718 Life.

Back in Canada. After transiting the US easily through Maine, there's always a sense of relief when crossing back into Canada. This time, however, things are a little different, as for the first time ever, we are stopped and asked to pull over for a search. Two (very polite) Canadian Border Security staff proceed to take the keys to the 718 (!!!!) and give it a good going over. As we watch, we wonder at first if they know about the frunk, but sure enough, they find it after some fiddling with the remote. 15 minutes later they return the keys with a smile, I check for smudges (none!) and we are back on our way. In short order we are crossing the harbour bridge and making our way along the nice back road to my folks (after stopping to let my relatives check in at their hotel). The Boxster revels once again in the small stretch of nicely-paved back road before having to slow and carefully navigate the erratically-placed HUGE potholes along NB Route 760 where my parents live. It really

A little trip to the east coast for a visit home again, this time as convoy leader. My lovely aunt and uncle are visiting from the UK and have come up with the plan of renting a car and driving from Montreal to visit my folks in New Brunswick. Who better to lead them through the nice roads and small towns of Maine than us in a bright red chase vehicle? Another bright (and hot) sunny day greets us as we hit the road from Ottawa, escaping the snarl of rush hour traffic only to hit it again entering the largest city in la belle province. No matter, as the schedule is relaxed and fluid, with a full two days ahead to make it to NB if we wish.  We meet my relatives with their rental Toyota hybrid and fight our way out of Montreal traffic and construction chaos to the open road towards Sherbrooke. A fuss-free drive takes us through there and on to the Maine border where an easy crossing means we are well on our way to Bangor to overnight, with lots of daylight left for the woodland drive thro

Big day today. 'Big'.  It's all relative. This afternoon I'm tackling the small (tiny) windshield 'bruises' on my GTS. The first one I picked up a scant 150 kms into ownership, in Germany, the other on the drive back from picking up the car in London, Ontario. One on each side, driver and passenger. Both a very similar pattern, in that there are actually three little marks to each of them. Presumably when the rock struck the window the first time it rolled and struck it a second and third times, creating smaller divots. In each case. So, six impact points. Ugh. Fortunately I guess, neither set have resulted in anything other than some gouging out of the glass at the surface. No deeper chip, or 'bullseye' and definitely no cracks. So, lucky there, as replacing a whole windshield is not really something I want to do. I mean, come on! The car's barely a year old! Cue the Internet, and the wonder that is YouTube, where I can ply my way through countless

Time to spend some money. First service interval is at hand. 15,000 kms or one year, whichever comes first. A simple oil change and visual inspection is all, although I use the term 'simple' rather loosely as Porsche charges a full two hours labour to do the job. So it can't be that simple, right? Right? Let's see: oil and filter costs amount to $135 which is pretty on par with the Hyundai, even cheaper actually, given that I change that oil every 5000 kms at a cost of around $80 for oil and filter each time. The killer is the labour cost - double my regular mechanic, and double the amount of time. So, four times the labour cost. Yikes. But...they are super-specialized mechanics, right? Dealing with something super-complex, right? So worth the hefty labour cost, right?  Well, actually, on the 4.0 litre, the oil changes are apparently relatively straightforward, as long as you can get at the underneath of the car. Which, thanks to my GTS Chronicles companion and his gar

What makes a car your own? Purchase? Polish? Customization? All of the above I think. So to that end, I got to watch / help as my GTS Chronicles Cayman buddy installed the shifter assembly from the GT4 in his GTS. It's a bit of a nerve-wracking project at first, as one has to 'unsnap' various (expensive) trim pieces in order to access the necessary components to remove and replace. It took a bit of force and elbow grease to get some of them to budge, but in the end, he accomplished that whole task. Things do certainly fit together well, with a high-quality feel to everything. The modularity is impressive too, as you pop out the radio, the climate control unit, console buttons and such. The end result is a shifter that sits just shy of an inch shorter than stock, without changing the aesthetic. Sure, you can change to aftermarket shift knobs that achieve the same result with less effort, but they don't look and feel stock. The benefit of doing it this way is, if you lik

Life is pretty busy, so you have to grab the opportunities to get away when you can, am I right? And what better way to do that than behind the wheel of the Boxster? Saturday mornings have become a thing - get up early and get out for a little road action before the day's activities kick off. Between chores and errands, teenager events, and socializing with friends, the weekends are busy. Even finding the time for a proper car wash is a challenge! Thank goodness for pressure washers to quickly blast the bugs off after a quick outing. This week I map out a little longer route; Google Maps telling me it is somewhere around 200 kms. Getting up early means I can get the 2.5 hours of driving in before a nice breakfast at Scottie's after, and then 'start' my day. I slap on some sunscreen and then carefully wash my hands clean - can't get that evil stuff on the car's interior 'coz I've yet to find a product that truly gets rid of it properly. Maybe steam? Grabb

