Porsche Project #3: Oil Change

Changing your car's oil (I'll wait for the Tesla owners to finish laughing here) is the most important thing you can do to keep the engine in top shape. Recenty I saw an article about changing the oil on a ridiculously expensive Bugatti that would take hours and hours, and cost something like $20,000 at a Bugatti dealer. Well, my used Porsche Cayman is no 3 million dollar Bugatti, it doesn't go 300mph, but it still needs oil changes, and you can do them yourself if you like working on your car and/or saving money like me. After buying this car this summer, I figured it would be a good idea to take care of this job, and what better way to spend a rainy Saturday morning!

Pro Tip: CHECK YOUR OIL!
No dipstick, gotta read the dash!

The Cayman uses an oil filter in a cartridge, so at least for me it wasn't something new. Our Camry and my FIAT Abarth both use filters like this too. The oil change is pretty much like other cars, except for just a few things along the way. The three biggest differences, (or new to me anyway, plus another feature of the Cayman I discovered today):

            1-the oil pan had a 8mm hex socket instead of a regular bolt washer to get it off

            2- the Cayman takes something like 8.8 liters of oil. Compared to a 4 cylinder Camry or the FIAT, that is about twice as much oil. Of course the Cayman has a larger motor (2.9 liters vs. the FIAT 1.4), so maybe not a big deal, other than having to buy and pay for more oil. Hey, it's only money!

            3-this year (2009) of Cayman doesn't have a dipstick for checking the oil level, so, you have to fill the oil, then run the car to get the engine warm, and then get the oil level reading on the dash of your car. If it's not full yet, turn off the car, put in some more oil, then start it up and read the level on the dash again. Repeat until full. I read that the earlier Boxsters (basically the same as the Cayman, but convertible) had a dipstick, but at some point Porsche went to only the digital dashboard to read your oil level. 

Like I said, other than those three things, a pretty standard oil change. Thanks to having access to a lift, this job is like any other car (except Tesla, OK, we get it), and just the thing to pass the time on a rainy Saturday morning when you're waiting til noon to watch the F1 qualifying or college football!

It's 9AM on a Saturday, and the oil level now full: success!

                4-dimming driver side mirror!

Bonus Cayman Trivia: Even the driver side outside mirror dims when you hit the dim switch on the inside center rear view mirror!

Outside driver mirror not dimmed

Rain on the outside, dry on the inside!

Porsche Project #2

Getting the 2009 Cayman up to speed started with the engine air filter last time on the blog, so let's move from the rear hatch around to the front hood (or front trunk FRUNK) to get at the cabin air filter. 

OK this is easy, start at the FRONT of the car. The engine isn't up here, but the cabin 
air filter is, so let's look under the hood. You can replace the air filters from the comfort
of your own driveway or garage, you don't need a lift or anything. 

Here's what's in my Frunk, a spare tire, and then above that you see a bunch of plastic covers over, uh, well, whatever is under the covers!

Let's zero in on the upper left, or passenger side of what's in the Frunk. All these plastic covers easily come off, so just remove a few pieces. 

With the covers out of the way, you can see some tubing and wiring, and that flap that covers up the cabin air filter. 

Peeking under the flap, you should be able to see the filter (looks like a furnace filter or any other flat filter) which is behind the silver metal frame held in place with 4 Torx screws. Just remove the screws, and the filter pretty much pulls straight out. Put in the new filter, fasten the frame back in place, and then replace the 3 black plastic covers and you are DONE!

Here's with the 4 screws removed. The upper aluminum piece just stays in place, so you can slide the old filter out and new filter in underneath it. Super-extra bonus cool Cayman 
trivia: you can also see the long VIN number of this car, which includes the letter "U" in the 11th position, which  means the car was built in Finland. Not a big deal, I just think it's cool
that my car is like F1 drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas: BUILT IN FINLAND!

Very difficult motoring trivia here: Which filter is the NEW one, and which filter
is the OLD one? Sorry I don't know how old it is,  but that dirty, dark, filthy one on the bottom is the old one, and this should inspire every car owner in America and around the world to change their cabin air filter. 

A closer look in case you missed some of the debris in the filter. This thing is so easy to change, I'll be checking it again every year at least. It just filters out the air you breath
inside your car, it's kind of a big deal. 

Porsche Projects

Welcome to December! Only one more month of 2020 thank goodness! Here at NMS-North we're kicking off the winter with some maintenance on the Porsche Cayman. As an 11 year old car, it seems to be running great, and is a blast to drive every time it leaves the garage. Regular maintenance is at the top of our list of keeping cars running in good shape, and with just over 40,000 miles, this car is likely due some TLC. We have pretty good records from the previous two owners, but if there is any doubt on keeping maintenance on track, we'll plan to just go ahead and take care of business

Things to do this month. 

Not the same as my Christmas list!

At this point, let me say thanks for books and videos that show us home mechanics how to do stuff! I'll bet that pretty much any car repair you need to know about is in a video somewhere on line, even for Porsches! Of course changing an air filter is pretty easy, but with a new to me car with the engine in the middle, I wouldn't have known where the engine air filter and cabin filters were without looking it up. HINT: the engine isn't up front!

Inside the rear hatch, the outer engine cover is carpeted
It just pops open if you pry around the edges

This isn't a step-by-step manual, since as I mentioned you can find way better sources on how to do this all over the Internet already. So, this is just the highlights for anyone interested in how in the world they fit all this stuff behind the driver in a car!

 

Now without the carpeted cover, there's this metal cover. 
It's just held in place with 5 Torx bolts. 
Time to grab your Torx tool socket or screwdriver. 

What I liked about this step was the chance to actually use a Torx bit, since I bought them a few years ago but probably have never used them! While it was disappointing that I didn't have to go buy a new tool, at least I remembered that I had them in my toolbox! Who knows what other mysteries are hiding in there that I've forgotten?

Socket wrench with Torx bits

Worth a photo, so I can brag about one of my few Snap-On tools, the ratchet. 

Now that the metal cover is off, you can find the air filter inside
the black cover on the far left. It comes off with two regular screws. 
It's a little dusty in there, so I cleaned that up a little bit too. 

OK, tough question time:
Which filter is the old one, and which is the new one?
The dirty one on the bottom still has the black plastic adapter, which
transfers to the new filter on top. 

 

New filter with black adapter on. It just
pops on those white prongs on top of the photo. 
At the bottom of the black piece is a hole for the screw that holds this
and the filter in place back in the car.