What a Mess!
 

So I finally got the 30,000 mile maintenance done on my 02tt. On Kevin's recommendation I got the 997 coil packs and the Bosch plugs. The car seemed to run much better for a short while, then all kinds of electrical issues started happening. The guy at the shop noticed that the car had trouble starting, and pointing to another 01 Turbo saying it was having issues with starting as well and that I needed new alternator.

The actual symptom is when you went to start the engine would turn over once and then just stop, then you would have to try again and it starts. So he puts in a new alternator and the cars running good for a short while. Then all of a sudden the battery starts going dead and the idol is cycling between 1k to 2500 RPM. So back to the shop I go.

The person that sold me this car had recently had the clutch replaced and soon after was selling the car. The guys who did this work was evolution motor works in Naples Florida.

So my mechanic starts looking for a power drain and finds out that it's the starter motor. It turns out that someone at evolution motor Works had broken the starter by trying to improperly attach the wiring harness. These punks then tried to glue back the broken connector and then painted over it to hide what they had done. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it was doing this as I am pretty good at diagnosing car issues. The one thing that I couldn't anticipate was sabotage. But now that I know what caused it, it makes perfect sense that the starter was vibrating on the first turnover and breaking the electrical contact. Once the new plugs went in, the car was running much better and the heat and vibration causing the arcing to get worse.

So now I have to replace the starter and the wiring harness and 10 hours of labor on top of having had to replace the alternator because it burned out trying to keep the voltage up. Apparently the broken starter was arcing and draining the battery 24/7.

I have a picture of the starter but I don't think the mechanics saved it as he had traded in for a core exchange. I am debating whether to sue evolution motor works as this is running about $3-$4000 in repairs.

The car is running great for the most part but the mechanic noticed that banks 1,2,3 O2 sensors were having issue and there is misfiring as well as my ABS PMS not working. At first the mechanic thought the O2 sensors might need to be replaced but after thinking about it he felt it might be a vacuum leak on the left bank causing the issues. Also the O2 sensors are all reading about the same voltage as checked on the Porsche diagnostic laptop.

He is unable to give me an estimate for how long it would take to check out the vacuum, I am wondering if anybody else's had to have a vacuum leak fixed and how many hours of labor I should realistically expect to pay for to track down this vacuum leak? The mechanic says he needs it for a bunch of days to track down the issue.

Something that has me concerned is that I paid $1700 to have the starter and wire harness replaced and the mechanic wanted to be paid in cash ( offering a 10% discount which I took ) but, I did not get a real receipt for the work done. My guess is that this guy is trying to hide income so he wouldn't have to pay taxes but I'm not sure of this and it has me questioning his honesty. I also recommended a friend to go to him, and he started asking me questions about how wealthy my friend was ( he is a rich lawyer), which also has me wondering if he doesn't scale prices based on what he thinks you're worth. I believe I was charged about $800 for a new starter I do not know if this is a realistic price, I'm glad to have the car running, this guy knows what he's doing and has been in business for long time. I welcome any thoughts.

As a side note, he said that the previous owner cleared codes 40 times. This leads me to believe that the seller lied through his teeth when he said the car had no issues. I do not know if I have any legal recourse with the seller? My guess is he got the car back after getting the new clutch and he got scared that it would need expensive repairs and sold it eating the cost of the new clutch.

Lastly, sorry for the long post, the spoiler actuators are leaking oil ( pretty common it seems ). Does anyone make a spacer that would allow me to keep the spoiler in the up position and I guess pull the fuse on the spoiler?

Thanks
B

Ouch.. The good news is: it's all repairable ONLY if you have a tech that knows these cars. There are alot of hacks out there. Wiring harness' are expensive.

Kev, thanks for the response. Is $800 for a starter in the ball park for this part? That seems pretty expensive, but this is my first Porsche.

I have a brand new Genuine for $585.00 I need your old one as a core.

Contact F1CrazyDriver on renntrack. There is a really nice OEM looking kit for this.

As for the vacuum leak . .

1) find another shop

Or

2) get a durametic, and build your own leak test kit. You can find and repair this yourself.

