Any 3.4 (or any other M96 engine) that was new/ reman post the 2006 implementation of the 997 style IMS bearing has an IMS bearing that cannot be retrofitted.

 

Thanks, Jake.

Have you seen IMS failures on these reman engines?

 

I love the fact that the OP thinks we're in denial. Why? Just because we bought one? The first page of the 996 forum always has at least one, if not several, posts on IMS failures and questions. There's even an IMS/RMS sticky at the top.

It seems like he should be criticizing anyone who bought a 996 (or ANY car for that matter) without doing some research on it beforehand. There's certainly a plethora of information about the M-96 and the 996 in general on Rennlist, Renntech and a dozen or so other websites. Maybe someone else who needs to be educated is the OP?

-Eric

 

Could be a fair statement since we don't know each other. I purchased mine in 2007, hmmm now that I think about it was our 4 year anniversary on the 7th of this month. Dealer should have called me and told me how badly they needed my used 996 on trade for that GTS!

Actually I did not buy mine on a whim and I obviously paid much more than $20k for it four years ago. I'll admit that other than googling "2004 Porsche" and paying for a full car fax, I did not anguish for months in research. I knew about the RMS, was somewhat concerned until I read about the progressive updates to the replacements and mine was replaced when qualifying for CPO. I will add that I am still on that RMS and it was dry when my transmission was replaced about 2 years ago, under CPO. They replaced the IMS at the same time, "while they were in there". The single requirement that I had was that I purchase a CPO car. The IMSB catastrophy must not have been so well known, or published, or fed upon, in August of 2007 because my internet searches never showed anything, maybe I didn't research enough, who knows.

I do know that after spending some time here and on Renn Tech, I learned about it and I did stress in a major way. I pestered the hell out of the service manager. He insisted that although they knew about the issue, they had never actually had any in their shop. LOL - he finally got pissed at me and said "look - you paid good money for a CPO car - go out and drive it like you want to blow it up and if it blows up you'll get a crate motor installed for free". So - I pretty much followed his advice and darn, I should have known, the motor has not yet blown up (fingers crossed) and the CPO has long since expired. I put 11k miles per year on the 996 alone.

So - I don't think all 996 owners are of the breed you describe, but then again, not all 996's blow up as soon as the new owner drives away. As soon as I can find my "lucky" meter I am heading to the casino - have to find a way to get that GTS so I can put all of this IMS stuff behind me.

P.S. - if I had it to do over again and knew about the IMS prior to purchase - I honestly believe I would have purschased the car anyway. There isn't much I've enjoyed in my life that hasn't come with known risk.

Let's all drive and enjoy.

 

Hummmm... - I was after an air-cooled, got caught up in the chase, blu-***** aching, $15,000 996 with the re-man engine and bit on it, no PPI. Am I a f*ckin idiot, ask my wife & friends.

Do I flat love this car and will work through any issue that arises? Absolutely.

If you are foolish enough to buy one of these cars for ANY reason other than you want one and nothing else will do, you deserve what you get...

If the motor takes a dump tomorrow, I will place a call to Cleveland, GA and weigh my options, if this sort of thing bothered me, I would enjoy driving my wife's Prius.

 

You didn't meet me, that's for sure.

 

OP, could you please enlighten us on just exactly how many of these "used 996 owners" have you met? 3? 5? 10? 50? 100? I just can't envision that you have met enough of them to be statistically representative to support the statement srongly suggesting none of the used 996 owners knew what they are getting themselves into.

Yes my used 996 Cab with the hardtop was priced right for me and it does look cool and it's my toy car when I decided the 928 just didn't fit my liking even though that was the car I started lookin as the toy car. This 996 cab needed tires, it needed a good polishing, it didn't come with the owner's manual(!) and at some point in the near future I will have the LN IMS bearing installed and likely getting the AOS and clutch done at the same time, and oh yes I did know of the IMS, RMS, cylinder crack issues, and Rinnlist.com before I committed in buying this particular car, while I have been wreching my own cars for the last almost 30 years, I knew I didn't know enough about Porsche cars or the 996 specifically, so a thorough PPI was performed by the top independent shop in the area with lots of recommendations, including from my dentist!

BTW, who really "needs" a Porsche 911/996/997 etc.? These cars are not necessary to go to work or grocery shopping with, whoever buying these cars do so because it is unique, rare, status symbol, fun, enjoyable, so why do all the "used 996 owners" get stereotyped as clueless exotic car owner wanna-be?

