely a fan boy. While there are some problems with this car, particularly in the reliability areas of ownership, it's still a great car. So with that, thanks for watching. I hope to see you soon. Hey, it's Jack from Savage Geese. I know this is out of left field, but if you can subscribe to me and this video hits two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two, likes, and exactly that number, I will showcase my latest collection of Corvettes and Porsches. My garage is sick, I mean it. Totally ill right now. My paint-to-sample base McCann is fire. I dock my boats wherever I want. Straight up, no joke, anywhere I want, even my pontoon. My WaveRunners are on the dock right now. I don't even wear a life jacket on my vessel when jumping dips in the no-wake zone. After a few light beers, I do what I want when I want. You got it?