Smoking Boxster & CE Light

[stphnsns]

After many years of air cooled 911's, I just purchased my first Boxster. It's a high miles car (115K), so i bought it right. I have two issues:

1. Often irratic idle & check engine light on. A generic OBDII indicated an "Idle Air sensor", which I figured is the Mass air flow. Some of the previously posted comments (very informative!) I read on this site seem to back that up. Thought I might order from Partsbin.com. That (hopefully) seems easy enough.

2. The more troublesome problem is the excessive smoke I get at (nearly) each start-up. If the car sits more than 10 minutes, upon firing, I get a substantial amount of smoke. it lasts for between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. A couple of dealer techs have told me (over the phone) that this is normal. But it's embarrassing!!! Not to mention the smell! :( Does anyone have any suggestions to at least get rid of some of this smoke? I really don't want to put valve job type of money (or time) in to this car. I will drive it less than 5000 miles a year. Any comments or suggestions would be welcomed and greatly appreciated!!!

I should mention that the car has been very well serviced and maintained for all of those miles, which were long daily commutor miles. Other than the above, it runs like top and tight as a drum! Maybe these babies can last like the old SC's !!!

[craig(nj)]

Congrats on the purchase, I wish you good luck with it. Here's a couple of suggestions.

1. If you can , post the actual "P code", I"ll look it up in the Boxster OBD II manual. It would not be surprising if the MAF has failed(it may just need cleaning though), its a common issue wiht these cars. They are easy to replace. You may want to check the last time the plugs and fuel filter was replaced, helps to smooth the idle.

2. You may want to try running thicker Mobil1 synthetic oil , say 15w-50. Our 01 smokes more on the thinner stuff we use in the winter, but with the 15w-50 it barely smokes at all(at initial start-up).

Hope this helps, and again good luck with it.