Refinement. If there was a single word to describe the continuous progression of the Porsche Boxster, this might be the one. For Porsche in general, actually. Just look at the 911. Over the decades it has continually evolved, each successive generation building on the prior. You can see it in the design language, always familiar, a continual evolution.  Same goes for all four generations of the Boxster platform. Each one taking the good bits from the one before and refining them into something even better. With that in mind, and with the help of a friend with a 3D printer, we REFINED the design of the jack 'pucks' to be something a little better. I know, I know, the refinement link is a bit of a stretch, but with the rain chucking it down all last week and weekend, there's not been a lot of driving to write about. So we 3D printed little 'keys' to allow the pucks to be inserted into the underside of the 718's jack points and then turned 90°, locking them in plac

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name…  A couple of weekends ago I decided to make the trek from my home in Ottawa, Ontario to my home home in French Village, New Brunswick, to visit my folks for an extended weekend. This time around, to make it a more interesting route than the main highway through Canada, instead I drove through the little roads of Quebec and Maine to head out to the East Coast. I spent the night at a little motel in Woburn just adjacent to the Canada US border, before doing the second leg from there to mum and dad's. This was the first time I had brought the Boxster along this route that I know so well (having travelled it for the past 30 years!). It's fun to visit old little bits of twisty roads in this new car, remembering what it was like to drive in my two CRXs, my Civic SiR, my RSX, my M3, and my two S2000s along the same topography. As predicted, the calm of the Boxster cabin and the poise of the chassis over even a few rough patches m

The cars are looking fantastic. The touch-ups, the compounding, the polishing, the careful cleaning and prep, and the job done by the fellows at The Wrap Factory have all paid off and the Carmine Red is a eye-catcher in the springtime sun. A couple more weeks of curing before a proper all-round wash and protective coating can be done, so in the interim, it's time to try doing a little PPF ourselves.  Just aft of the massive rear tires, the bumper cover curves under and is quite exposed to road rash coming off the rear rubber. It's not a very visually obvious spot, so a good place to try our hand at putting some film on and see just how tricky it is. Grabbing a relatively cheap pre-cut kit avoids the hassle of trying to custom-cut the right shape, so with squeegees in hand and a goodly amount of soapy water, we tackled the job on the Cayman first. Finicky.  That would be the word to describe it, as we learn how to pull, tug and shape the film to fit into place without any air bu

At last. Paint Protection Film at last. After much work, many long hours of polishing and chip filling and re-polishing, cleaning and prepping, 'Red' now has an 8mm thick layer of vinyl protecting her rocker panels and hood, as does the Cayman.  There were a surprising number of small stone chips on the hoods, and the rockers definitely has some signs of rash on them at the outer flanks - not that you could really see, but you could definitely feel the marring.  Thanks to the nice guys at The Wrap Factory , I can rest a little easier now that there is a barrier of some sorts between Mother Nature / mankind and my gorgeous Carmine Red paint. The film is STEK Dynoshield PPF, warrantied for 10 years and apparently healing-friendly with heat, meaning if you get some tiny swirls or even chips in the vinyl, apparently a heat gun can help eliminate them. Marketing bumph? We shall see... I was very pleased with the customer service of the shop - great communication, explanation of the

Happy early springtime! In the quest for easy garage work on the cars, my co-conspirator has invested in a couple of excellent pieces of equipment for his GTS' home. The addition of a set of MotoMaster Positioning Jack + Wheel Dollies from Canadian Tire has made moving the cars in the garage a cinch. They're heavy duty and ergonomically excellent, and you really can put a car up on them in a jiffy and roll the 3000 lbs around with little effort (once you remember to take OFF the dolly brakes!). The second garage upgrade comes in the form of a QuickJack 5000 TL , which performs exactly as advertised, making lifting the cars up to a nice useable height for polishing, wheel changing, underbody work, etc., a super-simple task. The work we had to do to prep the cars for PPF application (hood /  rocker  polishing and  chip repair ) was made so much more ergonomically pleasant thanks to the QuickJack. Saved my back!!!!! Because the cars sit so low to the ground (yay low centre of gra

Mysteriously...confoundingly... From the factory, you can get paint protection film installed on your Porsche 911 for a reasonable cost. Not a complete wrap of the car or anything, but a useful patch of it directly on the rocker panels just aft of the intakes and forward of the rear wheels. BMW actually includes the same sort of things on the M2 as part of the standard 'equipment' when you buy the car. But the 718? Nope. As part of the mystery that is their selection of Porsche-option-offerings, the folks at Zuffenhausen saw fit to NOT have a PPF option available for my car. Which means I've got to do something about it myself, as this particular part of the car seems to draw attention from abrasive elements. If left unprotected, you can end up with something like this (not my car!!!). No thanks. Even at 20 years old, the S2000 didn't have this level of road rash (tho it did have some)! The 718 flares out a bit more at that point of the body though, right into the jetst

