ZuffenZeus

I had a lot of respect for you at first with your courage to tackle this problem head-on, but trying to shift blame to Porsche with your "poor engineering design" letter is quite frankly a lame last-ditch effort. I can see you contacting Bosch with this rant, but not Porsche. They don't make the plugs. And, people have been changing plugs on horizontal opposed engines insitu for decades and broken sparks plugs are no respecter of any engine. I have a 1997 Ford F150 thats been in the family since new. One of the most common issues with the engine in this truck is ... you guessed... broken plugs. Before you begin burning bridges with Porsche AG, you should take our advice. Have the car towed to a reputable Porsche shop and have the heads pulled. The shop should be able to extract the broken plugs easily on the bench. Yes, this will be a hard pill to swallow, but at least the job will get done right and you can move on with life. If you don't want to spend a penny, then sell it as-is.

p.s. RE: the Volvo XC70 - If it's the T5, they're known to have tensioner failure which takes out the timing belt... That of course, destroys the engine. Yep, that right, a $30 belt can take out a $7K engine. At 100K miles, you need to have it changed out asap.

ZuffenZeus

Had a 16mm ARRI back in the day... But our preferred cameras are now the Canon C300 Mark III and Panasonic VariCam LT with a set of primes and a Canon S35mm Zoom. Personally, a lot of the pull to have ARRI on set comes from the establishment, but the images off these newer Canon C300 digital cinema cameras are just amazing. I have many relics in my collection - Sony Betacam SX, Digital Betacam, Betacam SP, Panasonic DVCPRO, MiniDV, even had some pro VHS and SVHS stuff. hahaha I've had a buttload of lenses too. Some of my favorites were from Angenieux. Still have quite a few Canon and Fujinon lenses in my collection. Still use ARRI lites btw... they're still working strong after 25 years. Even have the new LED versions.

Cheers!

RennHarry

Another "film guy"! I knew I like you for a reason besides M96 lore
I've had all of those and more. SR1, SR2, SR3. Panny SDX900 and HDX900. Sony F3. Sony F55. C300 M2. Red One. Red Epic. Red Dragon. Red Helium. Original Alexa. Mini. Amira. Now Mini-LF. Let's not even talk lenses, I've probably bought, sold and traded a million dollars over the years. I love it all despite the challenges.
I love my my C300 M3 most of all.
I agree that the difference in imaging and sensors is so small now to hardly matter. But- I've had a lot of financial success sub-renting to various rental houses, long term leases on shows, etc. and they only want one thing: Arri. I pay the vig every year to have it under "extended warranty". After you've had the equivalent of a 986 IMS bearing failure, just out of warranty (i.e. sensor failure) and those Germans say, "sorry, zees sings happen sometimes, jah?" and you fork over $20K, it opens your eyes a bit.
Sorry for the detour into camera nerd land, Gotta996. I agree with you that it's poor design, but I also agree with the others (and you as well I suspect) that you're basically on your own here.
Frustrating as hell.
Are you going to try again with the timesert kit?
Cheers

PS- as long as the OP brought up Volvo, I'll bring up Honda. I get it, the folks here don't want to hear about plasticky cars with gutless engines. But I have had a few, and they look and run showroon after 100K and beyond. I usually keep them until 200K. Bulletproof. Yes, timing belt/ water pump. But otherwise, it's just fluids, plugs, and pads. Great for a daily driver. I'd have to be Thurston Howell III to daily drive anything Porsche makes. Yet, in my neck, I she boatloads of Cayennes, 911 variants, Boxsters, Taycans, you name it. Car life is fascinating to me.

ekam

Did anyone mention that it's a really (REALLY) bad idea to defer maintenance on a German car? Yes, you can have 300k miles with original spark plugs on your Toyota, and it'll be fine... but you do the same with a Porsche, this is what happens. (This is why zee Germans lost the war, huh?)

This is not the fault of Porsche, PCNA, Trump or George Soros. It's the previous owner's fault.

And car mechanics love fixing other people's mistake especially when it's a DIY...

ZuffenZeus

Ahhh... the Panny SDX900... what a great camera and a standard for broadcast field production for so many years. I had a few of those, but sold them to get into the P2 stuff for my work. Had several original DVCPROHD VariCams. Again great HD back in the day. Crazy to think those were 100K cameras originally. In the last 10-15 years, I've been using the P2 HD VariCams - HDX2700 and now the 4K Varicam. Never bought into the whole Red crazzz. A lot of indi filmakers were using them and even some top studios, but it seems the ARRI Alexa (and other variants) has ruled the roost for top tier productions these days. I don't think I owned or used any of the original HDCAM (not SR) stuff from Sony. The weird codec turned me off. It was like 3:1:1 and 8 bit or something like that. Not really great for green screen work. Most wanted 10 bit 4:2:2 color sampling or better.

