The Boxster Leaf Catcher
By Bob Bianconi, Maverick Region “Slipstream”

Take a peek. The leaves are there… along with candy wrappers, cigarettes,
pebbles, stones and anything else floating around on Texas highways. Where?
Why, the two air intakes on the front bumper (or 3 on a “S” model). If it’s been
a while since you peaked in the radiator air intakes (or maybe never…), you’ll be
sure to find all manor of road debris. Surely all of this debris can’t be good for the
cooling efficiency of your radiators, especially on a typical Texas 100? summer
day. When it’s hot, you want the airflow to your radiators to be unimpeded and
performing at their best.

So, maybe it’s time you spent a few minutes this spring performing a leaf-ectomy.
It’s not hard once you know the trick. If you’ve taken a look at the openings,
you’ve already noticed that the air intake grills are not removable (without
removing the whole bumper cover). This makes access to the debris a bit more
challenging.

A simple vacuum cleaner will be the tool of choice albeit with a slight modification.
Your standard vac attachments won’t work because of the intake grills; they are
just too large to fit through the openings. But we can take care of that. Besides,
your trusty vac, you’ll need 3 cardboard paper towel rolls; you know the kind, the
cardboard roll that you throw away when you have used up the last paper towel.
Here’s the trick: Insert one roll into the other and then flatten the first 2 such
that they fit in between the lower set of louvers on the grill. Insert the end of
the vacuum into roll three and turn it on. A flashlight helps you aim the end
towards the far corner; that’s where you will find most of the debris. Leaves,
wrappers, stones and pebbles will all get vacuumed up. Be careful to not hit the
fins of the radiators. As a finishing touch, take your hose and rinse down the
radiators, not too strong, not too weak.

So there you have it; a simple trick to keeping your radiators operating at their
best for the upcoming summer months. Save those paper towel rolls, you’ll be
needing them. I think you’ll find this spring cleaning tip also works on the Boxster’s
big brother, the 996.