Lenman

Hi Steve, spoke w you the other day. How does a prospective 993 buyer evaluate the current status of this problem in a particular car? Some poster's see it with only 20k miles? Yikes! Is there any way to interpret this by test, even a more complex (read costly) engine check on top of typical PPI? Should a buyer just figure on spending $5k or at some point in the near future to erradicate the design flaw? Lastly, is that the right figure, or is it more like 3-5k depending on the ultimate severity of the problem? Thanks in advance, I'm looking to buy but this issue is a big concern in deciding what to pay and what to expect near term. Counting on someone to both know and tell you honestly what the current oil consumption per 1000 miles is iffy at best. thanks again for your EXPERT advice.

Lenman

Sorry I forgot to add, but would you say it's almost advantageous to buy a car that's had the valves done, assuming the miles are reasonably low..... Or would you say most of the time when this is done shops typically just re use the same faulty type of factory material? thanks again.

csertich

Steve,

I've only been on this board for a few months. There is so much information available from all the Rennlist folks. Your contributions are great. I appreciate the fact that you share your years of knowledge with all of us. Thank you Steve. And thanks to all the Rennlist members who have done the same. I'm hooked on this forum.

I'm not sure any of my posts would be complete without me asking a stupid question: Are the 993TT's affected by the carbon buildup/valve guide wear/check engine light fun?

I'm gathering information on how to convince my wife that I should get a twin turbo some day. If I phrase this just right, maybe I'll be able to make it look like it's her idea that I should buy a TT. 993 of course.

If anyone wants to bet how successful this well thought out strategy of mine is going to work out, I have put my money on the fat chance pile.

But I'm still going to get a TT someday. I hope to be able to keep my C2 also.

chuck

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Hi Lenman:

Although we spoke at length on the phone this afternoon, I thought I'd address your comments & questions for the benefit of the kind folks who have followed this thread,...

You asked a good question about evaluating a car for sale and I'll stress how important a COMPETANT PPI is. Given what is at stake when purchasing any expensive used car, its imperative that one seeks out and gets references on a shop who is experienced and competant with the kind of car under consideration.

In these cases, one need to find a shop that is very familar with 993's in every detail, so they instinctively know what is a good example of these things, and which ones to walk away from. Unfortunately, you cannot count on the PO to offer accurate oil consumption figures.

A proper and thorough PPI on any 911 ought to include the normal compression & leakdown tests followed by the removal of the lower valve covers and checking the sideplay in the valve assemblies. There is no Factory spec for this; it takes years of experience to know what is normal and what is worn. This is why competance is so important.

Failure to catch things like this can cause unplanned expenditures later on.

Regarding your last question; I'd say that the value of any valve job lies in WHO did the work.


Hi Chuck:

Its hard to definitively say whether the Twin-Turbos are affected the same way by this issue. The production numbers of each car are very different and I've not seen nor heard of any TT's with this problem as of yet. With the higher exhaust gas temperatures present in a turbocharged engine, this might help prevent the air injection passages from getting clogged up as easily.

AFAIK, both versions of 993's use the same valve guide materials and both are subject to the same wear issues as I've outlined previously.

Hope this helps,

Steve 96C4S

Wouldn't you know it - amidst this brilliant discussion, my CEL came on AGAIN last night. I just dread that thing. It seems to be coming on in shorter intervals now. Dang modern cars... this $hit never happened in my 88 911! I drove that thing to the gym and back, to the store and back - short trips didn't make me nervous. Now, whenever I only take it to run an errand or a 5-10 minute trip, I wonder if I'm driving it hard enough. No, I don't just wonder, I worry! You shouldn't have to worry about driving a car hard enough, you know? Almost all my driving is around town, and it's tough to get up to 50-75 mph when you're in awful city traffic with nary a break.

I guess I have to bring it back again to the dealer to check the codes. Please don't tell me to buy the OBD2 checking device as I'm not mechanically inclined, don't have a Palm, don't want to buy a Palm, and really just don't want to deal with it. I GUESS it's worth the $40 each time to have them check it. My wife thinks I bought a lemon. She has the 1999 Jag XK8 and it never needs ANYTHING (for all the 'rude' comments by our BMW and Porsche dealers here in town when I mention she has a Jag, it's the most reliable car we have by far!), and all she does is drive it around town on simple little errands, never taking it on the highway.

Ughhh

Steve

Martin S.

I was quoted $4,000 last year......THe first time I recall hearing about valve guides was the older 74 to 77 motors as they aged. Then the SC...very quiet on the subject of valve guides. Sometime after the 3.2 motor had aged a bit...by about 1988, the valve guide chatter commenced. You almost never hear about 78 to 83 SCs going through valve guides...go figure.

Rick Lee

Steve, which dealer do you go to - Rockville? As long as you're driving that far, take it to Roger at Autotherapy. He has the same Porsche factory computer/code reader gizmo and is much more likely to tell you to save your money, if he thinks it's really a non-issue. BTW, if you go to Rockville, check out my buddy's black C4S there getting a new clutch.

Steve 96C4S

Hey Rick - yeah, I DO go to Autotherapy, and he did say that if it were him, he wouldn't spend the money to get it fixed. Tischer Porsche was the 1rst one to look at the CEL situation as Roger from Autotherapy had his $10k OBD tester out to be fixed, and Tischer said that it was the "one way valve or the on/off valve" (all Russian to me). They told me $1200 or so to fix them. Roger then later told me when the CEL came back on that there was no guarantee replacing these valves would fix the problem and that it was very expensive, what they proposed.

Who can you trust? Who really knows? I do know one thing...it runs pretty darn great, except for first thing in the morning, when it's cold, so I'm just going to take Roger's advice and have the CEL reset each time for now. I'll see what he suggests when I next bring it in and report back here.

What I REALLY need, is a piece of black duct tape. Ya see, that will truly fix my problem. All I have to do it stick the tape over the CEL light and ... shazam Batman, no more CEL bothering my line of sight.

Steve

Ron

Hi Steve,

I'm told a cleaner alternative to the tape over the CEL is to remove the bulb.

ecobb993

I keep a roll of black electrical friction tape in the trunk - just in case.

Roygarth

Can I quote this to my dear wife?!

Roygarth

What are OBD-I and OBD-II cars?!

ecobb993

http://www.obdii.com/background.html

Steve 96C4S

I think this has something to do with Star Wars, that OB1 Kenobe guy ...roflmao: http://www.starwars.com/databank/cha.../obiwankenobi/

Greg D.

Talking about PPIs and carbon buildup, when I bought my car I did not have much of a clue about this. Then when i took it to the dealer to do the clutch, they pulled up the history and found out my car had had that problem and that the valve guides had been redone one year ago ! $4000+ . Phew !!! Talk about luck !

So for those doing PPIs, doing them at a dealership might be a good idea, as you could ask to pull up the computer records (anonymously) and see if this was done...