pepperpepper

Hey everybody, thanks for all the responses, I appreciate them. In the last 24 hours I was able to get in touch with the previous owner that listed the car on here last year, he put me in touch with his mechanic, Ramon from 900 Series in LVNV (great guy, kind enough to chat with me at length, hilarious too). Ramon walked me through the service history of the car, and we had a chat about the clutch service. When they carried out the clutch service they found the later, non-serviceable bearing, NOT the smaller serviceable bearing. The directive from the owner at the time was to replace the bearing with the clutch. This is puzzling to me as the car is a late 04 build date, but if there's one thing I've learned from this process, there are no absolutes in 997 land...

The car has had all the other areas of concern addressed, water pump, thermostat, expansion bottle, AOS, clutch and a laundry list of other small parts that I'm too lazy to type out. As it is, I think I feel confident enough to go forward with this car. The only things I need to figure out now is winter wheels and roof rack (I'm a volunteer ski patroller, and I will be driving it up the mountain for my shifts), and the current owner put a Soul muffler bypass on the car, so I need some stock mufflers. If any of y'all have leads for me on these items, please let me know!!!

Fahrer

If the car does, indeed, have the larger bearing, the engine may have been replaced by Porsche under warranty. If/when they do this they would replace the engine with the newest version of the engine, e.g. larger bearing.
Do you know if it has the original engine? If it does have the larger bearing I would not worry at about the bearing.

PV997

If these are the only two choices then count me in group 2 as it's good advice for pretty much everything in life. Worrying never solved a single problem and it can ultimately ruin one's health and happiness, particularly in these bat-$#%& crazy times.

There is a third group though, those who refuse to accept the status quo, study the problem causing sleepless nights for group 1, and devise ways to fix them. We have the IMS solution, LN Engineering Nikasil liners, and now PDK repair options due to this group.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (h/t to Kuro Neko)

8KaboveMSL

The IMS bearing on those 2005s can be addressed and in the normal course of maintenance. I would just plan on doing it, kind of a penny wise decision to not do it when clutch was out. I passed on a car in a similar situation a couple of years ago but that was a different market. If you are getting it for a good price, I’d assume the extra few $k to get the IMS done and just do it. It’s a problem that has a relatively inexpensive fix.

The thing that would keep me up at night is bore scoring, I’d make sure there are no signs of that being an issue. Bigger problem IMHO than IMS bearing. Can be fixed but costs a heck of a lot more (engine rebuild).