Hi all,
I thought I'd provide and update, mostly for anyone in a similar position to me who see's this thread in the future.
I've had a the cayman for a few weeks now, including a weeks holiday in the Lake District. I bought a 987.2 with 90k miles on the clock for £13k (plus another £1k on a warranty). It's got a great service history and seems mechanically sound. Judging by the number of stone chips on the front it's had lots of motorway use, so easy miles (and luckily these only seem to be on the bumper rather than bonnet and other panels). Not many extras, but I'm not too fussed about that- at the moment just driving it is fun enough without needing anything else to think about!
Overall I'm very happy with the car! It's great fun to drive, comfortable on the motorway, plenty fast enough (I'm sure if I had driven an S I'd want the extra power, but I'm happy with the 2.9 for now... maybe next time!), gives decent economy, and even the OH enjoys driving it (I thought she would be a bit scared having only ever driven a 1.2 Polo before!) [
] It was great fun on the mountain passes in the Lakes! It seemed more comfortable at speed on the windy roads than a friend did in his Z4 behind.
I'm using it as a social/weekend car. Mostly for mountainbiking days or weekends (I bought Rockbros suction cup mounts, which have been flawless even with a 6+ hour drive to the Lake District) and for weekends away with my OH (normally Wales, the Peaks, Lakes... anywhere with mountains as we do a lot of hiking). We fitted everything in for a week in the Lakes for the two of us, including a duvet and airbed, with the bike on top. The storage space inside was one thing I was worried about, but am pleasantly surprised with. It took a bit of smart packing, but there's plenty of space! I averaged 33mpg at 70mph with the bike on top giving some extra drag.
It's due a major service next year, and I believe is on it's first clutch so I've put an extra £1,000 aside to go toward those costs (no slipping on the clutch at the moment though). I'm also going to get a bumper respray (approx £500) as this is the only thing that lets the car down cosmetically. So all in all, with a clutch replacement, major service and bumper respray I'm looking at a car thats nearly immaculate (for now, I imagine at this mileage suspension components might start to show signs of wear, but I'm so expert so we'll see) for a <£15k (plus warranty) which I'm happy with.
So far I've restored the headlights (will do the rears this weekend as they're quite hazy), installed LED bulbs, cleared the rads at the front and installed mesh, restitched a small part of the steering wheel which was coming unthreaded (actually a very easy job), installed an Aux lead in the CDR30 unit, desnorked (although I can't really tell any difference!). I'll be painting the rotor hubs and calipers soon, and the centre console inside, and getting the engine cover off just to have a look and check the air filter.
Two things that I want to improve are:
- gearbox feel
- exhaust note
- stereo (possibly, I might not bother!)
Like lots of others I think the exhaust just needs a bit more bark high in the revs. I'm looking at a Carnewal mod or Hayward and Scott bypass.
The gearbox is one thing I'm a little disappointed with. There is a lot of play on the gear level, and gear changes feel a bit vague (my previous Honda Civic had much crisper gear shifts) especially compared to a lower mileage cayman I test drive. I didn't notice on the test drive (so many things to be thinking about!)
I've got the green calibration bracket so I can reset the cables to the correct tension which I'm hoping to try tomorrow night. It seems that due to a lot of the lever mechanism being plastic, there is a lot of wear and thus play- I'm looking at getting some sheet metal shim stock to take up some of this play, as others have. Hopefully these will give enough of a difference, else I'll be looking at a few hundred £ on a new shifter mechanism (and possibly some numeric cables further down the line).
Heres a picture just down the road from Buttermere!
