Boxster Project: Lid Liner Install

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Most of our Boxster DIY projects are repairs, but some are cosmetic, and a few are protective. This project is the “protective” kind, and it took us more time to take the photos than to do the actual installation!

Lid Liner

The Lid Liner is a heavy-gauge plastic liner designed specifically for Porsches to protect against unintentional damage to the lids from items stowed in the front or rear trunks of the car. 

Porsche convertibles are not exactly known for their storage space, even though there is a front AND a rear trunk. We who “haul stuff” with our convertibles sometimes, um, overestimate, the capacity available to us and our stuff. So it’s possible in RARE instances that when we close the lid on something we’ve just put in the trunk, it could create a dent from the inside. 

Even if one is obsessively careful about always checking space availability before closing the lid, the struts holding up the lids can fail (due to age) and the lid could close unexpectedly onto something…like a long ice scraper, for example, not that that actually happened to us (cough, cough).

The Lid Liner is designed to eliminate those and other such aggravating “head-slapping” situations 🙂

While pretty self-explanatory, the Lid Liner info sheet clearly outlined the advantages of the Lid Liner, its ease of installation, and the benefits of the added protection it offers.

What is amazing is that no (zero, nada, zilch) prep needs to be done to the lids prior to installation. The necessary holes required to mount the lids are already there!!! However, there is one note of caution regarding the lids.

FirstLook

The various contact points between the Lid Liner and the metal braces on the hood are all padded. This is to prevent any potential rubbing or rattling. The molded pattern is specific for each Porsche model. The hole locations are specific for the different model years. The one shown here is for the 986. 

The complete kit:

• Lid Liner
• Plastic anchors
• Installation direction and info sheets

Install

The installation of the Lid Liner can be done solo (which was how we did it) because the liner is not heavy, but we think it would be easier if it was done with a helper—one person to hold the liner in place, the other person to press in the anchors.

Steps:

1. Open the hood and check that it will stay in place; 
2. Properly orient the liner to the hood;
3. Press in the plastic anchors;
4. Stand back and admire your handiwork.

Note: Older structs may NOT be sufficiently sturdy to bear the weight of added liner…this is where a helper would be, uh, helpful.

The fit of the liner to the lid is superb. There is little to no gap once all the anchors had been pressed into place…very impressive.

Because we did it solo, we found it helpful to start from the top and alternate left/right, then went back and pressed in the anchors to fully secure the lid. 

FinalThoughts

The result looks AWESOME, and is something we should have done as soon as we got the car oh so many years ago. 

Now that we have done the front, we seriously would love to have one for the rear. We would’ve gotten both the front and the rear Lid Liners. The only reason we didn’t get the rear liner was because they didn’t have any in stock. The reason was Porsche, in 2001, made a slight change to the configuration of the rear lid and LidLiner followed suit. They had sold out of their 2000 stock since…so we, and others whom might be interested, are probably out of luck. 

Links to items mentioned:

• Boxster 986 Front Lid Liner