white99c2

My car is at Porsche because of CEL P1539 and the warranty company sent an adjuster to look at it and inspect my mainenance records. I have every receipt since 1999 including 13 oil changes.
The inside of the opened Cam shows some dried Varnishing and what they called sludge. It looks like a thin film of brown all around the spark plug tubes. The Cam is clean as well as the chains and actuator.
The service writer said her gut is they are going to deny the claim because they are claiming that the sludge aided in the failure. It's BS because it looks more like varnishing on the inside of the cam area no loose sludge or anything thick. The buildup is as thick as a piece or two of paper. It's thinner than a credit card. I'm going back there in the AM to take pics of it.

Does anyone have any pics of the VarioCam with the cover off that I can compare mine to?

logray

This is the inside of my cam cover after 75k miles. Varnish is a fact of life even with religious oil changes. I would call BS on the claims adjuster. The actuators don't last forever and even with regular oil changes they are going to fail. They are a SERVICE part after all.



And one of the heads:

Macster

Looks about the same as my 02 Boxster did when its VarioCam solenoid/actuator failed at around 240K miles.

To the OP: Send me a PM with your email addresss and I'll reply with various pics taken when my Boxster engine's passenger side camshaft cover removed for solenoid/actuator R&R.

Denying the claim due to "sludge"? Might as well deny it because the alignment of the planets is not quite right.

Your mechanic though ought to fight for you and point out there's no sludge present. I've seen sludge in other engines (not any Porsche engines) and if one has seen it he never forgets it. Sludge is a very unhealthy looking collection of 'goo'. Yuck.

Every horizontal surface/depression collects it.

Sincerely,

Macster.

logray

Macster

To add to your comments, what I think happens is the solenoid starts going bad and in doing so it activates/deactivates the actuator over and over again which takes its toll on the actuator.

Also, I found the pics of my Boxster's camshaft cover and the underneath side of my Boxster's camshaft cover is pretty bright. Brighter than I remembered.

But even so the amount of discoloration visible in the pic of the camshaft cover you posted, if the OP's cover has this same coloring that is not sludge at all, but varnish just like you said.

And no where sufficient to deny the claim.

Sincerely,

Macster.

white99c2

My head and cover are darker with a coating than the pics logray posted. This is going to be an uphill battle, the repair is $2800 for actuator/solenoid and labor.
I'm sick over it.

Macster

About $2800 is right. I paid around $3K (had an oil/filter service done at the same time) when I had the solenoid/actuator replaced in my 02 Boxster's engine.

Afterwards, though, the engine was like new. And it still is and it has just a few hundred miles over 248K miles on it.

Sincerely,

Macster.

white99c2

Macster, send the pics if you can. thanks

Graufuchs

I love seeing numbers like that!!!

Macster

Sent.

I have pics of the cams, sprockets, actuator, chain if you want those.

Sincerely,

Macster.

logray

ditto on pics, i have a thousand at least.

dresler

I think most would like to see pics of the internals. Its the kind of thing everyone looks at but doesn't always have much to say about.

white99c2

I won, I filed a complaint with the Secretary of State in Texas and the BBB in Irving Texas where Enterprise Financial Corporation (the warranty company) is located last friday.
I received a call from them yesterday asking if I had picked up the car yet from North Scottsdale Porsche, I told the guy I spoke to that I was planning to pick it up at 5PM. He told me, "I have good news for you; we have decided to pay your claim", they Paid Porsche $2800 and change.
I've been emailing back and forth with Macster and he wanted me to share the news that I won.
It felt great driving my 911 to work this morning.
Thanks to all that participated in my thread.

Topaz330ci

What was the symptom when it failed?

Macster

One second the engine was running just fine the next it was not.

As I arrived at my office after an uneventfull 30 mile drive mostly at highway speeds the engine developed an odd idle condition.

One moment the engine was idling at normal idle speed then it dropped to around 500 rpms (by the tach dial/needle) then almost no sooner does it reach 500 that it climbed again to the normal idle rpm and this cycling repeated over and over again, at least for the few minutes I let the engine idle.

Gave the engine some throttle and it ran and sounded ok. No scary noises. (I was probably whimpering though...)

No other symptoms, Oh, the CEL was not on.

I connected my trusty Obd2 code reader and checked for DTCs. Even though the CEL was dark I thought it might be dark because the bulb had burned out.

But the CEL status was 'off'.

Then I read pending DTCs and there was one, P1341: 174 Camshaft Adjustment, Bank 1 - Signal Implausible, 174 Camshaft Adjustment, Bank 1 - Below Limit, 174 Camshaft Adjustment, Bank 1 - Above Limit.

I used the reader to clear DTCs, though there was no current DTC this also cleared the pending DTC.

Then I shut off the engine and restarted it and upon restart and idle the rough idle symptom was no longer present and the engine still sounded ok.

Decided to risk it and drove the car home and did so without incident.

Next business day drove the car 1.5 miles to the dealer. The idle was a bit rough upon startup -- probably because fuel trims reset after I cleared the code -- but nothing like it was the day before.

On way to the dealer the check engine light did come on just a few blocks before I reached the dealer. I didn't read the code -- took OBD reader out prior to taking the car to the dealer -- but suspected the code was was the pretty persistent (at least in colder weather) P0430.

Got the car into the dealer the next business day and the tech confirmed the solenoid/actuator bad. Solenoid replaced and the symptom returned shortly after I got the car back. Back to the dealer and I was told the actuator was bad and because this happens quite often the SOP is to replace -- unless the customer refuses to agree with this -- both the solenoid and actuator.

However, I had not been given the choice of replacing both items -- had I been given this choice I would have gone with the techs' recommendation and granted permission to replace both items -- and the dealer absorbed the duplicate labor/parts/supplies cost arising from going back into the engine and replacing the actuator.

After this the engine ran and has continued to run just fine.

Sincerely,

Macster.