monkecmonkedo

This is my first post, although I've been lurking around for a while. I have a 2004 Boxster S 550 Anniversary Edition (Cocoa) that I bought as a Porsche Approved CPO vehicle in late August of '09 with 43k on it. It is about 10 months and 1500 miles outside warranty.

Last Thursday, my car stopped running with a "bang" at approximately 55k on the clock. I feared the worst, so I had it towed to my local dealer, Porsche of Clifton Park, who confirmed it was the IMS bearing. One bank of cylinders had hit valves.

The car had always been dealer serviced: I had the 45k service performed when I purchased the car from Porsche of Main Line and was following the low mileage recommendation for all other service. I had the most recent service performed at Porsche of Clifton Park, including an oil change, last August at 53k, so the oil was only 1700 miles old. In addition to those records, I was able to obtain the prior owner's service records from Porsche of Towson (Thanks!). I provided all this information to Nick Krill, Service Manager and spoke with Christian Trujillo, General Manager, at Porsche of Clifton Park who both assured me they would do everything possible to right the situation.

I found out yesterday that Porsche is replacing the engine with a factory rebuilt one as goodwill. I will only need to cover the labor! At best, I was hoping for 50% coverage. Many thanks to everyone at Porsche of Clifton Park!

I wanted to share my story, since it differs from many others I've read. I believe the combination of my super dealer, dealer maintenance history, and the car's CPO status made the difference. Porsche obviously stands behind their CPO program provided service is performed at the dealer. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another CPO Porsche (or a new one for that matter).

harryrcb

You are one lucky guy, congrats on getting out from under that storm. You are absolutely right I believe it was the CPO that made the difference. Thanks for sharing

CW-VIESOCK

Better luck with the new, "blue-paint" motor. The two dealers you have been lucky to deal with are within the top 25 in the nation, according to Porsche N.A.

monkecmonkedo

harryrcb - I realize I've been very lucky. All of these dealers were incredibly helpful with this situation.

Does anyone know what I can expect from the rebuilt motor as far as upgrades versus "older" models? Is there significance to the "blue paint" or is it literally just a different color?

I'm also curious on people's thoughts as to how this impacts the long term value of my car. I bought it to keep it and I wonder if a factory replaced engine adds or detracts from the value. I would think my resale right now would be increased, since it will have a 2yr engine warranty but maybe I'm wrong.

Thanks!

mikefocke

Replacement engines are somewhat common and I haven't heard of them affecting values negatively. Your '04 may now have a '06+ block and with it the Rev 3 IMS design. Supposedly better but much more expensive if you ever have to replace the IMS shaft and bearing.

pecora

Good documentation and Prosche dealer involvement in both sales (new and certified used) and miantance records made the differance. Also, nearly (almost) under warranty helped.

Makes me feel much better with reguards my recently getting a 981.


Rick

ZX9RCAM

Awesome news!

Macster

The replacement engine may be the last one off the line for the model year or model years that car was made and sold, or it may be the 1st one or it may be an engine that was made somewhere between the 1st and last one.

These cars will not be collector items in our lifetime. Afterwards who cares?

The car was worthless with the busted engine. Now you have nearly a new car and the 'new' engine comes with a 1 year labor, 2 years/24K parts warranty.

if you decide to sell the car, trade the car in, you can stress the engine is new, replaced by a factory supplied replacement engine. Stress to the engine failure was not your fault -- that the engine was replaced under some goodwill is proof enough of that -- Porsche doesn't reward engine abusers with new engines. Stress the replacement engine has a warranty -- unless of course you drive the car hold on to the car long enough the warranty expires on miles or time -- and that's got to be a plus.

For plus read the car's worth more money.

In the meantime enjoy the heck out of your nearly new car.

Sincerely,

Macster.

monkecmonkedo

Got my car back today. Receipt states: Old Engine M96/2467404057 New M96/24AI67466427 I was told it is a factory rebuilt engine. I assume that may be what the "AI" in the engine code means? I also assume that if the engines are numbered sequentially, the new engine must be from a 2005 or newer car (since presumably, my 550 was one of the last to roll off the assembly line). I don't know what bearing upgrades they did when, so I'm not sure which version my car has.

The car sounded great on the ride home and felt much more responsive than I remember. Of course, I'm not going above 4.5k for 500 miles so time will tell. Numerous rattles are now gone, presumably some things had loosened up and are now tight again after all the work that was done. In hindsight, I remember hearing a very quiet, high pitched whine, especially while decelerating in gear. I had always assumed that was normal, but perhaps that was the IMSB going?

Its great to have my car back.

monkecmonkedo

Macster - I came across your post that explains the engine codes.

So my engine is an M96/24, which specifies a 3.2L for a 2003/04 S
The 6 means six cylinders
The 7 is the engine version
The 4 is the year of manufacture
And 66427 is the sequential serial number

Any idea what the "AI" is? Rebuilt? Do they renumber rebuilt units?

mikefocke

Yes, AI = rebuilt or exchange motor. There was a story going around about 6 years ago that these were motors which had failed some test in the normal factory build process so they were pulled from the line and given to skilled technicians who figured out what was wrong and replaced whatever was causing the problem and then retested them in a manner even more comprehensive than the norm. And lastly, because you have a late model car and a recent date of replacement, it could be that your engine has parts which include the last IMS design as the story was the rebuilds generally included fixes from later designs when possible. But it all depends when it was pulled from the line, rebuilt and put on the shelf for later sale/use as a replacement engine.

odurandina

op,

congrats.



via ecm ?


+1.

an awesome car that he can treat proactively before/after the warranty expires.

Macster

My info is that of course Porsche uses the ECM -- at least the overrev counters -- to deny a warranty claim if the overrev counters signal the engine has been exposed to a severe overrev, such as would occur in the case of a missed shift going from a a low gear to a lower gear instead of making the intended upshift from a lower gear to a higher gear.

Additionally I've been told that under some conditions a diagnostics download of some size is done pulling from the ECM not only the overrev counter/engine run time numbers but other data that can be analyzed to spot an engine that has been abused/mistreated.

I have seen a small portion of this download -- in fact we all have that have received an overrev counter printout. I asked one be done for my Boxster but I didn't get to see the whole thing, all "20 pages" I was told. I got a printout of a portion of one page which had some info on it I was specifically interested in seeing if it existed.

Sincerely,

Macster.

odurandina

thanks Macster.