No they didn't. But so what? Even if they had, that would have told them the bearing was failing. That would have been great and would have hopefully saved me a lot of money. It would also, however, have meant that the LN Engineering bearing was failing.

If there had been something wrong with the engine that then caused the bearing to fail, that would not have necessarily left metal in the oil. When the chain tensioners snap, they don't give you warning by putting metal in the oil. If the crank shaft is off and is vibrating the engine apart, it doesn't leave metal in the oil. You know what does leave metal in the oil? A failing ISB for one thing.

Again, maybe some other part failed causing the bearing to fail. We will never know for sure. That, however, given what I know seems unlikely. And I do know two things, the part failed and Flat Six had no interest in finding out why.

 

Sorry for your loss.

I always maintained that it is better to get a virgin motor with the clean bill of health and decide if you want to do the IMS yourself. I feel the whole IMS retrofitted cars provides a false sense of security to potentially new owners as we know there are other modes of failure(less common), and since it's considered a maintenance items(by some), no prequalification(meaning sometimes owners do it when it's too late). Also not to mention any unscrupolous sellers could potentially hide an already damaged motor with new retrofit and fresh oil change. If one buys a car already retrofitted, I'd rather buy one without fresh oil as it allows you to either send in a sample or drop the sump pan(more invasive ppi).

I think we're going to start hearing more and more failures of retrofitted motors based on the circumstances I've stated above.

JohnCK2014, did you carry out the retrofit while it was in your possession or did you buy it already retrofitted?

 

Jack,

The part failed. If you don't believe me, give me a call and I will put you in touch with the shop. As far as it being installed correctly, it was installed by a reputable shop and they seem to have installed plenty of other bearings properly. Maybe they installed mine improperly, but there is nothing that says they did. And if they did, why did it take 20,000 miles to fail? How does an improperly installed part work perfectly for 20,000 miles and then one day die? That seems strange.

I don't know that the part's failure was a result of a defect. It may have been installed wrong or something else may have failed in the engine causing it to fail. At the same time, however, I have no evidence of that being the case and have no reason to automatically assume that is the case. The only thing I know for sure is that your bearing failed.

You assume it couldn't have been your part. But without examining the engine, you don't know for sure and might not even then. All I can say is this is what happened. If it was your part's fault, I am not angry about that. These things happen. The only thing I find annoying is your absolute insistence that it couldn't have been your part that failed when quite obviously it very well could have been.

 

Had your complaint gone to LN Engineering, they MAY have sought out my services to quantify what happened.

The OP is seriously confused.

 

Thank you for posting your comments and it's very interesting to hear your story. Since I'm three days in to the ownership of my 996 4S experience, I have been evaluating and on the cusp of swapping out the factory bearing for an LN engineered bearing plus rear main seal for the amount of $3400. From everything I've read has a failure rate between 8% & 10% and during my initial research phase before buying the car I talked to every service manager and mechanic at roughly 35 individual Porsche dealers around the Midwest and the East Coast as I traveled for business (don't tell my boss). My first question was how many IMS issues on 996's come through that are blown up and almost universally everyone of them said they blame the Internet for the size of the problem and that they have seen very few or in some cases none at all. Clearly I take that conversation with a grain of salt because it's their job to sell the cars.

So I think the ultimate question is if it's inevitable that everybody on this form will at some point buy a motor for their car with a failed bearing what's the risk of me not spending money with LN engineering if I may potentially replace a good factory bearing with a part that may fail?

 

JohnCK2014,
Where is a copy of your invoice with my company's name at the top?
You are not, and have not been our customer. I hate that you have been confused, but your call should have gone to LN Engineering, the manufacturer and seller of these components.

 

alpine,

It was done right before I bought the car. But I have the service records from where it was done. The shop was from everything I could tell reputable and I talked to them about the car before I bought it. They said the engine and the car was in great condition.

As far as maintenance, I changed the oil and gave it great care. The car went to an independent shop for every oil change. The last one was in May and they told me the car looked great. And it was, right up until it wasn't.

