bobporsche996

Honda did, the NSX :> i've never ever heard of a single engine failure from an NSX.. reliable as hell..

i'm still waiting for these "bulletproof" 996 enthusiasts to reply to this on why "BOTH" of the european car 996s had their engines blow up on them.. if anything, you would think professional drivers would know how to maintain a car, wouldn't you? And not just one engine blew on their 996, but BOTH of them blew on BOTH of their cars.. LVDell, nyce, munro? speechless?

http://www.europeancarweb.com/longt...9ec_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.

4s

They did make one you mean. They don't make the NSX anymore, but I bet they will again esp if they read this forum. And I bet the engines didn't need to be replaced as much.

Riad don't think I'm ignorant or at least my college professors wouldn't agree? but price should have something to do with quality. You don't agree? You should pay more for less reliable?

GSIRM3

I owned one and never had any engine or transmission problems, nor did I hear of any.

GSIRM3

[QUOTE=4s]They did make one you mean. They don't make the NSX anymore, but I bet they will again esp if they read this forum. And I bet the engines didn't need to be replaced as much.

Well, they made it through the 2005 model year.

jb26jb

Bob, keep stirring the pot, oh so entertaining. Like watching a train wreck

LVDell

Not speechless. Just tired of your BS now. It was fun to jar back and forth with you for a while. But these irrational, ignorant rants you go on are just boring now. Ask for your $18 back from the Rennlist admins and go. I will no longer answer a single post from you anymore until you clean up your act.

bobporsche996

what is irrational and ignorant about both of the porsches from european driver having their engines explode on them? if anything, i find it quite ignorant and irrational to completely dismiss the failures as not meaning anything about the reliability of the porsche engines..

some of you continue to completely blame all the engine failures on driver fault when there is clear evidence to indicate otherwise... i just don't see how you can dismiss clear and factual evidence, and then tell everyone the engines are bulletproof? for you it may not matter, and could care less if anything happens to your 996.. but when people buying these cars ask for advice, a $13,000-$18,000 dent in their wallet might be something they want to protect themselves from..

i can clearly say that chances are most 996 owners will never encounter an engine problem, while at the same time, i can rationally say that there is amuch higher probability than most any other car on the market that the engine will need to be replaced...

i would atleast think one would accept both sides of the situation shown the clear evidence at hand...

audipwr1

It is all speculation until you actually get some solid statistics on engine failures. Like most internet car enthusiast sites, an issue with a small fraction of cars is always blown up (pun)

Now if any of you just can't take waiting for your motor to blow, or have a blown motor ill buy all of these cars at their salvage value just let me know

joes c4 cab

I have tried and tried to keep an open mind about my 996 and this forum. However, I cannot believe some people can be so bull headed. To totally dismiss the problems these cars are having is not only silly, it is naive. Do you think it is coincidence that so many used early 996's have new motors? Were they ALL abused?

I hope it does not happen to ANY of you - because it is very disheartening. It is like waking up on Christmas morning and seeing no presents.

Now that I have the car back, I do not even want it. It is like it is tainted now. I am only going to keep it for a month because I spent so much damn money, and after that I will miss it, but with a sour taste in my mouth. Hard to describe. Like if your wife came home and told you she was having an affair. You still love her, but are disgusted and sad at the same time. Does that make sense? That is how I feel about my Porsche now.

Anyway, total cost came to about $7,200 - it is running very strong and sounds great. The A/C is nice and cold, and it has been a beautiful couple of days in the OC, except for the damn ashes from the Ana-slime fire.

4S - I feel your pain. Now imagine you have to come out of your pocket for the money and you will know how I feel. Newport Auto does not have the best rep.

Anyway, I have started a new websit where I hope to gather info about owners who have had engine failures. It is not fully up now, but under construction. Eventually it will have a place to post owner info, mileage and type of failure, cost of repairs, photos, etc. Any settlement agreement with PCNA would not keep me from trying to help others with their failures.

www.996classaction.com

Check back soon as it will have a nice counter to keep track of how many motors have been damaged and replaced to date. Am I crazy? Maybe. My wife thinks so. She made me accept the settlement because I do not have the time to persue this properly.

ElTorrente

Bob, your "clear" evidence is nothing more than your estimations based on internet message boards. Just because you didn't see anyone saying they had their engines replaced in their Mercedes or BMW or whatever doesn't mean no one did.

Give us some numbers! What percentage of engines do you think are failing(based upon your flawless scientific method, of course)?

