DRC440

I am the original owner of a 2005 C2S and the car has 8500 miles on it. I recently took it to the track twice. After 2 trackdays where I saw the oil temps hit 255, I was driving the car back to the track for third trackday, stopped at the gate to sign in at Beaverun, as I started to pull forward I heard a very nasty sound of metal to metal scraping. I was going 1 mph when this occured. All gages on the dash were normal. It was about 65 degrees outside and I was not driving the car hard to this point of the day. The dealership sent a flatbed and one week later I have my car back with a new engine. The Dealership (Sewickley Car Store) was great to deal with and the entire ordeal did not cost me a cent. They tell me it was the intermediate shaft bearing failure. Has anyone else had this problem?

Laps

wow, that is scary!

brendo

ouch! haven't heard that, but .... go stillers!

DRC440

I forgot to tell everyone that the car's ECU showed somewhere around 5000 hours of engine running. At 200 hours it had recorded an over rev of 10200RPM. I do remember that occurance. I was on the highway going through the gears, I redlined 4th and was shifting to 5th when I accidently hit 3rd gear. I pushed the clutch in just as quickly as I let it out. It scared the hell out of me, but I figured I had not hurt anything because everything felt and looked normal. The dealership showed me the report and it showed this over rev. I was told because the over rev occured so long before the failure, Porsche did not have a problem covering the new engine under warranty. One more thing I noticed was 2 drops of oil on the garage floor the night I got home after the failure. I am sure that was something that had I seen that earlier I would have questioned it.

I also read in this issue of Excellence, the 2009 engine has been updated to fix the intermediate shaft failures. I am just wondering how common these failures are?

rvklein

During my many many many hours of researching my 911 purchase I came across a few people who have had the problem.

Coochas

I'm surprised your dealership covered the work under warranty given the fact that you did a so called "money shift." Or do they not know this?!!!!
Anyhow, break that new engine in and head back to the track!!!

Gundo

Remarkable indeed - this is the first IMS failure in the 2005 997S motor I've observed on any of these boards. Other motors have failed, certainly, but not because of IMS.

George from MD

Sewickly and Porsche did well. They really deserve some kudos and recognition. They could have simply stated read your warranty- you took the car on a race track- the warranty is void. This has happened more than once in the past and was even the subject of an Autoweek article a few years ago.

DRC440

The dealership showed me the print out showing the 10200 RPM that I hit, so they definatly knew of the over rev and I know they reported it to Porsche NA. Needless to say, I am very happy Porsche NA paid for the new engine. The dealership said to put 500 easy miles on this engine and the take it back to the track. So that is exactly what I am going to do. I just have to put another 300 miles on it before this Saturday!

PDQ PDK CAYMAN S

If you are going to drive the car on the track and you are an accomplished driver or you are using slicks then you should invest in an oil pan. The oil pan is included in the X51 package but it has the same part number as the standard one. Your dealer must ask for the X51 oil pan. It ran me about 500.00 installed and keeps the oil where it should be in a long high speed turn. The more grip = more G forces.

A new driver on the track with street tires should not need this.

DRC440

I will look into that X51 oil pan. I still am using street tires but I have many years of Sport bike racing and have raced a VWGTI ITB golf in SCCA. I am also an instructor at Beaverun. I think this oil pan may be something I should get just to be safe. Thank you very much for the advice.

cviles

My 2005 Boxster S is at the dealer right now awaiting an engine replacement for the same problem -- IMS bolt failure. My failure was more subtle; a weird feel to the idle and the engine dumped all its oil after it was stopped. I've never done a money shift, though.

Porsche changed to a larger bolt in 2006 and the problem seems to be much rarer with the new design. From everything I've read about this kind of failure, it appears to be independent of how the car is run. Some engines just fail.

Chris from Cali

Congrats on your good fortune in getting your engine replaced. Porsche wants to keep their customers, unlike Nissan (re: voiding warranty for turning off VDC). These kinds of stories definitely want me to keep buying Porsches...

jrotsaert

Are you sure about the 5000 hours running time
at 365 days per year, that's about 15 hrs a day for a year.... or 15 years at 1 hr per day... and since it only has 8500 miles. it would be an average of about 2 mph!

fuenfer

This is incorrect. According to their very own warranty booklet, Porsche will not warranty any defects or malfunctions that occurs during or as a result of a car being tracked. This is very different from voiding a warranty simply for taking a car on the track. I have had friends who have tracked their cars and have had particular claims denied (ones where it was obvious that it had happened on a track), but have never seen a warranty voided entirely simply for setting forth on a track.

I have heard rumors, however, that other manufacturers aren't as "open-minded," so if you're not driving a P-car, YMMV.