Ms.Greta

funny - i was at the carwash too, then over to Barrier (dropping off my C4S to sell on consignment). Great to have that free car wash - we have three cars from Barrier for for that. Sorry about your engine - that sucks. Mine has 55k and never a problem of any kind. The guys at Barrier will take good car of you - they are super.

rmillnj

Another garage queen bites the dust. Maybe there is something to the belief that an easy life is not good for Porsches.

Sorry to hear about your problem, but with a warranty you really have nothing to worry about other than the inconvenience. Just keep pushing for a new engine if it is serious. Become best friends very quickly with the service manager. He is your first line of defense against the bean counters at Porsche N.A.

gota911

Bronston - I am not aware of anyone that had an IMS failure and had just the IMS shaft replaced. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened, I just have never heard of it happening in nearly 3 years I have been active on Rennlist and Renntech.

Nicolaasdb

If your car has the original warranty....bring it in and they will fix it.

And why are you guys coming down on this guy so hard.....his engine just blew....so who cares if he didn't do a search.......damn.'

As for future engine failures....there are no guarantees in life for anything!!!

Benjamin Choi

I like Justin. Cool dude.

And, bud, sorry about your troubles. At least the weather sux for fun driving. Get the engine replaced. I would accept nothing less. You want a remanufactured engine. My car has one.

joes c4 cab

They will not crack that case to fix this problem, my guess is you are assured a new motor. Sad to see on such a low mileage car.

Is there ever going to be a recall? This is just BS. At least YOU have warranty!

Best of luck with your car, and post some pics when you get it all worked out.

Flame away.

bronston

Thank you all for the input and kind words. I am so far positively impressed with Barrier. I will post when they get to the car next week and let all know what happened. Again, thanks for your kind words and interest. ( I really did do a search! Honest !))

carpundit

I suppose DAFS was kind of harsh. I apologize.

I should have said it differently. Maybe PDAFS!

jumper5836

+1

Lucky his engine didn't cease up!

apterr

Bronston,
Sorry to hear of your misfortune. Glad to hear it is still under warranty...whew!
This is the right place to bring your mechanical/technical advice type questions. Doing searches and reading about something going wrong with your car leaves you on an island. It doesn't come close to the advice and support you will find here. Best of luck.
Andy T

chsu74

I don't think we have encountered an engine once it makes over 60K miles. Clearly its a design issue and prolonged use of the engine will weed itself out.

insite

it does seem like there's something to this. anyone have an IMS fail who drives the daylights out of their car?

BruceP

It's documented to some extent that certain failures are mileage time-bombs. Excellence has written about this a couple of times.

And all the Porsche people I know or have read agree that these cars are less trouble if they're driven than if they aren't.

I think these are two separate issues, but both valid ones. If I were doing it again, I'd still avoid an ultralow mileage car, and I'd still choose the risks of driving it daily over the risks of leaving it parked. Just one point of view, but sooner or later the anecdotal evidence piles up enough that you have to believe there's something to it.

hwk72

Sorry to hear that another engine is gone.

I believe here in the US Porsche does still go with new (rebuilt) engines after almost every kind of engine failure under warranty. However, talking to a Porsche service manager in Europe, Porsche forces the dealer there more and more to repair (kind of rebuilt on their own) the engines instead of replacing them with factory rebuilt units. However, you should get in any case not less than 2 years warranty after the repair/replacement; only tip: don't park the car for these 2 years - drive it whenever you can!

Macster

ago and was in the shop and spotted a Carrera on a lift with its engine out.

Started looking around and then spotted the engine disassembled with various pieces hanging around (like engine cases) and on carts covered with clean red shop rags.

I started snapping some pictures and mech. saw me and we got to talking.

Engine suffered an intermediate shaft bearing failure. One picture clearly shows the obviously damaged IMS bearing race in the shaft end.

Luckily the owner shut the engine off before serious damage occurred.

THe mech. told me that upon disassembly the metal from the IMS was not in the oil pump, scavage pumps, etc. and whatever inspection is required to permit the dealership to rebuild the engine was performed and therefore the engine was deemed rebuildable. Parts I guess were on order and he was awaiting the parts to begin reassembly. It was obviously going to get a new intermediate shaft, and at least one camchain tensioner/guide that had broken.

(BTW, I have all pictures of the engine I took that day. I posted them on several threads on PPBB. Sorry but I don't have the thread links.)

It was then I was told that Porsche had changed its policy and in some cases engines could be rebuilt at dealerships if the engine of course passed inspection during partial teardown and was suitable for rebuilding.

As for the IMS, one theory has it the bearing is undersized and thus can fail.

Oh, the engine in this case had around 20,000 miles on it, was a manual equipped car, and was generally not thrashed. In fact from the pictures of the pistons there is considerable deposits present indicating to me the car probably was subjected to short trips, probably of the commuting nature, in the SF area. (Which means approx. every working day a cold start in the morning followed by a short less than 5 mile drive to the office, then another cold start at lunch with a short drive to lunch and a start and short drive back to the office an hour later and at the end of the work day another cold start followed by yet another short drive home.)

Anyhow, the trouble is a new/improved IMS with a larger bearing is available (and is fitted to newer 996 engines) but is not retrofittable to older engines. The new IMS has a different camshaft drive sprocket that would require a change in crankshaft and camshaft drives.

(Howevev, at least one UK Porsche shop (Autofarm?) remachines a new IMS removing the new sprocket and grafting an older style sprocket to it thus permitting the upgrading to a new IMS with a larger bearing into older 996 engines.)

More recently, in a UK mag I read that at least one knowledgable independent Porsche shop believes the seal of the old style IMS (the internal seal and not the one that seals the oil inside the crankcase and is guilty of causing IMS oil leaks) is too good and prevent sufficient oil from reaching the IMS bearing and has some modification it performs to address this.

Sincerely,

Macster.