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Thanks. Good thought, but I'm not willing to give up the extra 125 HP or the suspension setup. Hoping it runs like this for a while. From the way it drives, you'd never know.
How do you bore scope a 997.2? Jake’s videos on youtube are only for the 997.1 right?
Vern - You are right, there is no new info here, I didn't realize it but we are making the same point (albeit with different methods). We are in agreement on this point, let's keep it at that.
Back2Porsche - If this is legit you have my sincere apologies. In our defense you must know this is a touchy subject from your Porsche experience. Dropping an explosive post like this and then disappearing for four days isn't going to be received well but I'd hardly call the response vile. The scoring you describe in cylinders #3 and #6 (in particular) is the pattern seen in the 997.1, not the 997.2. There are only around ten confirmed 997.2 scoring cases to date and most are on cylinder #1. The scoring mechanism is completely different from the 997.1, has a completely different signature, and appears to be contained and is not increasing in numbers.
So when you post photos of scoring on a 997.2 that have all the attributes of the far more prevalent 997.1 scoring (such as the wear pattern and being on #6) it's going to get attention whether you intended it to or not. It's a BFD. So in the interests of advancing forum knowledge what can you tell us? Who did the PPI and are they qualified? What was the mechanic's opinion? Did the scratches have obvious depth or were they just scuff marks on the surface? Had the mechanic seen scoring before and how did it compare? Were the marks directly aligned with the piston thrust face? Did the mechanic check the oil filter? Any other meaningful info?
Update: I was just over on Bronz's PDK failure thread and saw people were arguing over there too, folks must be pretty wound up. In the words of Rodney King, "Can't we all get along?" Apologies if I was over the top earlier.
Vern - You are right, there is no new info here, I didn't realize it but we are making the same point (albeit with different methods). We are in agreement on this point, let's keep it at that.
Back2Porsche - If this is legit you have my sincere apologies. In our defense you must know this is a touchy subject from your Porsche experience. Dropping an explosive post like this and then disappearing for four days isn't going to be received well but I'd hardly call the response vile. The scoring you describe in cylinders #3 and #6 (in particular) is the pattern seen in the 997.1, not the 997.2. There are only around ten confirmed 997.2 scoring cases to date and most are on cylinder #1. The scoring mechanism is completely different from the 997.1, has a completely different signature, and appears to be contained and is not increasing in numbers.
So when you post photos of scoring on a 997.2 that have all the attributes of the far more prevalent 997.1 scoring (such as the wear pattern and being on #6) it's going to get attention whether you intended it to or not. It's a BFD. So in the interests of advancing forum knowledge what can you tell us? Who did the PPI and are they qualified? What was the mechanic's opinion? Did the scratches have obvious depth or were they just scuff marks on the surface? Had the mechanic seen scoring before and how did it compare? Were the marks directly aligned with the piston thrust face? Did the mechanic check the oil filter? Any other meaningful info?
Update: I was just over on Bronz's PDK failure thread and saw people were arguing over there too, folks must be pretty wound up. In the words of Rodney King, "Can't we all get along?" Apologies if I was over the top earlier.
Not sure how the 10 .2 cases is quantified...
I had bore scoring with only 25K miles. I bought it at 20K miles, and it drank oil like a sailor on shore leave (8 quarts in 5K miles). It was a northern car, so no idea on previous start up cool down procedures. I was the third owner and I suspect the 2nd owner knew what was going on. The dealer told me it was owned by another dealer employee and was well taken care of. It was CPO’ed and it barely had over revs in Range 1 so it all checked out though I failed to get a PPI since I got it CPO’ed.
The good news is the CPO paid for a new engine, same 9A1 3.6 that was spec’ed for the car. Since then I have put about 11K on the car and it has not drank a single drop of extra oil between oil changes in the 4 years since I got it back with the new engine. I also have some piece of mind that I know the provenance of the maintenance and care of the engine going forward.
Back to 9A1 engine frequency with scoring, the experts who rebuild, replace or remanufacture these engines that post here have all stated they have seen and done work on these engines due to bore scoring. I hate being the doomsayer, just stating it will start becoming more of real thing as time passes.
My story is documented here regarding my experiences. You can search my handle and find the archived posts.
At this point I just drive and enjoy and hope I can do a preemptive 4.0 upgrade with Jake before he retires.
