petarv

Hello everyone,

I was a proud owner of a 911 40th anniversary limited edition Porsche until last month when couple things went wrong until a complete break down.
This car has done only 64,000 km and was mostly used as a weekend car. It has full service history and had no issues in the past until last couple of weeks when it left me dead 3 times on the road in one month.

First I had a dead battery which was replaced, then 2 weeks later the alternator died, again it was replaced. And finally 2 weeks after that, the car just stopped in the middle of the road with no warning signs.
I took it to my Porsche dealer and they came back to me after one week saying the engine has failed and in best case scenario, the Intermediate shaft with some other parts has to be replaced. In worst case, I will need a new engine.
I let them open the engine and it took them 10 days to state that the Intermediate shaft failed and the ball bearings caused more damage to the engine. The expense to fix it is huge (about 75% of a new rebuilt engine).

My question is to you - why has there been an engine failure after only 64,000 km if all the maintenance has been done regularly? Porsche engines are built to last! I was hoping for this one to make at least 150,000 without major issues.

Thanks for the help.

Petar

Kalashnikov

You did not drive the car enough, it failed. 64k kilometers ~35k miles in 10 years means car sat all its life. Sitting is bad for cars. If you drove it more, it would not have failed. Dead battery means you don't drive the car, dead alternator is more of the same. My car is at almost 250k kilometers on the original engine and transmission.

This is a common theme here, garage queen motors failing.

I see the car as a person. You have two people of the same age, one works out all the time and constantly stays active; another never does anything but eats and sits around. By the age 40 both will look vastly different.

Sorry about your engine.

terbiumactivated

I'm not sure I'm prepared to say if you drove it more it would not have happened, many cars had these failures regardless of usage. It is true however that a sitting car is a degrading car. If you are the original owner you might get some traction with the company. If you are not then it's going to be a dealer negotiation. Sorry to hear about your engine, I lost a 986 way before it's time too, it just happens sometimes.

Barn996

Too bad about your news. If you've been reading regular post online, you no doubt know that it is the hot topic of discussions at least on this forum. I'm still on my original engine, clutch and IMSB at almost 68k miles in a MY99 C2, but I guess it could eventually happen to any of us who own a 996.

KNS

Please don't beat yourself up for the car not having been driven more, no automobile should have a catastrophic failure simply for sitting. But... some 996 engines seem to suffer more than others for not getting driven more often and in a spirited manner (isn't that why we buy sports cars?).

Now you just need to figure out what course of action you're going to take. There are several great alternatives versus having the dealer install a replacement engine. Cheaper as well.

wucash

This is the 3rd similar post in the last 4 days with users with 1 post. Something fishy going on. I though flat six innovations was booked solid for 2 years....

J1720

8% failure??? seems more like 70% when you read this forum.

Macster

What? Wait? Oh I see what you did there. You're a bad boy.

My take is cars are coming out of winter storage or being used more often than they have been given the weather has been so bad.

Nedster

In your 64,000km of ownership, did you ever drop the oil pan cover, checked the filter for metal shavings or did you have a magnetic plug by any chance installed? If all those checked out good than i am worried about my 40th AE too.

I never believed in the not driving it enough theory, that means that no 996 should've survived in my town, or as they are all (99%) parked away for the winter and generally not driven much thanks to the crappy weather. Mine was bought here and was in town since the first owner. It's at about 35kmiles, oil pan clean as a whistle, nothing in the filter.

Doesn't starting these cars in cold weather score the cylinder walls anyways? Oh no, guess we are just simply f...d!

Torontoworker

I know of a 40th in my area (GTA) that was low mileage and its engine also needed a rebuild and the issue was cylinder/piston scrub. The owner elected to rebuild instead of a new engine in order to preserve originality with the same engine number and it wasn't cheap... (it was also an X51 option)

TAZ40JAHRE

Petar - I'm really sorry to hear of your misfortune. I have a 40AE, too, and proactively replaced the original IMS bearing with the LN ceramic bearing. My bearing was fine when they took it out but that's frankly irrelevant. Anyway, I tried to PM you but you must be too new to yet permit that. I keep the registry of the 40AEs here on RL and would like to know the limited edition number of your car and a few other details if you don't mind providing them. I'll post a visitor message for you, too. Again, sorry for the bad news.

Ted

philooo

I am surprised to see a 40th anniversary engine going.. I thought these engine had all the go fast / reliability bits to avoid failure. that sucks... I am curious to read the exact cause of failure once the engine is opened.

MiamiC70

Ditto, I would too.

Especially maintenance schedule and usage (i.e. how often driven, how hard, etc..)

Does suck though :/

CossackRaider

I also did the preventative service on my 40th anniversary with the LN kit even though it was also low mileage when I purchased. I also had the alternator go and figured the peace of mind of changing/upgrading the IMS was worth it. The other issues I've had have been the power steering hose where it attaches to the pump and oil/air separator hoses which after 9-10 years isn't unexpected.

Neto

Something fishy here... new user and not enough information. Why dont we ask the forum's admin to check his IP and compare it to other user's ip and see if there is a match? LOL