sbpsu354

The 928 is a cool car, so I have nothing bad to say about them, but the motor is in the front. That's backwards

Gj325

I have had 3 new DFI Porsche Cars since 2009 my wife has a new Cayenne with 25k in past 9 months. Her only problem has been that rear heated seats keeps blowing fuse. None of the three burn any oil. All three have been great cars sure no 100 k cars for the DFI yet but give her another year IMO Porsche is building the best cars for your money if you want a sports car or SUV My Turbo S keeps me smiling every mile. If the DFI is a Problem then time will tell but none for me so far.

RedBarron2007

34,000 miles number 6 cylinder failure.. i was told it is very common, and i DID do my research, as i had the oppurtunity to walk away, but after finding out how common it really was, and as porsche was covering it with a warranty, i figured, why not...i could care less if it hurts feelings of porschafiles or not. This RUMOR as some are putting it has alot of facts and alot of guys with reman motors spreading it.... porsche replaced mine, paid for half.. dealership paid for other half.. i am going t0 get another and have not been put off by it... just make sure you have warranty and drive the crap out of it.I WAS TOLD THIS IS going on in the entire line, not just 911's. all new style boxer engines are having this failure.

I will say this. I have owned several corvettes, and still do.. and if 1 in 100 cars had a engine failure, gm would have made MAJOR changes and not just stuck there head in the sand as porsche has seemed to on this.. i am just glad they are replacing them for customers.. i guess they almost have to though at the rate they fail or the uprising would be ungodly.. the car itself is almost intoxicating to drive and i am guessing that makes people not care as much.. thats what got me anyway.

F4GIB

Whoa can we speculate. I'm a working stiff, I can't play on the internet every day.

The Porsche Certified Mechanic in question spent over a month in Atlanta in 2009 learning to rebuild engines. Porsche now does expect dealerships to have that capability. And I've personally seen at least one 997 in rebuild at our dealership. In this part of the country, it is nice wintertime work.

simsgw

Wow. The thread that never dies, just changes subject line.

My personal experience really is all I care about and that has been fine, but speaking professionally a valid statistical conclusion requires brand-wide information. Porsche doesn't publish their own data of course, but their price for a CPO is based on that data and is completely routine, so obviously they don't see a problem of any statistical significance. Data collected by others is necessarily more limited than Porsche gathers, but I'll settle for J.D.Power and Porsche Club of America, both reporting only good things about the 997.

Gary

dansen

Yes, it is very important topic for new buyer. The report I posted from JD Power was the study, which measures problems experienced during the past 12 months by original owners of three-year-old (2008 model year) vehicles . Last year, they came out the report for 2006 model and was pretty good too. Regard rumor on problem with DFI on 997.2 2009 and newer were all repaired by warrantee. So only Porsche knows the number. I am sure it wouldn’t be 1 to 8 because the resale values for 09 is still very good.
If you are looking for 08, then you shouldn’t be worry.

RedBarron2007

the thing is, most 911s are not daily cars so 30XXX miles plus could take 5-6 years to get to in some cases, AND OF COURSE YOU WONT HEAR ABOUT THOSE in some jd power report..i expect my $100,000 +car to last 50xxx miles at least before i have to lift a finger.. if i wanted something else, i would buy a prancing horse.

Abby Normal

Have not seen a 997 engine failure come into our dealership. However in cases of engine failure, Porsche sends us another motor and wants the bad one back untouched...no rebuild.

Also, my 996 has 90k on the clock

Mera

I feel compelled to put my small contribution in on this subject. I live in the UK.

My C2, late 2006 with 50k on the clock died on the freewayin June 2010 after an audible ticking noise which lasted 10 seconds or so. The car was at the time less than 4 years old and had a 100% Official Porsche History.

Porsche UK washed their hands of it (in the UK Porsche only offers 2 years warranty on new cars) and said it was my responsibility as it was out of warranty. They rebuilt the engine in the dealership, two technicians took a week. I had my car back in 2 weeks and they replaced:
*Timing Chains (one had broken)
* Scavenge Pump (one had seized)
* IMS (they reckoned the teeth on the drive gear had some wear)
* All valves and springs

Was the rebuild successful? Yes, I have since covered 5000 lovely miles, bar the alternator needing changing.

Would I buy another Porsche, yes because I love the car, but the attitude of Porsche UK stinks, I could not treat my customers like that.

Total cost was about £10k and a new engine would have been £13k.

The senior technician told me he had personally rebuilt hundreds of engines since 2000 (inc. 996, 997, Boxster and Cayman). He clearly knew what he was doing.

While my car was in (I live 2 miles from the dealership) another 997 (2005) was being rebuilt because of a cylinder liner and another 997 (2007) was having a gearbox replaced under warranty.

