No doubt they misdiagnosed.... I would have her bring a male friend that is knowledgeable of these cars.... sadly, shops do take prey of the unknowledgeable.

 

Sounds like a cracked head to me... This has become more common with mileage in the 99-2000 cars and most often seems to occur in winter.

 

Are replacement heads available?

 

Gotta wonder, The 928 blowes head gaskets more in the winter then people go out and start to car to warm it up. The 928 doesnt like that. I wonder if your "more in the winter" comment holds anythingsimular here with the 996?

 

first they are going to come back and tell her the two issues are not related. after all the car went another 2500 miles

 

Yes there are some chinese ones available... (Private Brake thread joke)

 

I've seen a company called motor meister online from california that ports and polishes heads amung other rebuild things. While browsing around looking for performance upgrading like complete rebuilds I found them. They might have used heads you could get. Some of the wordings in their site look a bit foreign.

http://www.motormeister.com/

 

To many bad reviews for me to trust the above mmeister, try Strasse Auto in Newport in Cali 949-645-1928 cost is about half of factory. One year warrenty and the engine I have has ran great so far.

 

Update: The dealer (Autobahn Autocar Group in Ft. Worth) is now offering the following:

She provides the engine and they will install with no labor charges. Or, they are offering "best price" (whatever that means) on a remanufactured engine and $10/hr off their $130/hr labor rate to install it.

Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated.

 

Also, she believes they quoted $8,000 for a remanufactured engine through them.

 

I heard a motor can be had for 8-9K from a dealer. I heard this from my informant on the inside.

Thats not really fair. They already gave to her for what 6500? Now she has to go get an engine and they will put it in for free? I >>heard<< thats like a 4-6 hour job? So they are giving her a whole 500-800 bucks.

Tell them to refund the work they did. They can have the old engine when you pull it.

 

The 3.4's have gone way up in price. The list is over $14,000, and last time I check (3-4 months ago) Sunset was $11,795 plus the core. There has been one price increase since then. If the dealer will do a 3.4 for $8,000 that is a pretty good price.

Just looked it up on Rennlist and a new head goes for about $2,000. Last summer when I checked they were $2,800, so I am not sure abut that price.

I had the crack in my 1-3 head fixed at Costa Mesa R&D, $500 with a valve job. All I can say is that my car is running great.

 

BIG correction:

She was incorrect with the $8,000 amount. Below is pasted from an email from Porsche Service Manager at Autobahn. I say....yet another gouging.

My Service director had the engine prices,and said if you find a used engine we will install it for no labor, also will work with her more on the labor if we do a porsche reman, which carries a 2 year unlimited mileage warranty.

The engine lists for 17837.00 with the core charge
the cost is 13,860.00 and we will do it for that with tax of 1143.45 plus cost on the labor which would be 950.00 that is with no mark up on either.

 

Are you referring to RAC Performance in Carrollton?

 

For $15k I would sue the MF'ers for incompetence. They mis-diagnoised the cracked head the first time round and now want her to pay for their mistake. I've owned and raced Porsches since 1968 and it pains me to see what's become of Ferry's company.

Moving forward, I suggest pulling both heads and sending them to a qualified shop for analysis, Jake if he's willing. If we're right, she will have a cracked head which can be replaced or patched at substanially less costs than the incompetent ****'s at her dealership. I would have an independent do this work. If we're all wrong, she really hasn't wasted any monies as the motor needs to be removed regardless. I would then exchange it with Auto Strasse in So Cal per "Mother's" recommendation. I'm racing one of their stock motors right now and they are good/honest folk. Their reman motor is probably half of Porsche's. Jake's motor would be the best alternative by far, but you're into Porsche reman monies then....

That description is almost always a cracked head and with only 60k miles she has viable alternatives to bending over for those ****** at her dealership....