996 in the cold? No problem!




I'm in northern Norway and my '98 996 is my daily driver. It has performed perfectly this winter with no hickups at all. I've even tracked it! Just this past weekend I joined some VW and Audis for a day on the ice:




It's sad that OP has troubles with his 996, but to balance the picture: My 996 has been a dream so far. Truly a perfect balance between supercar and every day trouble free motoring, sprinkled with top of the line German engineering. I love it to death and the only way I'm parting with it is when I'm ready to get a 997 or Panamera.

 

How does it run otherwise? I'm new to Porsches, but it seems if it were burning that much coolant it would run terrible and be belching smoke all over the place. Otherwise it would be obvious where the leak is.

If you live on a military base, are you sure someone isn't messing with you out of boredom and draining your coolant?

 

If the car is still under CPO maybe you should see about trading it in for another Porsche. Reading some of the posts here it seems that maybe it's just that particular car that doesn't like the cold.

 

He's in Canada man! There is no military!

disclaimer - men and women in the canadian military perform honourable and much valued work on behalf people of canada - the comment above is made for humorous reasons only

 

Loosing much coolant through the engine would be a smoky affair, yes. Since he doesn't mention it and the shop has tried the usual suspects (expansion tank, cap and a radiator) I guess the problem, luckily, is elsewhere.

A leak isn't that easy to spot, as the car is mostly flat underneath. A friend of mine had a leak on his C4 earlier this winter. He left a pool of coolant wherever his front end was parked, but it wasn't that easy to pinpoint the point of origin. After a fair bit of dismantling, then running the engine long enough for it to release coolant to the radiators, we finally found the fault: He had hit a pothole quite bad and physically punctured one of the radiators.

Approach the dealer about leaving the car for a week or two so they can leave it parked like you usually do and do proper fault finding to get to the bottom of this. After this many tries I would imagine they are willing to do it, and give you a loaner while it's in the shop.

 

The cold isn't the problem and neither is the car--it's the dealer. There's no reason an even semi-competent Porsche mechanic shouldn't be able to find a coolant leak after this many trips.

 

Like you said, eventually the coolant has to make it to the ground, but he didn't mention pools of coolant under the car. There should also be residue where it eventually exits the vehicle confirm a leak somewhere. You would also smell it.

If it's not being burned and there is no evidence of pooling or leaking, then it seems someone is screwing with him.

I can't think of another option. I could be wrong. I've owned lots of cars, but this is my first Porsce and I've only had it for 8 days

 

your coolant is working so good it is reversing global warming! our savior is here

excuse me,,,,almost pill time

 

I would welcome a bit more warming up here, spring still feels far away...

 

Got up to 87F here on Saturday. A cold front came through this afternoon and it's down to 65F tonight.

Top will be down tomorrow morning.

 

F. U.

 

 

an oslo border webcam was my favorite link for escaping back into the reality of the world. most of the time its snow and ice up in your region.

good luck with the weather and take care

 

Thanx!
Yeah, we have a few months with serious wintery weather, but it doesn't bother me too much. A little indicator light in my instrument panel that reads "TC OFF" helps the mood quite a bit.
The summers can be good too though, with the midnight sun and late night beers.

Webcam from up here: http://weather.cs.uit.no/

 

Pretty much exactly right.

No, I am not BURNING coolant. There is nothing in my oil, nor any smoke out the back.

I can see steam coming out of the front of the car when it gets really hot.

Now that it is warming up, it's boiling/steaming out even more. I'm having a call with the dealer in about an hour. I will request a loaner, but the last time I spoke with them, they didn't have one. Of course, they may not want to give me one since I live 500 kms away from them.

In the end, I might just take the front bumper off myself and try to track down the source.

Otherwise, my car has been awesome in the snow. It's a lot of fun, but not as much fun as summer track events. My new rear tires are arriving today and being put on this weekend. I need to get this coolant issue resolved before I do my first autoX event.