A car magazine *says* they didn't abuse the car, yet they killed two engines in a row. Hmmm, sounds sorta fishy. Guess what- car magazines have guys working for them that know they can beat on cars and they don't have to pay for them. Perhaps their careful-driving editor was TOO careful, and lugged the engine in 6th gear up hills everyday because he was scared to rev it as it was intended... or maybe he enjoyed revving high right after he started it up, or maybe he did an improper break-in and that contributed to it, or maybe his kid borrowed the car while he was sleeping and over-revved it racing his friends, or maybe magic elves broke it.. heck, we just don't know.

If the president of the United States can lie to our faces on National TV, then some random car editor can too! Welcome to Earth- were nobody takes responsibility for anything!

Why don't the Porsche magazines like Excellence warn people to be careful about 996 engines, instead of saying that this all blown way out of proportion and that the engines are actually quite reliable and strong? Do you really think that you know more about Porsches than they do?

bobporsche996

do you know how many cars european car magazine has tested? probably hundreds.. why should the porsche be any different than any of the others cars they tested? why didn't any of the other cars have their engines explode? let alone both of their porsches???

let's be conservative and say 1 of 1,000 people who have 996s post to rennlist and 6speed.. i found 84 non-rms related engine failures on these forums... 130,000 cars sold.. 84 x 130 = 10,920 failures... while no means analytical.. let's be extremely conservative.. let's say 1 of 250 996 owners post to rennlist and 6speed.. 2700+ engine failures not caused by rms by this 84 figure.... once again, completely speculative.. and not relying on any evidence, other than the numbers of posts by people on the forums mentioned... how many is too many? these numbers are purely purely speculative... but how many engine failures is too many? imho anything over 100 is too damn much.. 25 to 100+ times that.. i think we have a problem houston...

regardless, nobody knows the true numbers, but for people to completely dismiss the porsche 996 as having a bulletproof engine is just the most naive thing in the world... the porsche 996 is a GREAT car, but the engine has it's flaws... the RMS itself makes it a faulty manufactured engine in itself.. what if the RMS leak costed $10,000 to fix? then would things be different? i think so.. but people live with it because it's only a few hundred dollars to fix.. but when something else goes wrong other than a gasket, it can be $13,000 to $18,000 to fix.. then that's when you get some damn angry people... especially when after shelling out the cash, the only answer the porsche dealer gives you is "the engine has an internal flaw but you are out of warranty, sorry..."

gravedgr

Bob, can you use your fuzzy math to make my tax return come out better?

Eli K

It's a car afterall. Remember? Point A ----- Point B. Perhaps a bit faster with more comfrort, and style?

chris walrod

While I am a 993 air cooled, dry sump groupy, my wife and I bought an 03 Boxster about 6 months ago. The car has 14K miles on it and just today the bottom of the engine fell out. And, this is the second engine as it was replaced for the same reason at 8500 miles about a year ago.

Wifey was tooling around town when all of the sudden, she heard horrid noises and thumping from the back, pulled over and noticed the car had **** itself. Oil everywhere.

We will find out tomorrow what the dealer will do. Not happy and really disatisfied with the 'new' age of Porsche products.

What still just blows me away is the fact that these are higher end cars from a (once) reputable endurance racing manufacture who happens to sell very nice road cars. If Honda Civic engines were coming apart frequently, one would chalk this up to being cheap cars. Porsches (yes, even Boxsters) are not cheap cars and should not have these recurring massive failures and troubles. That is purely my feeling as of late

pcar964

I am sick of watching you guys bad-mouth Bob. All you do is sit there like a bunch of irrational kids, with statements like "You don't have any statistical evidence to prove it" and "You're blowing these problems out of proportion."

Well, WHAT THE HELL IS A WEB FORUM LIKE RENNLIST FOR, IF NOT TO SHARE INFORMATION ON TOPICS LIKE THIS? Do you idiots really expect Porsche to send out a press release with the exact statistics for 996 engine failures? WAKE UP! RENNIST MEMBERS ARE THE BEST SOURCE OF DATA ON THIS SUBJECT! Are you waiting for a 20/20 or Nightline Special on 996 engine failures before you'll admit there's a problem? You people are so damned committed to IGNORING this quality issue, that you MOCK and attempt to marginalize the individuals like Bob who are trying to shed some light on it, and get it out in the open - I have never seen anything like it.

There are common problems with every generation of Porsche, my 993 included. But on the 993 board, we share information openly and honestly, and WORK TOGETHER to find solutions for common problems. One example is the Wiring Harness issue, where the 993 guys kept the pressure on PCNA, resulting in a recall. But here on the 996 board, you try and "hush" any criticism of the cars, and therefore nothing ever gets done. I can't help but think, that if you guys had worked collaboratively from the beginning, the ROOT CAUSE of these engines grenading might have been determined, and maybe even a compromised solution with PCNA? Who knows. But Judging from your attitudes, this issue will remain taboo, and the 996 community at large will suffer because of it.

Just silly.