SPR

that's bs you should have a warranty on the rms. I have had mine replaced under such

Surf Twang

Come on, it's a Porsche! They used to be built to withstand the 24 hours of Le Mans. Besides, from what I've been able to learn, RMS is not related to how hard the car is driven.

Scouser

Thanks Chris. Things are slowly progressing but the problem is Porsche GB give us a real bad deal over hear. You guys in the US don't know how lucky you are. Not to mention we only get 2 years warranty! Thanks for your sentiments anyway, its much appreciated. I am in the litigation process so don't worry I have not gven up yet.

munro86, hardly. I treat my baby with respect. It's never been tracked always garaged and only used at weekends. It has also been serviced by the dealership by the book. I have never thrashed the car. Sure I have floored it hear and there. It is a Porsche after all but I am in this for the long haul and I hoped that this car would last me a lot longer than 30,000 miles when it was diagnosed with both engine and gearbox problems.

Scouser

Oh and BTW, I have been dealing with PAG directly. But they will not move either way from any decision made by Porscge GB. That word has been made final.

Strangely the lady I spoke to in Germany (Annette Barbara-Wilke) who is head of worldwide
customer relations was completely sympathetic with me when I spoke to her. She first asked where
I had got her phone number from then went on to say that after hearing my problem she fully
understood why I needed to contact her directly. She even said she would have done the same thing
had it been her. But no matter, she can only suggest a resolution to Porsche GB but she can't force them to carry it out and whatsmore, she would stand by any decision made by Porsche GB no matter
what the outcome. Porsche GB's decision is final, Basically they say go fish.

Oh, I also explained to Annette that this is my 3rd 911 and that I am a loyal customer.
It didn't change things. IMHO Posrche AG have no care about customers and they don't
back their product. I think that the situation is different for you guys in the states because
of federal import laws and things like the Lemon law you have, Anyway, Porsche NA
hide the deficiencies of PAG and it seems that for most of you, you will get looked
after by the network.

What we need here in the UK is to have Porsche GB to treat its customers
with the same fairness as that enjoyed by you US owners via Porsche NA who have a more relaxed
and fair policiy towards itscustomers. You also have to understand that not only do we
only get 2 years warranty but we also pay in pounds Sterling what you pay in dollars for the
same product. That is, a new 997 is about £60,000 base model. That's $100,000+.
Additionally, it is extremely rare for Porsche GB to authorise new engine replacements for RMS
and grenaded engines even on warranty cars. In fact I don't know of a single engine replacement
for these problems in the UK but I do know several owners with their cars laid up with blown
engines.

It seems to me that PAG have moved out of the elite sports car market and have "grown up" so
to speak in the car industry. They are now concentrating all their efforts into Cayenne's and
4 door models for the future and the stupid 997 tacky interior clocks. They have announced
incredible profits but they wont be injecting any of that profit back into its customer base.
So IMHO, the demise of Porsche as we know it is a reality. When did Porsche last race
at Le Mans? Why take the 996 back to the 993? They have lost their way for sure.

As you can see I am very bitter about the whole situation.

Tom 77

The sad thing about all this is that the engine you have in there will never stop leaking. My theory is that the real problem is that the case, which keeps the steel crankshaft carrier in place, will never hold the carrier in place and it will keep on moving unless you take the engine out and re-fasten the 2 halves. The last fix at the dealer (I was watching this as he was doing it) is the replacement of the bolts as well as the seal at the back of the engine. I watched the tech unscrew one of the bolts without a tool, that's how loose they get. unfortunarly, replacing the back screws will not tighten the rest of the case, so that car will be back. I had my engine replace at 11k miles and now have 24 k miles and not a drop. I was leaking from 6k miles on with the first engine. Obviously they tightened things properly on the remanufactured engines.

chris walrod

Didnt you read the warranty? Flooring the car voids all warranty expressed or implied

Gnome

Berny, your post made me do this...


...and then this...


...and then I thought about how you must feel...


My sympathies!!!

munro86

Scouser,
I've wondered about this question of driving styles.You can drive hard and fast smoothly,but if you are prone to making jerky changes,stop/start hard acceleration,hard,rough cornering, I think any car,Porsche or otherwise,will breakdown eventually. It is somewhat of a myth to say that Porsches are bullet-proof, it may have only taken one early "abusive" incident to comprise the whole seal/crankshaft environment, which, unfortunately, sounds like its unfixable with your present engine.I've witnessed young guys brutally redlining 996's, which made me wince!!!