Not sure if you caught my question earlier in thread, but what does your latest oil analysis say? Are you seeing increased metals / silicon in the analysis?? I would think you would have seen some sort of tell tale signs...
Sorry, missed the earlier question. Here's the UOA on the oil that was taken as we were investigating this. Wear metals were actually lower. What was of interest to Jake was that the Zinc & Phosphorous were low and that they're getting lower each oil change even in fewer miles. Hoping the Driven FR50 slightly thicker warm viscosity will help that. I also like to see a larger differential between the TAN and TBN numbers than what's here where they're almost equal.
My bank 2 camshaft deviation is off a bit too, so am planning to replace all my tensioners when I finally decide to get it on the lift to address the vacuum leak that exists behind the supercharger paraphenalia and the alternator to see if that changes the bank 2 deviation number at all.
Had I not asked about the bumper spotting, I probably would not have discovered any of this and would still be driving the car, likely doing some damage to the motor with the rich condition from the vacuum leak and the camshaft deviation that's off.
Petza, sorry man. That sucks, but is does not look bad. Don’t you think a lot of what you are seeing on plug and piston could be from forced induction and needing a tune. I have seen this in some of my cars in the past for a variety of reasons.
Thanks Doug. The car has a tune from RUF that's part of the supercharger setup, so I'm hesitant to mess with that since it runs so well. My bumper didn't used to spot like that although I'm ashamed to admit that the car probably hadn't been washed in about 6 months and was driven on some longer trips in that time. Washed it before talking it to a Porsche event in the NC mountains in June and not since then when we did this investigating in October so more accumulation than would normally be there.
RUF uses the DME from a TT so they can control parameters that aren't available in a normally aspirated car's DME and also use a different MAF sensor than a standard one - it's not even one for a Porsche so there's a lot going on with this setup that I don't really want someone to mess with when it runs so good as is (when it's not running rich from the vacuum leak).
Once I get my stuff fixed, I'll drive it for a bit with the heavier oil and cooler plugs and see how it goes, changing the oil again at 3,000 miles, which at this rate will be about a year since the last one in October since it's moved all of 1 mile since then currently.
Been working on smaller, simpler stuff more recently.
I had bore scoring with only 25K miles. I bought it at 20K miles, and it drank oil like a sailor on shore leave (8 quarts in 5K miles). It was a northern car, so no idea on previous start up cool down procedures. I was the third owner and I suspect the 2nd owner knew what was going on. The dealer told me it was owned by another dealer employee and was well taken care of. It was CPO’ed and it barely had over revs in Range 1 so it all checked out though I failed to get a PPI since I got it CPO’ed.
The good news is the CPO paid for a new engine, same 9A1 3.6 that was spec’ed for the car. Since then I have put about 11K on the car and it has not drank a single drop of extra oil between oil changes in the 4 years since I got it back with the new engine. I also have some piece of mind that I know the provenance of the maintenance and care of the engine going forward.
Back to 9A1 engine frequency with scoring, the experts who rebuild, replace or remanufacture these engines that post here have all stated they have seen and done work on these engines due to bore scoring. I hate being the doomsayer, just stating it will start becoming more of real thing as time passes.
My story is documented here regarding my experiences. You can search my handle and find the archived posts.
At this point I just drive and enjoy and hope I can do a preemptive 4.0 upgrade with Jake before he retires.
Thanks gopirates for filling in some background. The ten cases is my unofficial count for the 997.2 based on those that have been reliably documented here or elsewhere. They include five from Baz Hart in the UK, four that Charles from LNE has discussed (including two international cases and Bronz's car) and your case. I had included yours as I'd seen your post and it had great details. I'm sure there are more and it isn't meant to to say this is all that have ever occurred, but those that have been reliably confirmed. What is interesting is that eight of those have a documented failure signature of the piston seizing in the cylinder (often #1), which is nothing like the 997.1 scoring issue. Baz Hart has a detailed explanation of why this is in his 180 page report. Do you remember which cylinder it was on your car?
There have not been any new 997.2 confirmations in about a year (last one was Bronz's I think) which is why this post grabbed my attention. There was also another one mentioned about two weeks ago in the bore scoring poll thread but there has been no follow up info yet. My goal is that we can accurately quantify reliable confirmations and track new incidences thus truly understand the risk in the 997.2. By most accounts the rate is very, very low and is not increasing. There's good reason for that based on the changes Porsche made in the 9A1 engine but like anything else things break.
