bobporsche996

LV.. i wouldn't say that to be the case.. I took a few quotes from my previous post.. all of 996s with under 20,000 miles.. now i doubt any of these individuals bought their car used at under 20,000 miles.. care to rephrase your statement?

another thing i'm noticing.. is that porsche appears NOT to be marking in the computers when they are replacing an engine? they mark it in the computer when the car gets an oil change, but not when the entire engine needs replacement.. mine sure doesn't show up in the computer either, even though i had my entire engine replaced by them at the dealership.. (the third one) i'm not one for conspiracy theories.. so each can come to their own conclusions about this one..

From: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-forum/247847-eighty-four-84-996-engine-replacements-due-to-non-rms-related-issues.html

"I recently had the engine blow on my 2002 Carerra with 4100 miles (Tip). I have now heard of two other people who had the same problem, one at 2100 miles and one at 3500. Seems to be a pattern. Porsche wants to replace the engine and I want a new car. The guy who had his blow at 2100 miles got a new car. Has anyone else had this problem or know of anyone who did. Please e-mail." - Bob Scott

"my C4S's motor was replaced at 13k." - mooty

"The engine on my 2002 C2 Cab bit the dust at 10,000 miles... The crankshaft pulley guide pin broke off. At first PCNA was going to replace it with a re-built engine, but the dealer from whom I had bought it used (Paramount Porsche) got involved and helped PCNA see the light... Kinda looks bad when a $105k sticker car takes a dump at 10,000 miles. They replaced it with a new engine (not re-built)." - cydog

"My 11,000 mile 03 C4S is a semi-daily driver and just had a complete engine replaced under warranty (mostly). The intermediate shaft bearing failed. Previously it had an RMS replaced. It's a fabulous car to drive but when the warranty expires I don't want to own it. In my view if you really want to enjoy a P car, then lease a new one for only as long as the warranty period. Then lease another one. You'll get a great night's sleep. TW" - tedwentz

"Engine replaced at 8k miles! At one point in time, Porsche was replacing engines at a rate of ~200 per month. Not sure about todays rate, but it scares me." - chris walrod

"13,500 miles. Intermediate shaft let loose. Engine replaced with new. Car used more for trips and enthusiastic driving than around town." - threeOh

"My buddy had his 996 engine swapped at 6K miles" - Kevin Deal

"have a 99' 996 convertible with 17K miles. My coolent light started blinking. I
bring it to the dealer (still under warranty) and he tells me it needs a new engine." - chad

"The engine on my 03 C2 was replaced 2 weeks ago (19K on original engine)." - sqlb

"Dealer was very nice to tell me that car had engine replaced at 15K miles." - c2blk

"So, I take my '01 996 w/4,000 miles on it, out of storage earlier this year and find that it's leaking oil. I take it in to Porsche and find that the head & valve cover gaskets are RAINING oil. My Porsche dealers' response - "This is normal"! Maybe normal for a yugo -we're talking about an $80,000+ sports car. They replaced everything and its fine now, but alittle bothersome. Has anyone else experienced this?" - Brian

"My 01 C4Cab. with 9,600 miles suddenly blew so much white smoke today that it clouded the entire street & the tranny started skipping. I had to had it towed as a cop patrol was around & stopped me. As it's a long weekend in Canada I couldn't get it to the dealer until Tues. Do you folks have any experience with this & know what may have caused it? There're no warning lights signalling any problems prior to this happening. Would appreciate any input." - dtsp

"I have a chance to buy a 2002 C2 coupe for a very good price. Only catch is that the engine was replaced at about 10K miles." - scott10s

"My well-priced '99 came with a fresh motor from Porsche and it detonated again (the seals) in just 15,000 miles. Porsche split the difference on the third engine. I had a few other things taken care of (top mechanism, warped rotor, clutch shudder) when they did the third engine swap so the bill was about $12k after they split the new engine cost with me." - 996Cabby

"My '02 996 was first registered in January of '02. First owner put about 14K miles on it through the summer of '03. I took delivery of the car in July of '03. Drove it for two days and the engine died. They flatbedded it to the nearest dealer where they started dismantling the engine to see what was wrong. Seems that the culprit was the cam actuators. Malfunction severly threw the timing of the engine off. decided to replace the engine with a re-conditioned one." - Nova87

ElTorrente

^ Wow. Big news there.. you mean that there are some engines that have gone bad? Is this supposed to be surprising or something? Is there ANY car manufacturer whose engines DON'T blow up on occasion- even when brand new?

