bobfromva

Hello. Is there anyway of knowing if the IMS bearing has been changed? The dealer that is selling the 2003 911 has no clue. Its not listed on the carfax. I do have the vin number but was not sure where to start. Any ideas?

DBJoe996

In a word...nope. If there are no shop receipts or an LN Engineering sticker on the door jam (replacement bearing registered with LN Engineering), there is no way to know. Sorry about that. Just buy it and plan to have the LN Engineering Solution installed...then you will know for sure.

petermjj

Bought mine from a dealer in October '18. Had it checked out, looked fine, dealer didn't know if IMSB was replaced or not, Carfax didn't say. Brought the car in a few weeks ago (I do change the oil but have only driven 3K miles since getting it) to diagnose a high-pitched gear noise of some kind. Thought it was tensioner pulleys - nope. Now, seeing metal in the oil filter... IMS was original and is failing. So there's one data point...

808Bill

Sorry to here this!
When you say "had it checked out", what did they do to check it?

DrMEMS

Dang. I have to wonder whether the previous owner or the dealer saw metal in the oil and changed right before the inspection so it would look OK. If the oil has under 1000 miles on it, it'll look closer to the clear brown color of fresh oil than to the black color after 5000 miles.

petermjj

They looked for traces of metal in the oil filter. Nothing much more you can do short of paying many dollars to drop the transmission etc and open it up.
I wonder the same thing. Unfortunately 18 months have passed, dealer sales department is closed for pandemic, and even if they were open they'd likely tell me they were given no information about the IMSB. I'm trying to think positive, that I'm doing what's right for the car (and next owner), hoping I don't get any more "I've got bad news" calls from my mechanic, and looking forward to more years of driving enjoyment. Because until now, it's been a hoot to drive. Yeah, "hoot."

808Bill

Yup, you got burned. We've seen this happen so many times, thus the reason we preach getting a "Proper PPI" done. Sorry.
What's your plan? I hope your mechanic knows how to proceed otherwise you be here again.

petermjj

I didn't get a PPI but I had 10 days to bring it back, no questions asked. I don't have the paperwork in front of me but I did get it inspected within a few days. Compression check, checked the oil and other fluids, saw no traces of metal, oil looked good, he drove it, and found several "little" things that would need attention over the years. Play in the water pump, damp oil sump, small leak in cam cover gasket... nothing that screamed "RUN AWAY". I haven't heard or read anything on here that comprises an IMSB test. My indy mechanic has a 996 also - we both knew of the IMSB liability but said we would keep good tabs on it. It's hard to cover up a failing IMSB.

In retrospect I don't necessarily think I got burned by the dealer (who listed the used car) or by anyone else. The option I could, perhaps should, have taken was to walk away from a 20-yr old porsche where I was the third or fourth owner and had no info on previous owners or what they did with the car. I could/should have also just replaced the IMSB on day one.

808Bill

Sorry I should have said the dealer got burned as we've seen this happen over and over. Previous owner discovers metal in the oil does an oil change and immediately trades it in.
Either way it sucks and I hope you get it sorted, These are great sports cars once up and running!

dporto

The question is; What stage of failure is it in, and can it be replaced without a complete tear-down/clean-out of the motor... see here:

http://lnengineering.com/files/2019-...-rev.06-21.pdf

and here:
Good Luck

Cabracer

Metal in the oil doesn’t always mean IMS.

I hear quite frequently about the chain wearing out. It also seems chain tensioners stop doing their job after a while, and perhaps give more play to the chain, hence earlier chain wear? I’m not sure. Just an internet mechanic here.

my .02

808Bill

Regardless, that motor needs to be torn down cleaned and rebuilt!

koth442

01, manufactured in October of 2000. Double row. Replaced with IMS retrofit at 129,xxx miles because the clutch was getting done and why not? The bearing showed no signs of wear.

EFunke

01 C4 73k no issues.

Bizmonq

You can check the LN Engineering retrofit registration page and see if your VIN is listed. Normally the installer would apply a retrofit decal in an easy to find place like on the door sill, but in my case it was inside the owner's manual in a small plastic packet. I checked the decal number against the LN registry and found it was indeed registered correctly at the time of the retrofit. The registration will confirm which type of retrofit kit was installed as well as the date and installing dealer. Good Luck!