pongobaz

+1; it's been my experience too.

bronston

Having lusted after a Porsche for most of my life I bought an '04 40th anniversary last August. The car had no sign of abuse and less that 11,000 miles on the clock. Five months later while sitting at idle the intermeadiate shaft failed, requiring a complete engine tear-down to repair. Of course I did a lot of reading on forums about this subject. I note there have been many threads on this subject, for good reason. Porsche does not make to stats available for what I suspect is also a good reason. I invite those interested to go to BMW and Corvette forums and search "engine failure", "engine replacement", etc. You won't find much.

While I love my car, I am a bit uneasy about the engine issue, and will be more so when my CPO expires. Simply put, no other cars seem to have an issue so serious and long standing. To date I am unaware if Porsche has identified and resolved this problem, offering instead only the assurance that the latest iteration of "improvements" is better.

No doubt this post will be followed by some complaining once again about this being raised. It keeps coming up because these engines keep failing!

With so many failures Porsche owes an explanation.

psperl

Holy crap now you've got me scared! Your '04 engine went? I just replaced my '99 996 engine and I had assumed these issues were fixed years ago. But '04 is uncomfortably close to '08!

ejdoherty911

Only Porsche has the most accurate statistics, which they refuse to divulge. I've spent countless hours, days, weeks, on many many different car forums and I have to agree with some on this forum, I've never come across another brand or specific engine with so much discussion about low mileage engine failures on properly maintained cars. Is it scientific? No. But when the company that holds all the science refuses to discuss the subject, what are you left with? Porsche has the ability to set the record straight and they don't do it. That speaks for itself. Clearly these engines fail at a rate which is unacceptable for any manufacturer, and downright criminal when you're taking about a $65,000+ (new) high performance sports car.

I do know that when Porsche's design engineers are discussing the new 2008 engine and are directly asked if the engine addresses "all the problems" found in the 3.4L and 3.6L, they do not deny that problems existed (they don't discuss the problems either), they simply state "it has been addressed." Now if I was an engineer and someone said my product had a bunch of problems, when it in fact did not, I would set the record straight. A German engineer would always set the record straight. So in my opinion, the engine has problems. Having said that, I own a 1999 996 and I like it!

Cpa4S

they way i tried to resolve the % failure was by looking at what Porsche did to change the engine design. we know that the turbo 996 didn't have the issue so at a minimum they could have moved that engineering to the normally apirated 996. they could have also do some other re-design ealier then the intro of the 997.

the fact that they really did none of these suggested to me that the failure rate was low enough that the warranty costs of engine replacements was cheaper than the re-design options. basically, i concluded that a bean counter told the engineers to go work on something else that had a better ROI.

this doesn't get you your % stugggart, but it does put it in some context imo.

tooloud10

That's absolutely the reason for the reaction this thread received. I think we're a perfectly welcoming group that's overwhelmingly tired of people claiming to have searched about all the blowed-up engines...and this is coming from someone that had a blowed-up engine.

dresler

I bought a 3.6 with 75k miles hoping the engine would blow. No matter what I do, it just keeps running. I just don't get it.

cdaniels

My year 2000 996 has 57,000 miles and keeps on ticking flawlessly....running like a bat out of hell......my 1985 went 250,000 miles before an engine rebuild.....

cdodkin

Pop in next time you're in San Diego.

I'll introduce you to my wife (99 986 with a new engine)
My Buddy Gregg (98 986 with new engine)
My buddy Mark (had an 01 - sold after engine failed)
And of course myself (97 986 sold after engine failed)

I'll pick you up in my 03 996 (still on engine #1)

DreamCarrera

Thanks for sparing us the lecture oh wise one. We are not worthy.


For the past year I have been wearing ear plugs while driving my 996 so that the coming explosion does not damage my hearing. LOL

DreamCarrera

HAHA You haven’t seen anything. If the other know-it-all professor and Ben were still here you would be receiving far more s**t than this.

Good luck to you.

pongobaz

Would love to get to SD again sometime!
My unofficial stats (apologies to Dell) are that in 3 years of hosting a weekly Saturday morning rennlist GTG here in Toronto, I've never met anyone who's had an engine grenade on a 3.6 or a 3.4. Probably a couple of hundred p-cars have come through the GTG's over the years.

juankimalo

In our spanish forum www.soloporsche.com there are some engine failures in the last weeks. This issue is famous 'cause everybody would be horrified about it.
And there is always someone who wants to know the real stadistics. Me too, but It's impossible.

juankimalo

I'm terrified

My car showed the oil pressure check alert 3 days ago.
I was in second gear at 2000 rpm, and I passed through a great pothole. Suddenly the oil check alerted me , and the oil pressure gauge fall down to zero.
I swichted off the car and sent to my specialist and confident mechanic.
He was on Portugal for a hollyday and till september 4th, will not come back. So I don't know what would happen to my loved p-car yet.
let's hope everything turns out all right! I am dreaming about it'd be the oil pressure sensor... if not, you know what we are talking about


The car has only 26.600 kms

6ocyclehum

Mine is a '99 with 68K, orig engine. I've been in several Porsche specialist repair/build shops and mentioned the engine failures, and they have all said they don't really see/hear much at all. It can happen, I sweated it before buying mine in Jan 08, but read a thread on here that basically said "these cars are too good, to not be able to enjoy one, because of that possiblilty". I fully agree, and they are priced RIGHT- lots of bargains, fantastic cars. If I have to replace the engine, I still won't be out that much...... it's worth it.