Following up, Baz and Charles are the go to guys for replacement cylinders in Europe and North America respectively so they should understand the extent of this issue. I asked Baz about this in another thread a few weeks ago and he told me the five number and said he had not seen a new 997.2 case in over a year. Charles talks about his cases upthread in this post. Both of these guys really know their stuff and if this was happening frequently they should know about it. If folks know about other confirmed cases please post the info so we have real data to sort this out.
Sorry, missed the earlier question. Here's the UOA on the oil that was taken as we were investigating this. Wear metals were actually lower. What was of interest to Jake was that the Zinc & Phosphorous were low and that they're getting lower each oil change even in fewer miles. Hoping the Driven FR50 slightly thicker warm viscosity will help that. I also like to see a larger differential between the TAN and TBN numbers than what's here where they're almost equal.
My bank 2 camshaft deviation is off a bit too, so am planning to replace all my tensioners when I finally decide to get it on the lift to address the vacuum leak that exists behind the supercharger paraphenalia and the alternator to see if that changes the bank 2 deviation number at all.
Had I not asked about the bumper spotting, I probably would not have discovered any of this and would still be driving the car, likely doing some damage to the motor with the rich condition from the vacuum leak and the camshaft deviation that's off.
Love the Dirt Bike projects. Been riding myself for decades. So fun to ride and so simple to work on.
Your aluminum and silicon numbers look great. Looking back at Bronz's oil analysis right before things went south, the aluminum jumped up to the 30 range and silicon quadrupled for him from previous months. https://rennlist.com/forums/997-foru...l#post15614637
Maybe you should send in an early oil sample just to see if anything has changed. Maybe you will get some peace of mind if it comes back with decent numbers.
Thanks gopirates for filling in some background. The ten cases is my unofficial count for the 997.2 based on those that have been reliably documented here or elsewhere. They include five from Baz Hart in the UK, four that Charles from LNE has discussed (including two international cases and Bronz's car) and your case. I had included yours as I'd seen your post and it had great details. I'm sure there are more and it isn't meant to to say this is all that have ever occurred, but those that have been reliably confirmed. What is interesting is that eight of those have a documented failure signature of the piston seizing in the cylinder (often #1), which is nothing like the 997.1 scoring issue. Baz Hart has a detailed explanation of why this is in his 180 page report. Do you remember which cylinder it was on your car?
There have not been any new 997.2 confirmations in about a year (last one was Bronz's I think) which is why this post grabbed my attention. There was also another one mentioned about two weeks ago in the bore scoring poll thread but there has been no follow up info yet. My goal is that we can accurately quantify reliable confirmations and track new incidences thus truly understand the risk in the 997.2. By most accounts the rate is very, very low and is not increasing. There's good reason for that based on the changes Porsche made in the 9A1 engine but like anything else things break.
Sorry but to me your motivation seems to be to make sure people “understand” that the 997.2 is the “superior car” over the 997.1 and/or to fool yourself into thinking you didn’t buy into many similar risks as a 997.1 owner. Which is all the wrong motivation and what really turns me off about these threads. For some reason they ALWAYS end up to be a 997.1 vs 997.2 discussion. I am not sure the desire to fight so hard to put the 997.2 up on a pedestal other than ego and insecurities, these are just cars.....
Sorry but to me your motivation seems to be to make sure people “understand” that the 997.2 is the “superior car” over the 997.1 and/or to fool yourself into thinking you didn’t buy into many similar risks as a 997.1 owner. Which is all the wrong motivation and what really turns me off about these threads. For some reason they ALWAYS end up to be a 997.1 vs 997.2 discussion. I am not sure the desire to fight so hard to put the 997.2 up on a pedestal other than ego and insecurities, these are just cars.....
Nah, I don't think it has anything to do with competition between models.... However, it is one of the best/worst self convincing/denial I've ever read on all my automotive websites ever... Whether it be jeep, Volvo, Audi or Land Rover, this guys wins the palm hands down. Just let it go for crying out loud. 997.2 are just showing this problem cause people started bore scoping them. The 997.1 have had it for a while cause people were aware of the problem, while the 997.2 crowd kept chanting that the 9A1 engine was a non issue, convincing futur owners that scoping was a waste of time.... Heck, even I thought that for a while.... But now, you are "lucky" enough to know that it is a reality and by doing your due diligence, maintenance and oil choice accordingly, if you don't already have bore scoring, you will most likely avoid it or at least diminish its progression by acting now. Just accept the new found fact and attack it head-on.