It happens to every car, and in some cases is simple bad luck, but I suspect in many cases the owner had something to do with it. I'm sure all those whose engine went bad will say they treated the car well, and did nothing at all to contribute to the engine blowing.. but somehow I doubt that. I mean, whose gonna admit that they were driving like idiots and/or treated the engine bad right from the get-go?

I'm not saying that EVERYONE caused their engine's demise, I'm saying it is only logical that some people don't have much common sense and so that could be a major contributor. Now, adding on to this theory, we must ask ourselves if those people who have blown up 2 or 3 engines in a row are likely to exhibit the driving tendencies/idiocy to contribute to the death of said engines.

bobporsche996

eltorrente,

most porsche owners are older car enthusiasts that know damn well how to take care of a car.. most people don't buy $100k sports cars simply to treat them like crap... keep in mind, only maybe 1 out of 1000 996 p-car owners actually visits internet forums.. so these posts are from simply an extremely small fraction of 996 owners..

what other car can you name that has this many early failures other than the 996 and the early m3 which bmw "paid for in full" and acknowledged..

being an sn SL owner, i've been on the SL board, looked through the threads.. not 1 case of an engine having to be replaced in 4 years of the vehicle being out.. owner of a 7 series, so i visit the bmw 7 series board.. not a single case of an engine needing to be replaced before 100,000 miles..

why would, should the rules be different for porsche? those are $100k cars as well, if anything bought by individuals that are ALOT less car adept at maintaining a car than porsche owners.. porsche owners are probably the most enthuastic car owners in the world.. to simply dismiss engines failing at 2,000, 4,000, 5,000 miles (8,000 miles in my situation) as "driver fault" is ridiculous.. otherwise the hundreds of cars and trucks out there from various manufacturers would have the exact same low mile engine failures.. do they? nope..

---

i suppose the expert drivers at european driver can't drive either? which explains why "both" of their 996s had their engines "blow" with only a few 1,000 miles on the odometer? i guess nobody can drive their 996.. even the professionals.. <g>

of course it's nice to see that the porsche dealerships are clueless about all the engine failures, and are so aware of the engine failures that they keep a bunch of them lying around so they can pop em in for each person shelling out $13,000... without having to wait 2-3 days to order them from the warehouses.. <g>

http://www.europeancarweb.com/longte...ec_porsche911/

Yet again, we lost an engine in a long-term 911. Abuse, you say? Not a chance. Editor Brown has spent most time in the car and has babied it to the point of nausea, and he cautions everyone else who drives it "not to screw it up!"

What's the deal, then? Is there a common motor malady. Like our previous 996, this one performed flawlessly, right up until it suffered a catastrophic failure within the engine. The crew at McKenna Porsche, where we've had many of our long-termers serviced or fixed, was equally mystified. "We don't know what's going on with the internals," said another Porsche dealer's service manager. "They told us not to open the engine, just replace the entire thing. We've got a bunch of new crate motors on hand to deal with this problem."

While this is a warranty fix, it won't be 5 years from now, and at 20k a pop, 3.6-liter Porsche engines aren't cheap.

fast1

^ Wow. Big news there.. you mean that there are some engines that have gone bad? Is this supposed to be surprising or something? Is there ANY car manufacturer whose engines DON'T blow up on occasion- even when brand new?