I don't like doing business with people that hide income. When I had a business I never hid a dime and resent those that do.

Days to track down vacuum leak? I think you need to track down a better mechanic. A good mechanic should have the leak id'd if there is one in a few minutes or so.

There are only a few places the leak can be. There are several variations on a trick to id a vacuum leak that involves spraying aerosol carb cleaner at the suspected vacuum leak points or directing butane gas at the suspected vacuum leak points. If the leak is present there the engine will react from ingesting the carb cleaner or the butane gas.

Given the poor work the car received regarding the starter motor fix I'd suspect the previous shop just didn't tighten something down right and an intake hose clamp is loose.

Sincerely,

Macster.

If you bought the car recently, who did your PPI?

Yeah what last930 said........Did you have a PPI done? Seems like all of this would have come up.

My guess is there was no PPI on this vehicle and this is the result. It is what it is now. The good news is that you are well on your way to getting this vehicle sorted. I would second some of the comments above about finding a competent mechanic to go forward with on the balance of your needs. These are great cars and while this is an expensive lesson, it is not the end of the world.

Ug.

Find Miguel at TuneRS in Pompano. He and his team are honest and fair priced.


I used him for all of my work during my brief life in Florida. He has piwis, etc. There are lots of P car shops there. Not all of them are up and up.

Another good shop is Orbit, but I never used him. He helped me out with a vacuum issue at the track- loose hose. Simple. Another good shop is Foreign Affairs. All of these shops are on the Gold Coast's DE tech inspection list.


Anyway, Miguel is honest. Tell him Jeff with the blue 996TT and big wing sent you. He has a lot of fun cars in the shop usually...993 cup cars, etc.


Jeff

What did the 30K mile service run you? I have one coming up in 7K miles and want to know what to expect

I did not do a PPI, but I did fly to FL to test drive the car. The car had 28k on it and was running fine except that it needed new plugs.

I am pretty sure that the seller sold it because after he did the clutch he was having electrical issues that he did not tell me about and had cleared the codes 40 times. The car had no issues for the 20 mins I drove it, I bet the seller must have been sweating bullets knowing it could throw a code.

There is no way a PPI would have found the broken starter, it was very sporatic and only time, heat and vibration were the key to unlock this mystery.

[QUOTE=Macster;7953778]I don't like doing business with people that hide income. When I had a business I never hid a dime and resent those that do.

Days to track down vacuum leak? I think you need to track down a better mechanic. A good mechanic should have the leak id'd if there is one in a few minutes or so.

There are only a few places the leak can be. There are several variations on a trick to id a vacuum leak that involves spraying aerosol carb cleaner at the suspected vacuum leak points or directing butane gas at the suspected vacuum leak points. If the leak is present there the engine will react from ingesting the carb cleaner or the butane gas.

Given the poor work the car received regarding the starter motor fix I'd suspect the previous shop just didn't tighten something down right and an intake hose clamp is loose.

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My guess is he charged me for the time he spent putting in a second new alternator and then finding out the problem was still there. I hardly doubt it took 10 hrs to trace the drain or replace the starter...

I for the life of me could not figure out why it was doing what it was doing, again I had no way of knowing that the starter was half assed glued together... it was just a ticking time bomb.

I think he wanted it for that long period because he is rebuilding 2 engines at the moment and would get to it when there was a lul. I believe he said a couple hours labor to fix the vacuum leak and $1500-1800 to replace the O2 sensors.

The mechanic complained because I had bought my own plugs and coils ( no mark up for him ). But I did this because I went to another shop first that was going to use an air filter that is known to kill the MAF. So I purchased the parts so that I knew I was getting the right stuff based on Kev's recommendation.

I think it cost me $3k in labor for a new alternator, brake fluid, and plug and coil change, Plus about $500 in parts I bought myself ( I bought new anti-freeze and a fuel filter, but the mechanic said there was no need to replace either at the moment )

It took a week of driving to get it running smooth, but I think it took that long due to a vacumn leak or bad o2, still need to get that sorted.

Any idea what this kit might cost?