So, Porsche dealerships will rebuild the engine at the dealership, this is my first hand experience.

faszinated

I detonated my 996 engine. The car was a daily driver with about 20,000 miles... on the race track (78,000 total miles on the car). Cylinder 3 went through the top of the engine block at 120 mph during a PCA DE event. Porsche gave me a free engine as "goodwill" because I had a new 997 S on order at the time. I thought that was downright nice of them. With more than a few thousand stage 1 and 2 over-rev's in the computer (lots of track work, a few missed shifts), it was hard for me to argue that the failure was a manufacturer's defect. I was happy to get a $10,000 engine for free and did not mind paying the $2,500 in labor.

A friend of mine who goes often to DE events also had an engine failure. (996 engine also)

Though our failures were obviously our fault, we both had opportunities to discuss engine failures at great length with our mechanics.

I was told that some failures on the 996 engines seem to be related to design defects. Specifically, there is an intermediate shaft that often fails... and something else which escapes me at the moment... a bearing or something.

My friend's mechanic had another 996 sitting in his shop with a blown engine; he said it was a lawyer's wife's car and that it had been babied since birth. His opinion was that my buddy's car could have ignited just as easily on a trip to the grocery store. I don't know if I would go that far... being on a track certainly couldn't have helped it.

If you are looking at buying a 2005 to 2008 997, my advice would be that you consider spending a little more for the S engine. The non-S 2005 to 2008 997 engine is the same engine that was in the 996. Everyone I know in Porsche circles seems to think that the original (996) water-cooled engine is less robust. It has scavenging issues if put in a high G environment (like a track on slicks), and has at least a couple known design faults in its earlier iterations.

I would also suggest that you have someone read the computer codes and tell you the number of over-revs (or, you can read them yourself if you have a PIWIS). There are several different rpm stages above redline at which a Porsche will record and count each ignition. A car with a lot of over-revs has been on the track or has been driven by someone who can't drive a stick very well. Either of those two scenarios could be a fiscal disaster for you.

All that said, my 2008 997S had 38,000 miles on it when I sold it, more than a few at the track, of course. Never had a single problem with it.

Fahrer

I am curious on how different the S engine is vs the original 3.6L engine. Obviously the displacement is larger but what would make the 3.8L engine really that much more robust than the 3.6L? My understanding is that the IMS had been upgraded on both engines from 2005 to 2008. Can you comment further?

faszinated

The 3.6 liter engine that begun life in the first generation 996 was Porsche's first wet sump engine. While improvements were made throughout its lifecycle, it was never considered robust enough for turbo or GT3 applications. The engine used for the GT3, GT2, and for all Turbos (until the 997.2 Turbo) is a dry sump engine that traces its roots back to the GT1 racing engines. It is very robust. Its design has been proven over many years of race development.

The 3.8 liter engine which first appeared in the 2005 Carrera S was a totally new engine. In particular, the oiling system was completely redesigned. Porsche claims the oiling system in the 3.8 liter engines is a hybrid between a wet and dry sump engine. They have multiple oil pumps (a total of 3 I believe) to help cope with and eliminate scavenging issues, foaming, and all the other things that make wet sump engines inferior in high performance applications.

Porsche built this engine thinking that it could become the basis for all of its future cars. It has not been a failure like the last wet sump effort. Porsche seems to feel this new engine is very robust. They are using it in both of the 997.2 cars (the Carrera and the Carrera S) and have also used it for the new Turbo (which is, for the first time in its history, now a wet sump engined car).

All of these wet sump engines are inferior to the racing type engines of GT3's and 911's of yore. They are much cheaper to manufacture, however. When they break too badly, you throw them out and just buy another (no more $25,000 rebuilds like the old days).

Besides cost savings, there are some other advantages: they weigh less and have a lower center of gravity. They have fewer parts to wear out and break. Like I said, they are cheaper to manufacture.

Pretty soon you will (likely) see them in the back of GT3's for all these reasons. When you do, you know that all the kinks have really been worked out (looks like Porsche wants to see how she does in Turbo applications first... how very German!).

Fahrer

Thanks for the details. I still am not clear, however. My understanding is that the the multi scavenging pumps came in tne new 997.2 engine. I also understand that re-building the 997.2 engines is more challenging as the bearings are integrated into the case ( this is why they might be "throw away"?). I was under the impression that the 997.1 3.8L engine was similar to the 997.1 3.6L except for the displacement, perhaps the heads, and the plastic intake manifold. Is the 3.8L 997.1 that differenet from the 3.6L?

Any additional comments wold be appreciated..

utkinpol

do you know of what particular codes does m96 engine shows prior to when it gets ready to go south? i do not mean regular overrevs, but detonation, vibration, knocking - do they have codes for all that?

gota911

Fahrer,

I think Faszinated has his years and/or engines confused/intermixed (oops, I guess one shouldn't say "intermix" in a Porsche engine discussion).

The M97 is basically an M96 engine with the changes in displacement and heads, etc., which you mentioned. It was not a "totally new engine." The 9A1 engine, introduced in 2009, is a totally new engine relative to its predecessor.