Just as I was being thankful that my baby was reliable, other car is a range rover, she has a problem....

My question to the forum...Would a failing water pump leave a couple teaspoons of oil on the garage floor?

 

I think I would look a lot of other places first.

 

Water Pump ...NO
RMS....YES

 

Water pumps leave a medium pink color on the floor. No oil stuff.

Oil on the floor sounds like...the dreaded RMS...

 

Do you mean the coolent tank? if so, my previous 996 had it broken once and lot of oils mixing with coolent came out to the floor.

Steven

 

Mine grenaded its water pump at just over 20K miles. I heard a small bang and the rear view mirror was filled with a cloud of white smoke. One new Pope later...

I suspect you may have a leak but not water pump failure. Check your coolant level when the car is cold and on the flat.

 

The leak was accompanied by a high pitch whine(this noise was preceeded by a slight, hard to hear metallic rumbling noise)

I cannot say for sure that the leak was from the coolant tank, but it is likely. When I returned home, I found a small puddle(2 teaspoons) of motor oil with traces of evaporated water/maybe coolant.

The dealer has ordered a water pump. I am concerned about the oil, although dealer states they have examined and not found any trace of the dreaded RMS issue. On Wednesday, I have requested that the car be up on the rack so I can do a visual(the oil came from someplace?)

Is there something or a part of the engine where I should spend some time doing a careful inspection? If anyone has a picture of a RMS failure, maybe you could post?

 

Whats an RMS failure?

 

The Rear Main Seal is just that. The rear-most seal in the engine between the engine and the transmission. The majority opinion within Rennlist is that it's the result of a poor design, which allows oil to eventually seep out past it. A redesign was done over time and the 997 engines appear to have less of an occurrence. Part of the redesign was actually a redesign of the method of installing them.

The RMS is not really a big deal. Unfortunately, a few have failed and they get a lot of publicity on these on-line forums. It's really blown out of proportion. If you had an air-cooled engine of yesteryear, you would be quite well familiar with oil leaks on those infamously 'bulletproof' engines. When Porsche began to move to thinner and thinner lubricating oils they had a lot of work to do to tighten up the engines. If you were to run the recommended 0-40W in, say, a 1988 911 or 930 turbo, you wound wind up with about a cup of it on the floor overnight. When they developed the Boxster engine which is essentially in the 996 and 997 Carreras (but in larger displacement form) they significantly tightened them up. Frankly, I'm absolutely amazed after being a long time 911 driver to have NOTHING on the garage floor at all. Ever. If the RMS does seep or leak (learn the difference) then you have to decide (if not under warranty at that point) whether you can't stand a little oil under your car. If you aren't that concerned, then simply wait until it's time to drop the engine and tranny for deeper maintenance (e.g., replacing a clutch) and have it done then.

It doesn't lead to any sort of catastrophic engine failure.

 

Phew! Thanks.

 

I got my baby back yeterday...turns out only the water pump needed replacing...I did a visual inspection of the car on the rack at the dealer and we could not find any traces of oil leak...great news

I am still going to keep an eye on it....So...no RMS failure to report here

 

So...got the 911 back and the Range Rover had been experiencing some abrupt shifting...took it to the dealer....Transmission clutch packs are shot(car has 28,000 miles0

I really cannot express how strongly I believe these cars(European) should always be kept under some type of warranty...Transmission for Range Rover is @ $5,000...If the RMS on my 911 would have failed..that would run@$18,000 according to my dealer....In the past 2 weeks, my repair costs could have easily hit $25,000...Do your scheduled maintenance and buy a good extended warranty when available...

 

lol... RMS doesn't cost that much... $1800 yes, but not $18000. if your intermediate shaft failed and grenaded your motor, then yes... RMS is a small cheap piece... most of the cost is in the labor to get to it... some indy shops will do it for about $1100-1200... that being said, it's still a pain in the ***... the RMS is not a diy job because i think you need a special tool....

 

RMS is not an engine replacement problem. IMS failure is. If your dealer told you your RMS was leaking and you need a new engine I would get a new dealer. Porsche replaced some engines due to an out of spec area that would cause the rear main to continue to leak even when replaced.
My RMS has leaked slowly for 10k miles. I deal with it. I will fix it when I need a clutch.

 

Heres a good pictorial on RMS replacement for a 996. I think this has been posted here before but dont recall how long ago.

http://www.c-speedracing.com/howto/996rms/rms1.php