Sorry but to me your motivation seems to be to make sure people “understand” that the 997.2 is the “superior car” over the 997.1 and/or to fool yourself into thinking you didn’t buy into many similar risks as a 997.1 owner. Which is all the wrong motivation and what really turns me off about these threads. For some reason they ALWAYS end up to be a 997.1 vs 997.2 discussion. I am not sure the desire to fight so hard to put the 997.2 up on a pedestal other than ego and insecurities, these are just cars.....
Originally Posted by Steph1
Nah, I don't think it has anything to do with competition between models.... However, it is one of the best/worst self convincing/denial I've ever read on all my automotive websites ever... Whether it be jeep, Volvo, Audi or Land Rover, this guys wins the palm hands down. Just let it go for crying out loud. 997.2 are just showing this problem cause people started bore scoping them. The 997.1 have had it for a while cause people were aware of the problem, while the 997.2 crowd kept chanting that the 9A1 engine was a non issue, convincing futur owners that scoping was a waste of time.... Heck, even I thought that for a while.... But now, you are "lucky" enough to know that it is a reality and by doing your due diligence, maintenance and oil choice accordingly, if you don't already have bore scoring, you will most likely avoid it or at least diminish its progression by acting now. Just accept the new found fact and attack it head-on.
Nah, its definitely more a misery loves company or insecurity thing with a couples of you guys trying to convince others of the reverse which is even weirder. Someone periodically posts a failure of any type (or worse something mysterious like this) for the .2 (engine or pdk) and you guys going yelling from the mountain top a .2 is no better than a .1, yet the numbers are not remotely close to supporting such a conclusion. Why the heck do you even care as this thread, and others, are not even someone asking for feedback or advise.
M96/97s have been huge problem childs since new and were getting lemmoned left and right in the early to mid 2000s. I had never seen anything like this and you guys are apparently too new to the brand to remember or have seen this.
M97s were failing due to scoring at similar rates 5, 6, 7 years ago so not really sure about the timing thing or guys just haven't started scoping .2s yet comments. Will .2s arise even to remotely a similar level. Remains to be seen.
As it stands, I won't purchase a M97 car based on feedback I got from multiple Porsche employees about 3 years ago and I have never, not with any model, ever heard them give such feedback. As of a couple of weeks, two were stilling saying 9A1s are rock solid and showing no signs of chronic issues similar to M96/M97s. I have not spoken with the 3rd.
If you are truly worried about this stuff, purchase a warranty for your 997.2 or move up to a 991. Engine only warranties are super cheap for 997.2s.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that the .2 engines are better designed than the .1s. Why is there even an argument about that point? Porsche changed the design of the engine for a reason. That doesn’t stop me from enjoying the heck out of my .1 though. I made the choice on my car based on the low mileage (under 30k), color combo (blue and tan), and that it was an S (I personally would rather have a .1S than a .2 base), and so I just bought it and purchased a third party warranty. So far so good.
Enjoy your 997s instead of worrying about them. There’s no point to ownership if you can’t enjoy them.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that the .2 engines are better designed than the .1s. Why is there even an argument about that point? Porsche changed the design of the engine for a reason. That doesn’t stop me from enjoying the heck out of my .1 though. I made the choice on my car based on the low mileage (under 30k), color combo (blue and tan), and that it was an S (I personally would rather have a .1S than a .2 base), and so I just bought it and purchased a third party warranty. So far so good.
Enjoy your 997s instead of worrying about them. There’s no point to ownership if you can’t enjoy them.
My comment wasn’t meant to say different. It was only to point out an observation that this wasn’t 4 posts in before someone felt the need to bring the M96/97 into the discussion as if to try to pacify some inner need. It is how all these threads go, a giant d!ck comparing contest.
I think the underlying insecurity is that people pay a premium for the piece of mind a 997.2 brings, upwards of $20K. If in the end they still have to drop $25K into a new engine or $15K into a PDK were they really better off??
02-08-2020, 09:47 PM
