Fortunately for us, you have only had one friend with an M96.

 

+1 I appreciate what Jake is doing and sharing with us.

And I agree with Jyoteen too, I don't have money to toss around, and if I can spend a little to prevent such a catastrophe, I will. Like he said, we spend big bucks on oil changes, coolant flushes, brake flushes, etc. What's a little more for a bearing that you only have to do once. Will I replace everything because everything COULD brake? No, because there's no precedent for everything to break, but there is a precedent surrounding the IMS.

 

Based on your statistics none of us "water-cooled" people should have a factory original motor anymore!

Some of you "air-cooled" guys are priceless in the defense of the "superiority" of your older cars!
Pete

 

What he said +1

That's that great thing about a quasi socialist regime, we still have the illusion of choice.

 

Well I dont' think it's mass hysteria for those of us that actually own and drive these cars. However, $15k for a new engine IF you happen to be one of the unlucky bastards whose M96 grenades, does warrant some discussions.

How many people do you know who have had massive allergic reactions to a medication, where all their skin sloughs off and they nearly die? Yet the law requires every single patient to be warned of this possibility before they take a new medicine. Common? No. Possible? Yes. Are we creating mass hysteria by doing so? You tell me.

How much money do we all spend on car insurance over the years? Yet how many times have you actually used it? Once or twice?

That's what this is...insurance...except this insurance might actually increase your resale value.

 

+1 to that, brutha brutha.

 

Well said, keep up the good work Jake.

 

Dell you are a "Master Baiter" for starting this thread!!

 

I can back this up. I inquired about becoming a sponsor and was quoted $600 a month.

Jake is a great source of information and is an asset to this site regardless.

 

Not really. Just would prefer to finally see a thread discussing more realistically what the IMS bearing replacement is and what it can do. Jake has been more forthright in this thread than I have seen in a long time. Just a means to address some of the issue brought up by Bruce in the Excellence article. Nobody has said Jake is NOT an asset NOR that is doing work that is going to be wasted or not a benefit to this community. It's just important to understand that these cars will NOT fail from IMS issues but rather it's a rare occurrence relative to production numbers and there is an upgrade option available. If you feel the need to upgrade your IMS bearing then Jake has a fantastic option for you and does great work. But to feel that it is preventative is wrong.

Agreed. Great wealth of information and what I would hope has happened here. I was able to explain to Jake rationally and adult like why his posts and comments spark controversy. He understood and explained why he comes across as he does. Further, I agree that $600 a month to support the site for a service seems a bit over the top. A basic $18 a year membership though would go a long way for his cause.

 

I too am grateful that Jake and Charles developed solutions to the M96's week points. I also am glad that Jake is active on this forum to explain the more intricate details of why these motors go bad and how his solutions address them.

As far as the debate if the IMS bearing is an upgrade or preventative, it all depends on your point of view. When I am due for a clutch, there will be very serious consideration to do the Jake's kit when the trans axle is out of the car. It's a reasonable cost (as compared to a motor replacement/rebuild) and as inexpensive as our resale values are, I'd like to avoid having my car be considered a throw away. Especially, considering how low mileage my car has for it's age.

As with any topic, more information available is better than less. I think most of us can filter out marketing hype and what is reasonable. While it is true, that without real failure numbers, it is much more difficult to asses whether the failure rate is high enough to necessitate the bearing replacement independently. Just take the other parts of the known equation of the relative low cost of the kit and procedure if you're already going to have the trans axle separated from the engine for some other reason (clutch replacement, RMS) and make your own evaluation for what is right for your own personal risk assesment. I have always been a proponent of replacing any part with a better one if the opportunity arises. It's an unfortunate affliction that usually takes me down a path of modification of all my vehicles but, I've never been let down on changing something to a better or stronger part.

Being that my car is a 99 and more publicly lambasted as a problem year, I'm leaning more towards doing the procedure if I've already got an issue that requires trans axle separation from the motor for 2 reasons, to help retain it's perceived value and for piece of mind. With that being said, my motor and car for that matter have been pretty good in the time that I've had it. It's bone dry and running well (knock on wood) but, it's got relatively low miles (40K).

My 2 cents adjusted for inflation,

 

Not really as that is totally subjective. We know that while the IMS bearing could have been engineered better, it's not something that is as bad as thought but could be made better with a nice upgrade offered by people like Flat6 and LN.

The analogy I would give you as what it meant by preventative. If you eat a diet high in fat, your doc will tell you that you will almost positively die of heart disease from clogged arteries and as a PREVENTATIVE measure that you should understand that you arteries and heart will last a long time and run their natural course if you eat a proper diet. Your ticker will not succumb to this early demise but can in a rare occurrence.

 

LOL, that's what I meant. It's subjective and up to the individuals personal perspective to decide whether they want to do the IMS kit or not.. I need to drink my coffee before I post.

 

hehehe

Totally understand the coffee thing. You can tell when I post sans coffee

 

I would say that it is "impossible" in this format (the internet) to asses whether the failure rate is high enough to necessitate the bearing replacement.

This is why I asked Jake in another thread: of all the IMS replacements he has completed, what percentage actually showed enough degradation for the replacement to have been deemed necessary? 1%, 10%, 20%? He declined to answer with a specific number. That said, I suspect Porsche is the only one that can really answer this question and I doubt that anything less than a class action law suit would ever get them to release those figures.

Absent these numbers we are left with nothing but anecdotal tales of woe and what looks like good information coming from a knowledgeable but very interested party. Neither should be enough for most informed consumers to justify spending almost $1,500-2,000 for the procedure-but stranger things have happened in the open marketplace.

Considering other issues like resale, peace of mind for the more risk averse, or offsetting costs by combining the procedure with other repairs may tilt the buying decision in the other direction for some consumers-me included.