useridchallenged

The dealer was test driving my car after installing new front brakes, replacing the clutch slave cylinder and clutch control arm, new RMS, and a bunch of miscellaneous non-engine repairs.

During the test drive, the mechanic heard a noise and when arriving back at the dealership found a hole in the valve cover and oil everywhere. The dealer called me up and said "something let loose in the engine" (see my earlier thread).

I've now learned that the oil scavenging pump has failed, and was the item that "let loose". The dealer said that there is nothing I've done that caused the part to fail - so it sounds like a design/part failure. However my car is now 20k miles out of warranty, and 4 months out of warranty.

The dealer is "talking to Germany" to see what can be done. I'm assuming they are trying to see if Porsche will cover any of the cost of the damage and replacement. I'm a bit scared to find out what this is going to cost.

So here are my questions:

1. Anyone else have their oil scavenging pump fail?

2. Does anyone know of any technical service bulletins that might discuss this part?

The oil scavenging pump fails catastrophically and violently. I'm good about servicing the car regularly and keeping the oil level correct, etc. So I'm wondering what can be done to either prevent this sort of failure (dealer says "nothing").

I feel like this is a time bomb ticking in the 997 without anyway to prevent it from blowing (it literally blew a finger size hole in the valve cover). I have yet to learn what else might have been damaged in the process.

At least it happened on the dealer's watch. I'm thankful for that.

shahrukh_bakar

This reminds me of a (somewhat) similar issue on some older BMW M3's (IIRC)...the oil pump sprocket nut was not tight enough and would back off the threads, resulting in a disastrous failure. The solution was to tack weld the nut on to the sprocket after torquing it.

Can you find out how exactly the pump failed? Any pictures?

Shahrukh

Sadiq

Ah the infamous "OPN" that a lot of E36 M3 guys are worried about.

Macster

factor that is like a broken valve spring debris getting into pump (think there's a screen/mesh) then there's nothing you can do.

Of all the moving parts in the engine the two head scavenge pumps are probably the least stressed parts.

Thus failure due to some manufacturing defect ranging from porosity in casting that led to a a crack, or a stress crack that grew, etc.

Sincerely,

Macster.

machina

Sounds like IMS failure to me.

useridchallenged

Sigh. Here's what my dealer says about the failed oil scavenging pump:

"As I mentioned on the phone, during our road test we’ve discovered the engine had a major oil leak from the valve cover. We then lifted the vehicle and found a hole in the valve cover. (I took pictures and put a quarter to relate the size of the hole) We then removed the engine from the vehicle to further diagnose the problem. We have discovered the oil scavenging pump for bank 1 has seized. The pump has a drive that goes into a notch on the end of the camshaft. The drive and notch have broken into pieces from the pump seizing. There is also damage to the timing chain and chain guides. To repair, we would need to replace the cylinder head due to the cam bores/bearings are machined and center cut to match. We would need to split the engine case to replace the damaged timing chain. The total parts for this repair alone cost $5500.00 and the 30 hours of labor is $4950.00, making the total estimate $10,450.00."

fxhomie

Ouch...but will PCNA cover, or at least contribute to, the cost of the repair. Is Rector the dealer?

cello

Ouch (too). In addition to posting here, join and post up on RennTech and throw the ?s up there too. 20K over warranty mileage is on the high side. That said, IMO and as noted above, an oil scavenging pump should have a fairly long useful life and, assuming no abuse, should last closer to the engine's lifespan then the warranty lifespan. I would complain bitterly to the Dealer and PCNA and keep complaining. Ultimately, I think if you can get Porsche to pick up 60% or better thats a reasonable workout. If you cannot, check with your local PCA chapter for a highly-trusted/recommended independent to save some $. GL!

997, esq

+1. Be calm and persistent in your complaints. Also, do some research to determine whether it is possible the dealer's work caused the problem.

boolala

Unless there is a history of repeated failures of this kind on the 997 (and I haven't heard of it) then it would hard to make a case that this is a design flaw that should be covered out of warrantee. Granted there are not a lot of high milege 997s yet for comparison purposes.

useridchallenged

Below: hole is in the bottom left of the image. You can see the reddish rag through it.



Below: close up of hole where part of the pump blew through the cover.



Below: oil scavenging pump itself.



Below: close-up of oil scavenging pump



Below: damaged drive

boolala

With 9 oil pumps in the turbo's GT1 engine all I can say to those people is: "are you feeling lucky, punk?"

machina

send these images to Jake Raby

hikejohn

Wow...what a failure...never seen anything like that...if the car has been maintained by the book and by Porsche dealers I would be very disappointed if they didn't take care of problem....if only to ship it back to Germany to analyze exactly what happened to cause the failure and learn if there are things that can be done to prevent this type of failure...or perhaps it was one in a million failure....just my opinion

ADias

If you have serviced the car regularly and have a good relationship with your dealer PCNA should take care of you.