Bumlinger

I feel your pain! Well said, my friend. I had to laugh out loud when I read your post. I sincerely hope that things go better in the future with your 996!

Shane911996

Mate, if you think you are going to do this job in an hour you are in for a rude shock, this is the biggest pain in the **** job I have ever had to do on my 911, they should redesign that black so that you can attach the tank first and then slot it on to a bracket or something and secure it from the front. Good luck

hoofdpijn

In case anyone is considering giving the aftermarket "OEM" units a go. Just. Don't. Sixteen months and 3200 miles ago I paid a local indy to do mine (along with the thermostat and water pump) because I know what hell they are and even though I specifically stipulated that I wanted only the actual Porsche part...... when I picked up the car they had put in an "OEM" branded tank which I was assured was the exact same thing. I should have raised hell about it because I knew better but I decided to just go with the flow like a chump. The shop got sold to a new owner six months after I had the work done and right on queue last week, I started smelling coolant in the garage. I didn't even have to look, of course it was the tank. I guess I get to experience this joy after all.

Please say a prayer for me.

wyovino

I find it rediculous that there is such a big difference in quality between Genuine Porsche and OEM, but in this case there definitely is. My "OEM" tank lasted less than 3 years. For MK-I cars, lower the engine to the bottom of the engine mounts and disconnect the fuel lines That extra bit of work will save you tons of time and aggravation.

Porschetech3

I agree...

But I know good and well that Porsche does not make the coolant tank themselves, that is just not what they do....

But the 64 thousand dollar question is , is the company who DOES make the Porsche tank ONLY sell them to Porsche (and not under their own brand)?

It just doesn't make since.....but maybe there is a very small "high quality" company out there who does this kind of thing only for porsche 996...lol

yelcab

Porsche, and Ferrari, and Mercedes do not make many parts. What they do is to require very high quality in specifications such that only the best parts get their names on the boxes. Timing belts (Ferrari) from the middle of the batch and only a few months old. Waterpump with very tight tolerances. Bosch O2 sensors that have very tight voltage responses (because they get pushed to the very edge of the envelope) get sold to the manufacturers. The rest, well, they get sold to the masses like us chumps.

And then there are the copiers from the far east that will make something sort of like it using sort of like-material and sell it for half price on Alibaba. Replacement MAF for $25, connectors sold in bulk for $5, none of which ever works out of the box, and would you expect them to?

When quality matters absolutely, you absolutely buy from the dealer and bend over while saying Please.

damage98MO

That seems so unlikely. But here we are. There's loads of anecdotal evidence that some oe or OEM non Porsche tanks fail early. They should be recalled if that's the case. I can spring for a new genuine Porsche tank, it's not expensive in the long term, but short term my butt hurts sometimes with that porsche tax. Again, this is where years of missed service and service records, lapsed maintenance by previous owners who 'just drive it" then got bored and sold on, can cost. It's a 20+ year old water tank, fair enough, replace it, but not with Chinese junk out of a crap mold and bad plastic.
/rant.
I still love my car. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment, but it's not a daily tool, I've no real need for just 'a car'. And working on it, restoring little things that I can manage, it's a good break from the realities of the day to day. So...
Time to go abuse my rear tires and make an ungodly noise with the valves open at 6500k. That is usually enough to remind me 'why'. D(r)Ive safe and often. Apologies to PADI and divers everywhere.👺

wyovino

Just to be clear, some of the inferior tanks are made in Germany. At least mine was marked that way.

Porschetech3

Well, my coolant tank is 24 years old, it is "battle tested", it has proven to good, in light of the well known "bathtub curve" failures that even high quality parts can have, I think I will keep mine untill it shows a sign...lol

wyovino

I made the mistake of proactively changing my then 18 year old original tank. It was still good.

hoofdpijn

Has anyone had any success doing this on a 996.2? I just cannot get the dang thing out. I have it off of the bracket, all the hoses off, the engine lowered as far as it will go, little fuel nut removed and I just cannot find an angle to get it out. I've tried lifting the engine a little tried to rotate the tank this way and that. There is no angle I can move the tank into that will let me access the bolts holding the bracket on to get them out. 5 hours in and still haven't even gotten the old one out. I can't see any way the new one is going to go back in.

I'm at point of trying to button it back up and taking it to someone else but I sure didn't want to pay twice to have this done.

Porschetech3

The transmission mount has a little "give" to it, with the engine loose you can push the engine over to the passenger side for a little more clearance if necessary ..

mffarrell

I had the same issue until I cut off the bottom tank nipple, then it was free! My first tank that I changed took the better half of a day. My 2nd tank I changed took about 2 hours, but this was on a turbo which was more involved in removing the intake and other components.

hoofdpijn

Man, Skip I tried that and I cannot get the engine budge a millimeter even with a pry bar.

hoofdpijn

Well I thought about cutting that off but then how does that help going back in?

I tried watching every youtube video I could find and they're all 996.1 which has a bit smaller tank. I think the FSI video is a 996.2 but they just show theirs sliding right out easy as pie. <sigh>