Carlos from Spain

munro86,
While its obvious that driving style will have a direct influence on certain issues, the RMS leak is completely unrelated to driving style nor milage. Do a search on it on the 996 & Boxster forums to find out more about it.

Scouser

Agree that constant abuse to any machine will eventually cause it to
fail through wear & tear. But I don't drive it anything like that. In fact
I am probably one of the meakest Porker drives.....sadly this is something
I would love to overcome but I guess I just can't. An example, I see postings
of how fast you can take the car. The fastest I have ever done in my 996 was
123 mph and then I near crapped me pants. As for cornering hard and
shifting jerky, not me. In fact last time they took my RMS out the engineer
remarked that my clutch had plenty of meat on it remarkably for a 37,000
mile Porker!

First of all, if you speak to Porsche GB or Porscg AG they will tell you very
clearly that their engines ARE bullet proof! But if I was abusive to the engine
then it would have (possibly) caused damage to things like cylinder liners,
big ends, and other stuff. Very unlikely to have been the cause of the RMS
failure. And besides the cause of the RMS problem in these engines is now
well known and well documented. You need to research this more before
you make any further unjust statements in this matter.

You can't brutally redline these cars. You either redline them or you don't.
There's no brutality in the equation. Furthermore, these cars are goverened
so that you simply can't take it past the redline even if you wanted too (unless
you had it moded of course). But taking the car to redline is safe. That's the
reason the redline is there. I am not going to lie and say I have not redlined
my 996 several times but I don't do it that often. In fact rarely is a better
term in my case. Finally, I am near 50 so my days of trying to impress
the birds by drag racing are over. I used to do that in my Triumph Stag back
in the 70s Nowadays I just like the driving experience of the Porsche, It's
just a pitty that the experience is tainted with worry...another reason I don't
drive the hell out of my car.

paradisenb

Scouser,
Porsche is certainly not the company it once was. It's all about profit. Even if it comes at the expense of the customer and their reputation. Bean counters run the Co. and on paper it would seem that the cost of the problem barely shows up on a variance report. When you talk with people who have owned and loved Porsches all their lives or the new generation coming into the fold (probably not to stay because of the above) you find the problem is a VERY BIG issue regarding the quality of the product and the customer service. Porsche built cars that were damn near bullet proof for 50 years. Small problems, sure. Racing seems to be the key. Beat the hell out of the vehicle, whatever breaks make it better.
As for the retro look, that's arbitrary. Some, like me, like it very much, it shows it's lineage. It's not a clock, it's a chronometer. Mabie a little cheesey.
Porsche has a responsibility to remedy the obvious problem with it product. You should be able to drive the $hit out of that car and not have the same issue over and over and over and over, and did I say, over again. Stand your ground! You are paving the way for many others. Good job and good luck!

frost

I agree, but I can't say that I agree with some of the other opinions expressed on this thread. The Porsche 996 is a Sports Car and it was meant to be driven hard, otherwise why spend so much money for the car. So it's fine to drive the Porsche hard, but not too hard?

I've had my '02 C4S for over a month, and I have to say that in my opinion, I drive the car hard regularly. So far I have had no problems with either oil leaks or any other mal functions, but for as much as I enjoy driving my car there's no way that I could tolerate the problems experienced by Scouser. No car is worth that much aggrevation.

To make matters worse Porsche GB doesn't seem to give a dam. Apparently business must be good, and they don't have the time to resolve legitimate problems of their loyal customers. When a company tells me in word or deed that they don't want my business, I listen. Otherewise they will never learn the error of their ways.

washington951

wow- thats pretty bold from someone with less that 10 posts here.

fahren affair

wow. what astounds me, is that we have the same model year car but our fortunes couldn't be more different. i'm approaching 85k miles and never had a leak of anykind.

fwiw, the 997 uses the same seal thats on the cayenne

laurence '97 C4S

I hope you haven't had the same dealer make the repair each time. With that frequency of failure, makes you think the replacement work was shoddy-- or the mechanic is pissed at you and he's nicking the seal on purpose!