 

If your engine code looks like this... M96/0*ATxxxxxxxx and the replacement was done in late 2005 or later... your IMSB may not be replaceable. Unfortunately the only way to know for certain is to view the IMSB bearing/flange.

 

Nice story with a happy ending. As you probably know, the LN Eng retrofit is not a cure--it is an alternate to the approach chosen by Porsche. I have been unable to secure the data that compares the failure rate of the sealed (factory) bearing versus the LN Eng open race bearing. I hope you enjoy many trouble free miles with whichever IMS bearing you are running!

 

Six. Not a statistically significant sample size. Clearly, none of them knew what they were getting into. They were "clueless" to use your term. Even within this thread you see 996 owners who are yet confused about IMSB--this in spite of the usual complaints that this topic has been beaten to death.

 

Probably not. I have not met any 996 owners that have heard of rennlist.

 

Perhaps this is Porsche's fault! What cars out there have such a major issue that warranted (rightfully or wrongfully) this much attention where the engine can self-destruct if/when the IMS bearing fail? This is recognizing that many 996 are still running just fine with the OEM IMS bearing, and some with well over 100K miles as two of the 996s I saw supposely were, but there certainly are enough 996 engines lost due to this cause as the internet and web have allowed the rest of us to glean into the higher than expected IMS failure occurances.

Most, if not all people buy a modern car expecting not much will go wrong if they just followed the mfg suggested maintenance schedule, especially for critical items such as timing belt on interference engines, but to the best of my knowledge the IMS bearing has not been identified by Porsche as one of those items under the normal maintenance schedule. I also understand there are 5 chains internal to the engine to drive the IMS and valve trains that need to be replaced at some point in time, but hopefuly not for a very long time unless engines are reported blown with timing chains issues!

It seems Porsche is just keeping quiet and replacing the IMS induced blown engines under warranty rather than coming up with a proper solution and offering a recall and extending the warranty.

Honda was in a similar situation with the auotmatic transmission of their V6 engines in the early 2000 to mid 2000s, it was under-designed where one of the gear set would overheat and break making a total mess of the transmission. Honda tried very hard to just pay to repair/replace the dead transmissions and not offering any recall or post warranty good-will repairs, eventually enough people documented the occurances and complained an US government agency (FTC IIRC) stepped in, telling Honda either to make this right for the owners or "we'll see you in court", Honda backed down, came up with an oil jet retrofit kit, and extended the warranty to (IIRC) 10 years and much higher mileage limit.

Doesn't look like Porsche will be doing that any time soon though ..........

 

I bought my first p-car, an '80 911SC, on a whim...great car. I bought my first and second 993s on a whim, too; both were great cars. I bought my '99 996 cabrio w/hdtp on a whim, too; another great car.

After 25 years of 911 ownership, I don't have a problem with those who buy on a whim. There's room in the tent for everybody.

Finally, after meeting P-car owners of all vintages, cars and owners (!), over the years, I have not discerned any major differences across groups in re. technical knowledge, brand enthusiasm, or whatever.

relinuca

 

So I understand... even though it is a 3.4 motor with a case designed for the older style IMS bearing they retooled the cases on newer 3.4 replacement motors to use the newer bearing? I did not think Porsche would find it cost effective to retool the older 3.4 case design like that...

FYI, I had an IMS failure on my 1999 996 so I know how painful it can be. Did the L&N IMS upgrade on both my 2000 Boxster (original single row bearing was in bad shape!) and on my current 2001 996 (dual row bearing looked to be perfect go figure) so I am a happy customer of this solution.

 

Yes, but there was no re-tooling involved.. In 2006 with the 997 the IMS was updated, When Porsche did this they changed EVERYTHING to the newer style bearing. This would include if someone bought a new engine for a 997 Boxster 2.5 engine in 2006.

Porsche does not like having multiple components in use at once, when the new bearing was developed a global change occurred between all engines, new, and reman..

Once again, no re-tooling.. They simply threw the newer IMS in at assembly time, its a seamless integration.. Hell, we can remove the new style IMS and bearing and back date it to as eary as a 2001 arrangement, or can use a 2008 bearing in a 2001, they share the same IMS drive on the crankshaft.

Porsche would have had to continue making the old style arrangement to keep the 06 and newer 3.4 engines using it. The 997 or these bearings are not special.

Single rows are 1/2 as durable as dual row bearings, but that doesn't mean the dual row is any better- they fail too..

In closing, if you have a new or reman engine made post 2006 it has the 997 style bearing, NO MATTER what displacement or application it fills.