I know everyone always claims they took perfect care of their car. And I am not even sure what perfect is. But the car was driven regularly and regularly checked out by a certified tech who never saw an issue. So if I did or failed to do something, I honestly don't know what it was.

I would also point out that the car burned less than a quart of oil between 3000 mile oil changes. So whatever the issue, it wasn't cylinder scoring or anything like that.

 

Sure Jack. Do you have an email address? I will send it to you. I assume you mean the shop in Jersey that installed the bearing. I don't have that at hand, but I will happily send it to you. If you think they installed it wrong and want to go give them hell, have fun. I suspect they will have a different opinion but that is up to you and them.

 

I think you're confusing Flat 6 Innovations for LN Engineering.

 

Absolutely.

 

Sorry about your engine, that sucks no matter how you cut it.

I see two things here.

The first is that the bearing is not a F6I's part. Jake developed it, but the part belongs to LN and only LN. So you called the wrong place if you wanted help.

The second is that if that is really how you started your call with them, then I can perfectly understand them not wanting to deal with you further. You come off as someone that already has your mind made up about the cause and possibly someone trying to get free work/parts when from someone that shouldn't even be involved (see point 1 above).

I'm not trying to say you were either of those things, but having done my time working with customers I can see how the conversation may have been taken from their end and the value of having another dead motor not being worth dealing with what they think may be dealing with someone they just can't satisfy.

While it doesn't really help and while they may have presented the information poorly (don't know), there really hasn't been a verified case of an LN bearing failing in a properly qualified motor. There are also very few cases of motors without the pre-qual failing after the upgrade and in those cases (like it seems in yours) there is some key information missing (due to the lack of the pre-qual).

Another problem that we have in cases such as yours is that it's easy to pull the transmission out and find that the bearing is destroyed. What is more difficult, however, is piecing everything back together to see where the failure really started. The IMSB failing is not the only way the IMSB can end up getting trashed, we already know this. Unfortunately unless Jake does pick up the motor and share his findings, I haven't seen anyone spend the extra money on having their engine torn down just for the hell of it (since the information gained does nothing for them). So the result (and this applies to OE IMSB failures too) the mechanic gives the simplest answer and the IMSB gets the blame even when it may have just been collateral damage.

I'm really not trying to pile on or place any blame on you, just trying to point out some of the other factors about why this issue isn't as cut and dried as we'd like it to be. It could have been the bearing or it could have been something else, unfortunately it sounds like we'll never know (since it now has to go back to Porsche).

I really am sorry for your loss and the associated headaches. It's always good to see them get resurected rather than sold for scrap though. Kudos for that.

 

Jake...if Flat 6 has no culpability for the LNE Product, why would the person handling the phone call even have to go down this road? Shouldn't they just have told the OP to contact LNE?

 

Oh and its interesting to see Charles' response to a customer in a neighboring thread on roughly the same topic. Quite a bit of contrast...


Ahsai,

The only thing certain in life is taxes and death. We can try our best, but you can't make a mechanical system 100% fail-safe - that is especially the case with the M96 engine. Everything said, just give LN a call. The least we can do is replace your IMS and get your old one back (along with all the bits for analysis) and we'll give you additional consideration on internal upgrades, since it appears you were well under way to needing Nickies. The rattle you described was an early cylinder failure - fresh, thicker oil quieted it up. The cylinder bore material is very hard - it eats carbide tooling like crazy when machining blocks.

Just ask for John, he'll take good care. I'll give him a heads up you'll be calling.
__________________
Charles Navarro
LN Engineering
http://www.LNengineering.com
Aircooled Precision Performance

 

JohnCK2014: you need to figure out that Jake has nothing to do with LN, he has his own business and it's not selling LN retrofit bearings.

We want to blame him, but can't!

;-)

Now where is that microscope????? I want to look at this thread closer.

 

Probably so... But that probably would not have been sufficient, either. I read the report and saw what was said, and how. That alone closed the door on me taking my time to return a call about something we have nothing to do with.