jeff968

My dealer called me and I've scheduled my 968 to have the belts done during the first week of February. My dealer is giving me a Porsche club discount since they are slow. As I spoke to him about the job he stated that they will replace the belts and evaluate everything else. I asked about the rollers and if they wouldn't replace them now because my car is 12 years old and has 48K miles. He stated, not necessarily. He said they would look them over and decide once they were in there. Same with the waterpump. So, what do you think? Raj and others who have done this job, do you always replace the rollers? Are you just be cautious? If my waterpump looks okay I wasn't planning on replacing it. I did a poll on the other site and 968 waterpump failures are very rare and usually happen with much more miles then my car. Thanks for the thoughts.

Ken968

When I had my 60k service done the rollers weren't changed, afterwards started to hear a noise that wasn't there before servicing. Long story short, I had to take the car back to have the rollers done. They are not that expensive when bought from sunset. I would change them just to be on the safe side.

Ken968

Alex Cook

Surely the rollers fall into the 'while you are in there' category? I'm thinking this is one of those things that isn't in the 'official' service schedule, but any decent independent would change as a matter of course.

Damian in NJ

Do the rollers without question, and have them check the water pump.

midblue

I'm with Damain on this one..... ABSOLUTELY do the rollers! If it were me I would also strongly consider doing the waterpump as well. It's not that expensive to do and they are in there already plus it will go bad at some point. I know there will be some that would disagree and say to replace it only if it starts to go bad but they are the ones who more than likely work on their own cars and dropping in a new water pump is "relatively" easy. For those of us that don't do the work on our cars it's a no brainer. One less trip back to the mechanic. Just a suggestion.

Ron

RajDatta

Jeff, as stated earlier, its just cheap insurance. Usually roller/bearing will start spinning too freely after a while which means they are shot. Brand new bearing have a little drag to them because of the packed grease. The additional cost of doing rollers would only add another $150 or so to the equation if they give you competive prices.
Waterpump, I would leave alone. To begin with, new waterpumps are no longer available even through Porsche. Your car came with a brand new waterpump and a rebuilt unit in my opinion will not be as good as a new one. Rebuilt ones carry 2 yr warranty normally when bought through the dealer. I am sure your mechanic is very competent and will make the decision in the best of your interest. They make more money if they do your waterpump. So if they are telling you that your's is okay, I would just trust them on it.
You will need to get your belt re-tensioned after 2500 miles anyway. They will have to open the belt housing and they can recheck things at that point.
In cases like waterpump, I believe, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". There have been too many instances where people strip a bolt or break a bolt in the block trying to remove a waterpump and add all this additional labor to the process.
BTW, how far are you from springfield, MA?
Good luck.

jeff968

Thanks everyone for the opinions. I agree Raj, I'll let you know how I make out. I'm curious about what they'll find. Raj, I'm about an hour from Springfield.

RajDatta

Jeff, in that case stop over sometime when you are free. I head up there to George's place to work on our conversions every few weeks. Maybe we can assist you with something.
Good luck.
Regards.