OK, next steps. Readying the car for paint protection film (or PPF) on the hood means dealing with the tiny little chips from the 10,000 kms we've put on the cars.  It's somewhat surprising to me, the number that there are. My S2000 had a few more, but it was 20 years old. Must be something to do with the angle of the hood, thickness of the clear coat, etc, etc, I guess, but suffice it to say, there are enough tiny spots that I want to deal with them before the whole thing gets protected with a plastic layer. Luckily, my GTS Chronicles compatriot had the same experience, and between the two of us (him doing the lion's share of the work because we've started with his car in his excellent garage), we've worked out a process for filling, smoothing and basically making those tiny chips as close to invisible as we can. We've worked out a combination of chip filling, with tiny pinpricks of Carmine Red paint (from Dr. ColorChip ) and the dissolving solution that comes

There's something very satisfying about a job well done, isn't there?  A little time, a little effort, some care and attention to detail, and a result that makes you glad you put the work into it. That's where I'm at now with the time I've put into the front end of the GTS this winter. Those European kms put a little wear into the hood, with some tiny chips, and the sloppy washing done over there introduced a myriad of light swirls and scratches that showed up under direct light. Dirty wash mitts and time constraints (therefore rushing) were definitely the culprits. I'm thinking quick washes really aren't worth it! It seems to me that the clearcoat ia a little 'softer' than that of the S2000. Or maybe it's just the Carmine Red colour that brings them out more than the S2000's New Formula Red, but either way, the 'love marks' definitely are more noticeable and seemingly easier to introduce. Now let's be clear, we are talking extrem

Well, tiny lettering anyway. With the help of a paint pen, a bright light, and a magnifying glass (old eyes!) I spruced up the shifter in the 718 tonight. Just gives a bit of life to the shift pattern, without having to pay the Porsche tax for an aftermarket shifter. I've seen those online for crazy money, and people certainly are keen on replacing the stock shift knob with all manner of different ones. For myself, I find the existing shifter to be just fine thank you very much; nicely weighted under the hand, smooth to the touch and it doesn't seem to get roasting in the sun (unlike the S2000's!). It moves very positively into each gear, so I don't know what all the fuss online is about needing a heavier knob to 'improve the shift feel'. Can't say I find it lacking at all. Future musings include the short-shift kit from the T and GT4 models, but there's certainly no rush. Saving for tires? Now THAT'S a priority! A second coat of red on the H-pattern

A tiny upgrade. But one that I love. Just cleans up the interior a tad. Always bugged me in the S2000 cabin, but thanks to an enterprising fellow on eBay, solved!! I mean I know the safety nannies need to have their say and all, but this one always seemed a bit ridiculous to me. Cooler heads prevail in Europe (perhaps being less litigious) but the solution here is an expensive one. Replacing the part is a ridiculous $1200 option from Suncoast Porsche Parts. Instead, this fix was $20. Thank you Internet.  Can you spot it? ~ Luke

2024... The first full year of Porsche ownership. It's a long way from summer 2020 when the idea first came up, but now that it's here, I'll be making the most of it. As you know, it starts with getting things properly prepped and protected for the upcoming driving season. I'm portioning that work out bit by bit so as to last the winter months, trying to time it so that I finish up as the birds start singing and the warmth of the sun returns. The first proper winter storm is imminent here in Ottawa, Canada, but I consider us lucky that we are already a week into January without having any real cold or appreciable snowfall yet. Just that little bit closer to spring already, and I think the next three months will fly by. Certainly faster than in the last few years, which were rather 'torturous' in comparison. The list of little upgrades is being nibbled away at, the latest being a nice, shallow trunk organizer that I can velcro to the carpet to keep items from fly

Only a week until Christmas, which means only three months (likely) until the 718 can poke her nose out and sniff the cool spring air. In the meantime, one has to keep busy with things. My forum reading has dropped off considerably since Europe (gee I wonder why?) so time to get back to a bit of that to while away the winter nights. A couple of new videos have managed to pop up on YouTube to keep me entertained with Porsche news there as well, though the 718 content is sparse these days, what with it getting close to the end of the model and all. Of course I have been continuing to spend time in the garage, and have to say the 1/3 of the car that I have tackled so far is looking rather good. With some careful compounding and polishing, I've managed to pretty much eliminate the Europe scratches on the rear deck, which now sits protected under a sealant and a 'ceramic' wipe-on topcoat. I have discovered a scratch on the front fender that is proving extremely resistant to poli

Ah swirl marks. A blast around fine European fine roads is surely an enviable thing, but keeping the car clean was a challenge at times. Although there's lots of access to spray-washes over there, having all the good gear to keep the paint pristine and swirl-free wasn't really an option. So, the GTS has a few 'love marks' from the quick cleans I did over there between hairpins. Time to put the winter months to good use and give the paint some care and attention. I'm not sure there's much I can do about the two stone 'bruises' in the windshield (can you believe it???), but I can definitely put my paint care expertise to good use. Last night I started - I'd already put the car away clean, so it was simply a matter of gathering up my detailing supplies and getting to work. First off was to drape a sheet over the convertible roof. I learned that the hard way with the S2000 as it took years for me to get the polish overspray residue out of the semi-porous