Actually I can think of only one other manufacturer in recent history whose engines were blowing on a regular basis when they had few miles on the odometer, and that was BMW. I can speak to that from personal experience since I owned one of the first ones that blew, an early model '02 M3. The SA at the local Dealership initially suggested that I abused the engine, but after the BMW Rep checked it out, he agreed to replace the engine with a new and not a rebuilt engine. In addition my warranty was extended to 6 yrs/100K miles. Shortly thereafter BMW recalled all of the M3s that were built within a specific time frame and rebuilt the engines.

Does anyone see a pattern? Could it be that the Germans are extracting too much power out of their small blocks? I don't want to get into another Vette/Porsche battle, but the big block Vette engines seem to hold up well. Nevertheless my preferance is still with Porsche, but I'm certainly going to be ultra cautious when I buy a used 996 or even 997.

munro86

And you know that they took care of the engines Bob? How do you know? Were you there? Whats your answer to that genius?

4s

Got to agree with Bob on this one. Just bought an 02 c4s with 13,000 miles on it. Had the car inspected and certified by the dealership. A month or so goes by and the check oil light comes on when I'm filling it up.hmm? brought it to the dealership and they just topped it off and said these things happen.hmm? (1st porsche didn't know better). another month or so goes by and the same thing happens this time they top it off with 3 quarts of oil.HMMMM? Said to bring it back and they would take a look. Brought it back and they said they found the problem and replaced something (I forget what they said that time). Great. Car back and all fixed. NOT. Same problem 2 weeks later. Pissed off. Went back to same dealership and they said they would run more tests. First set of tests came back and everything they said was fine. Told them to keep checking cause this is not normal. Called the sales manger this time to let him know how disappointed I was in the car they sold me and that it wasn't the same car I was sold.(having found out the previous owner had put on a larger oil pan on it and stuff.I'm now beginning to think it was them who installed it so that the problem I'm having wouldn't appear for a couple of months. More oil in the pan=longer I drive it before the light comes on.) When I bought it from them I even asked about all the options and this was coveniently left out.hmmm? Even told them I didn't want to buy a car that was upgraded with after-market options. "No problem this one is perfect. Had it inspected and no problems. Its mint.This is the car for you. Its exactly what your looking for." Right. After further checking the car they called and said they needed to just replace the WHOLE ENGINE. Called the manager again and said I just wanted my money back. They said the best they could do was to give me "fair market value on what my car would be worth today." Didn't even bother to ask what he thought that would be. Now talking with a lawyer and will NEVER GO BACK TO NEWPORT AUTO AGAIN. Very disappointed with them. They even gave me a ford tauras as a loaner. REAL NICE. My new porsche sits there and they give me a ford?? I wonder what they give the boxster guys. (No offense. Just a smaller price point) Even when I take my jeep in for service I get a better car. Whats even worse is that the service manger didn't even have a record or just didn't know about my car being in their shop 2 weeks earlier? (which Bob pointed out to some affect)They must of left that part out of the computer or else he would of known about it??? So that it only showed this being a recent problem not one from the begining. Sorry for the ramble. Just want you to see where I'm coming from on this. Any suggestions on how to handle this now? From what I've read there will be. Have the car back now with a new engine and it seems the clutch is a lot softer now??? Someone else mentioned "turning" at Newport Auto in another thread which I'm thinking happened to me??

nycebo

What's the problem here? Clearly, your car already had some problems a la the new oil pan. Who knows what the hell originally happened? Remember, you can't possibly know if you aren't the original owner. And PCNA is responsible for this how? It sounds like you have more of an issue with the dealer. Now mind you, the car is CPO, and you got a new engine out of the deal. That's the beauty of CPO. Most problems WILL show up in the first couple months of ownership, to say nothing of the first couple years.

GSIRM3

The problem with the M3 engines was related soley to the connecting rod bearings, and not a design issue that appears to be the problem with the 996, and to a lesser extent, the 997 engines. The M3 connecting rod bearings were not manufactured to BMW specs by the supplier. That did cause some engine failures and a service campaign to replace connecting rod bearings on most 2001, 2002 and 2003 M3s. Some of the cars had oil pumps replaced also. The vast majority of the con rod failures occured for cars produced in a three or four month production range, that I think was from around October 2001 through February 2002. There were very few failures outside of that range.

