99firehawk

more performace = more heat.....more heat = need for more cooling .........more cooling = bigger opening in the bumper............bigger hole in the bumper = sometimes **** may go in

20 years of porsche..........but were they water cooled............air cooled cars were very diffrent
front engined cars were very diffrent

discoganya

Brad, when you say more performance = more heat, surely you mean more load on the engine cooling system. More work for the radiators (hence the need for some folks to use a third radiator) and more care in selecting and maintaining the coolant. But the AC? I have never heard of a condenser blowing because of road debris. That's why I was shocked in post #2. Secondly, I would expect road debris to puncture the condenser tubing, causing sudden and complete failure of the AC system. This however appeared to be a slow leak, which I've seen happen many times in many cars. Having a customer pay for this is criminal ... but that's just my thinking.

cvazquez

Yea, the dealership should have place blue dye in the air-con system and show the customer the leak. They gave me the same BS story (debris) a while back, so I confronted them with the dye option. To make a long story short, the dye was coming from the hose fitting and it was under warranty. My 2 cents. However, do not get me wrong, I am not saying the dealership is putting a fast one over on their customer. I am just saying that the first option when you have a leak is to determine the leak using the dye and showing the customer. The reenlister did not imply that they should him the leak...

99firehawk

as for the added heat, all they needed to do was increase the air inlet opening
while providing more air it also provies a bigger target for road debris,
the condensor is in front of the radiator so really its protecting the radiator.
much easier to drive it in with no ac then with no coolant

we arent talking about hitting a cinder block, just a small pebble at 70 mph is a missle. it may very well be a small leak, and they should have deffinalty added dye to the system to find the leak, unless its a very obvious hit on the condensor. It really isnt porsche fault that something came off the road and hit your car, and theres no reason to expect porshe to pay for it.
Its not a defect as we do see it happen, we really only do one maybe 2 a month, so out of the 1000s of cars we service its a rather low percentage.
moral of the story keep a safe following distance.

dstrimbu

So, the moral of this story is... any screen coarse enough to _not_ restrict airflow to the radiators / heat exchangers will likely not protect said devices from impact damage - so there's no screen.

I like Brad's insight - it's easier to drive with no a/c vs. no coolant <g>. That still doesn't help Alan and if I were him, I'd be pissed off, too.

cvazquez

Just plain luck plays a big part. Handing off $1,500 would **** anyone off!

Same luck with the soft windshield and paint... chips easy...

Alan Smithee

Yes, they were air-cooled...but they still had oil coolers and AC condensers in the front.

99firehawk

look at the air inlets and the design of the radiators and condensors

Alan Smithee

The design sucks. The inlets for the cooling system should be protected...not completely exposed to ingest and collect debris.

cvazquez

Correct, but the 964 and 993 has a screen on the front bumper protecting the oil cooler and AC condenser.

FL Porsche

I learned from a successful cup car racing team to do the following for the track in lieu of screens...
Basic "blue" air conditioning filter element (found at Home Depot) cut to fit the side and center inlets. (cut about 1/2 larger all around and manually insert and press in around the edges.) Absolutlely NO increase in engine temperature was experienced. I have used these for the past two years on my GT3 (996) and now on my GT3 (997). They stop all stones, bugs, rubber, etc. from the track and when you remove them you will find all this debris has dropped to the bottom of your inlets and a complete pile of debris comes out. Your cooling fins will be virgin.

Tracym

I read the board more than I post. The one common thread with Ben.....He comes across in a manner that belittles people.

Not very cool no matter how much knowledge he does or does not have.

I loved it when his part time job was to monitor everyone's post and then make sure no one else posted something without doing a thorough search of eveyeon else's previous post so as to mitigate the chances of duplicate posts.

Can you say control freak?

DrDrilZ

yea i think he may have some insecurities but he's always like that. it would be cool if he actually knew what he was talking about however.

Deanski

I agree totally!! Think about us who have Aerokit's installed!!! Now THESE are big openings!

I just don't understand why they do not have screens to protect all these items and on the underside, an access door to open up and clean out any debris w/o taking the whole damn bumper off!! That would be a great design, but for now we all have to deal with this. I would still argue the point of it being just that, a design flaw that we are all expected to pay.

If previous air-cooled models do have protective screens, why the hell go away from that design for water cooled? Makes no sence whatsoever!

I really need to find the time and have FarnbacherLoles put the screens in, and soon!!! Only way to prevent this.

Now, do I send the bill to PCNA??

Regards,
Deanski

stubenhocker

You obviously cannot engineer away every possible threat to vital parts, but I don't think it is asking too much to expect that items placed in vulnerable locations should be designed to avert common hazards. Come on Porsche you can and SHOULD do better than this!