Visual

I was running errands yesterday and halfway to the destination I got the "PSM loss Possible to drive on carefully" and "Start/stop operation deactivated" lights. Engine was still running fine, so I finish my trip and park the car. After restarting the car, the lights were no longer there, so I thought maybe it was just a random error that corrected itself. Hoping a little Italian tune up will clear up any lingering symptoms, as soon as oil temp was high enough, I hit the Sport mode switch and the instrument cluster lit up like a Christmas tree lol. Same two PSM and Start/stop lights, this time accompanied by "Fault engine control Possible to drive on". The engine was running noticeably different, so I knew for sure it was misfiring. Normally, I'd be ****ting bricks, but I was pretty confident that I encountered the relatively common and very well documented ignition coil pack failure on the 981 platform. As soon as I limped back to my house, I did a scan and pulled up P0306, misfire on Cylinder 6. Of course in PIWIS, this one main error will affect the various other control units and pull up pages of other error codes. Knowing that it was Cylinder 6 pretty much confirms it, since it was much more common for the coil packs on #3 and #6 to fail since they're the closest to the heat from the catalytic converters.

Now I'm highly regretting not preemptively changing out the coil packs when I did my plugs last year. I've just ordered a full set of new coil packs and hopefully replacement will solve the issue.

absoluteczech

I believe some recommend adding the heat shield from a 991 to help mitigate the heat build up causing the failures

Kitc2246

I had my Indy add the heat shields as recommended by Okie before I started DEing my 2013 Boxster S last Spring. I understand its a tricky DIY which needs a lift. Have 6 DE weekends now with no coil pack issues. I do carry two spares to the track. How many miles on the car?

josbmw

Replaced all the coils packs with the spark plugs last februari in my GTS at 50.000 km, so after about 5 years in my case. All spark plugs had a very nice color.
And all original coils were still fine. No cracks.
But since I had the coils removed and they are cheap, I decided to replace them anyway. Used the Beru ones. Identical to the original fitted ones but without the Porsche number.
The car seems to run smoother with new plugs and coils.

I did have to change the right camshaft changeover solenoid last year. Car refused to pull in high RPM and gave EWL. First idea was a defective coil, but after reading out the error codes, it was the solenoid.
Opened up the old one, and the small part what can move up and down was stuck inside the magnet part.
Also swapped the left solenoid a little later, just to prevent issues. The left one is a lot more difficult to get at then the right one though.

And yes, I use a lift, a Quickjack 5000 SLX. Very easier to use and safe. Though sometimes it would be nice to have a higher lift.
Unfortunately I'm not in the possibility to install one due to limited ceiling height...

Visual

Yeah, I'm looking into buying a set now. Even if the heat reducing effect is minimal, the full set of heat shields don't seem to be too expensive.

Around 47k miles on the car, and I'm pretty sure it's on original coils. No service history showing that they were ever replaced. I'll know for sure when I pull them and check the revision number printed on them.

I do everything on my Quickjacks too, my garage is also too low for a full lift. I ordered the OE Beru coils from FCP Euro. If any of them ever fail again, at least I'll get free replacements.

Visual

Just wanted to update that it was indeed just the coil pack on Cylinder 6. My old coil pack didn't have any visible external damage, but swapping it out instantly solved the issue.

Ordered from FCP Euro on Monday and received the package on Wednesday. Took less than half an hour to change out the bad coil pack. I started the car right after replacing the #6 coil pack and confirmed that the car was running fine again. Real time data in PIWIS showed that there were no misfires in any of the cylinders. I went ahead and replaced the rest of the coil packs after clearing all the codes away. Test drove the car afterwards on both local and highway throughout the entire rpm ranges and no lights popped up, very happy that it was just the coil pack and not the camshaft solenoid which would have been a little out of my comfort zone to replace.

The new coil packs ordered from FCP Euro were also from Beru, just without the Porsche part number. I compared the old and the new, both coil packs have the same Beru internal part number.

okie981

Thanks for the update. If you didn't install the heat shields from the 991 cars and you ever plan to track this car, you should seriously consider installing them.

When a coil pack goes bad, it's almost as if the CAN bus gets corrupted, if that's even possible. Or maybe it's just the various computers on the CAN bus see disruptive information coming (or not coming) from the failed coil pack. The messages that appear in the LCD display in the dash are bizarre compared to the actual fault that has occurred and can be quite startling until you understand what's actually failed.

Visual

Yeah, I'm going to be ordering them for sure along with my next set of parts for maintenance to be efficient with shipping. The corruption is a perfect way to describe it. You know for certain that the real issue is the misfiring, but when you run a scan and you get pages and pages of codes in every other control unit, it's definitely unsettling lol. It's like how my PPI for this car came with pages of error codes as well, but the shop reassured me that it was all stemming from the dying original battery and all I needed to do was replace it.