However, the cars did NOT have their engines "rebuilt" as mentioned in an earlier post. Cars with engine failures did get new, or remanufactured engines. The other cars involved had connecting rod bearings replaced, which is far short of an engine rebuild.

The problem with the M3 engines seems to have been completely resolved as evidenced by no more problems with the 2004, 2005, or 2006 cars.

4s

The dealer said after I learned of the larger oil pan and said that it was "a good thing. It helped run the engine cooler and when the car went around sharp turns helped with making sure the engine got enought oil. Something about baffle. (I'm no mechanic). I wasn't aware of porsche offering a bigger oil pan as an option? If the car has had after market work done to it and it wasn't done by porsche then how can they CPO it? I can add a super-charger and the warranty will still be valid? Where's the line on what you can or can't do in order for a car to keep its warranty? Is it written any place? You would think since porsche can't confirm how the work was done then they couldn't certify the car because of the after-market work done on it? The guy could of left a wrench in there or something. No car for the price of a porsche should have to have an engine replaced. The m3 had a problem and they fixed it. Porsche? RMS from what I've read has been an issue for years now and still is. Why haven't they been able to fix that yet? It didn't take bmw that long to "sack up" and admitt they had a problem and fix them all. Has porsche ever recalled the RMS on their cars? Didn't think so. Bullet-Proof my A**. Must say though that the first month of owning it I had a smile from ear to ear every time I drove it, but would think twice about buying a new one if this is what you end up getting. I'd rather buy a bmw that at least will admitt and fix any problems with their cars, not just pass it on. (even though my last m3 had no problems what so ever). The dealerships are the reps of PCNA and should be held to the same standards as them. So a dealership problem should be a PCNA problem because they are one of the same.If a dealership is screwing up their rep then they(PCNA) should do everything in their power to make it right? I know if one of my employees were making false statements and customers were mad I would fix it or fire them. The dealerships are just like an employee to PCNA. They do what PCNA says or else they don't get or sell anymore cars.
Joe-my car came chicago also. maybe there is something going on in that city? and then they just ship them out to cali where the car is sold as perfect, no prior problems.

LVDell

Hey 4s....try hitting a retunr key every now and then.

And FYI...your statement of "No car for the price of a porsche should have to have an engine replaced." is absolutely ignorant. So, as cost of cost increases, reliability should as well? If that is the case, then the Honda's should be in the 100K range for a starting price.

Take you bitterness elsewhere. Your argument is an irrational one.

an02boxster

LV
I was about to post about paragraphs too...annoying as hell to read

Riad

Exactly. How do you think those Ferrari guys feel?

The only mechanical issue either of my 996's has had was the alternator on the 2001 died after I had the car for about 6 months, it was replaced, and that was it.

I really do think the number of 996's sold versus catastrophic engine failures are pretty low, and on par with other high end car manufacturer's.

jmtc,
Rob

woody-77

When is "Engine Replacement V" thread going to start. This one is like watching Titanic for the 50th time.

4s

Using the return key would make my last post longer than a page.
But if its easier for you to read,then I will. Sorry for the "rookie" forum post. Just had a lot to say.
And yes I think with a cost increase reliablity should also. You don't think the research team at porsche has figured out they have had a problem with the RMS issue? Why haven't they fixed it then? Where does the money go? Lining someones pockets I guess.
I mean how complicated is a rubber seal? They still can't get it right.
I haven't seen any hondas with all the options of a porsche yet. But if I did I bet the cost would be close to a porsche. And yes your right it would be probably much more reliable.
No bitterness, just didn't get what I expected.
Maybe honda should come out with a $90,000 sport car to compete with porsche?
I bet they're wouldn't be as many engines that needed to be replaced with such low mileage as I've seen on this board.
Just my non-mechanic new porsche owner .02

GSIRM3

They do, it's the NSX.