Originally Posted by docmirror

Sir, no disrespect intended, and I don't want to derail the thread with IMSB statements, but you are way, way, way wrong on your idea that this is a 'small minority' type of problem. Edward Deming, and following that, Bill Smith developed and created a quality strategy to improve various mechanisms, and methods for achieving extremely low failure rates. "Six sigma" is a trademarked philosophy, and Deming worked toward a 'zero defect' methodology for the Japanese back when they had a very bad rep for quality products. In short - it works. Porsche, strangely enough tossed out much of their quality goals when they were struggling financially at the inception of the Boxster(and later 996).

A 5% failure rate, is just over the 3rd sigma(area under the normal dist curve) and in modern production environment would be considered a disaster. It would, and should have been a recall event, with Porsche removing every engine from production and putting a halt to deliveries until the problem was understood, quantified, engineered, tested, re-quantified and then released to the gen public. This could(and should) have been done in later 99 or mid-2000 when the number of failures in Boxsters began to be noticeable.

The solutions we have today could have been implemented, and a solution developed fairly early in the production cycle. That was the right thing to do, and Porsche failed miserably, resulting in the issues we are now living with some 20 years later(in terms of the M96 engine in total). It's a huuuuuuuge black eye for a statistical analyst at Porsche, who knew but was likely overruled by a 'crat with a econ degree.

Finally(I hope), there is NO engineering, or econ excuse for a 5% or even a 1% failure rate in any modern engine component. If that happened to Toyota or Mitzu, whomever was responsible would be run out of town on a rail, and fishing in the sea of Japan for squid for the rest - of - his - life.

/rant

Originally Posted by AnthonyGS

Honestly 1 in 20 isn't great odds when failure can make you lose 50% of the value of the automobile or more. My Corvette ZR-1 has a much rarer engine harder to source parts for, older, etc (LT5). And it's significantly cheaper to build it up to 450+ hp level than it is to get an M96 rebuilt at all? That's seems a bit insane to me. I'm willing to swallow this bitter pill since for me this is another hobby car. People using them as DDs is baffling to me.


I'm flying to Denver today to most likely acquire my 996. It's from the PCA ad. I will post photos later. We should enjoy the drive back but the weather doesn't look all that fabulous for it.

Originally Posted by Woodman71

This looks like a fine specimen.

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/cto/6109233204.html

Originally Posted by VivG

Clearly and by far one of the best 996s for sale right now. I'm not biased, promise.

Also, happy to do a rennfax

Originally Posted by Woodman71

I'd buy it if I didn't already have one.

Originally Posted by VivG

That didn't stop me...

Originally Posted by Paul Waterloo

99 Cab with 71K miles, $16.5K....looks a little rough, not far from me:

https://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/cto/6109922188.html