There used to be a super wide gap between the professional stuff and consumer/prosumer level cameras. Now, people can shoot 4K and produce darn good images on their iPhones. Crazy times! But the average person will never understand professional acquisition. They will never understand why we spend thousands on lenses and want great cameras with endless control over the recorded image. They will never understand concepts like shallow depth of field, shuttle angle, cranking, ISO, and why you need "fast lenses" and S35mm sensors.

RE: ARRI - it reminds me of the 90s and early 2000s when the standard for pro monitors was Sony Trinitron. If you had a studio or showed up for a shoot, you had to be using those top end Sony BVM or PVM monitors. Panasonic and Ikegami made great monitors, but they weren't square or flat like the Sonys. So, you didn't show up with anything else.

Cheers!

RennHarry

All very true. I kinda have to eek out a few more years and get our youngest through college, and I can move away from needing to deal with the gap between what clients expect and the $$$ they have... and yes, sometimes I see something on social media obviously shot with a phone and think to myself "I'm not sure I could improve on that"...

Cheers

hueyhoolihan

i couldn't care less about the PCNA or their sensitivities. please do not be put off by random criticism. we want to hear "the REST of the story!".

Gota996

Terry,
again, not expecting any help from Porsche, just frustrated with what I consider a poor design, and expressing my opinion. Of course the p.o. dropped the ball on maintenance and I’m the recipient of his failure to maintain the car properly. I’m still considering options for repairs and whatever avenue I pursue, it will be done correctly, including dropping the engine, removing the head if necessary to install a timesert.

b3 freak; Volvo XC70 has a T6 engine, no belt, chain drive. My C30 and C70 had the T5 engine, belt drive. I changed the C30 belt at 80K miles, not a bad job, but time consuming.

Not many decent Porsche repair shops in my area. Dealer is booked solid till August. The central NY area doesn’t have an abundance of Porsches. Seldom see one on the road in my neck of the woods. My friend got rolled over pretty good to the tune of over $3K for simple repairs on his 365 coupe.
That repair shop is a no go for me. The Indy shop I wanted to use is too busy to handle R&R the engine as he’s a one man shop. Even if he decided to do the work I imagine the car will be tied up quite a while as it would be done between other work he has scheduled.

TMc993

Just want to make it clear that I'm on your side here...No offense intended.

KrisA

Also on your side, hoping you get this sorted out. I will say though that I think the Cayman is fairly well desiged for maintenance. Flat engines are always tough to package and spark plugs can be a nightmare. Cars like the Subaru BRZ that my son owns say to remove the engine from the mounts and jack it up to change the plugs. That sounds worse than the wobbly bits and extensions to get the front plugs on the 987. I used to own an SW20, hose from hell and hose from hell on Earth anyone?

Gota996

None taken Terry. I appreciate and understand your position. I’m just tired and frustrated with this nonsense. My friend has a 4 post lift, lives about 50 miles from me, good mechanic. I’m gonna call him on Monday and see what he thinks. He’s always up for a challenge and may help me out if engine has to come out. I think he has a car hauler too, otherwise I’ll have to flat bed it to his place.

ekam

My friend's Testarossa had a transmission oil leak from a defective o-ring that costs $2. He had to drop the transmission and disassemble it to change it out - 12 hours of labor total.

Except for IMS (which I paid $15k for a reman M96 motor from Porsche thank you very much), Porsches are not poorly engineered.

TMc993

I was going to say that back in the day when Porsche shops were even fewer and further between, owners used to get together at the garage of the guy with the most tools and pool their knowledge and labor...Hope you get it resolved soon.

Dave in Chicago

One would hope a shop would have some magic for a thing like this 🤷‍♂️

I was rebuilding 968M030 calipers on the CR car, could not get these little screws out that held the end plate hardware. YouTube videos, forum chats, got them glowing with a torch… I tried everything.

Called my shop and asked if they could help, “sure, bring ‘em bye”. Took them five minutes to dislodge the loctite-bound little suckers on all calipers. The magic was a good strike in the direction of unscrew with a cold chisel and a hammer.

They’d obviously been to the rodeo before.

Anyway, sorry this one is being so frustrating. I hope this resolves for you soon.

tacurl03

If you end up pulling the engine and head, I have done that, and it obviously takes time but isn't that bad. It sounds like you will be more than capable of it. I have a cam timing set for the 9A1 that you can borrow if you need it.

It seems like you car may be a base, in which case this advice isn't relevant, but if you have an S with the DFI engine I would advise to be careful with the injectors, and if you remove them, be prepared to replace them. Last time I did it, four of six injectors were seized in the heads, and I couldn't get them out without destroying them.

Tim