A friend of mine is looking at buying a used 997. I was chatting with him about this possible purchase and he said something I was skeptical about. He claims 997's that have more than about 150k miles are pretty much, without exception, on their last legs. He says their engines are only designed to last 150k before "dying." Is this true?

More generally, he claims that after the year 2000, car manufacturers in general started engineering their engines to "fail" right around 150k miles. This was in response to car makers noticing consumers weren't buying cars as often as they used to.

As a result of his belief, he isn't considering buying any 997 that has, for instance, 70k miles. Are his concerns warranted?

 

NO

 

LOL. Your friend is an expert in this area ?

 

 

i remember the video of the porsche engineer showing the self destruct engine contraption that armed itself as the odometer hit 150,000 miles.... i think porsche had it removed from youtube for some strange reason...

 

No
Unless you never change the oil, do no maintenance, red-line a cold engine, and use poor quality gas then yes your friend is right.

 

 

Porsche engines are reliable and last as long as you take care of them which is why many Porsches have lots of miles on them without much trouble.

What everyone else said...maintenance, fluid changes, and regular exercising. They'll have a happy Porsche for many miles and years.

 

If you take care of the 997 as was suggested above, it will outlast you.

 

Where are all those 997s with more than 150k on the clock?

 

any mechanical component has a limited life cycle.
but engine would not be counted in 'miles'. it would be in hours. how many exactly it is difficult to tell but I would not worry about average road use and 150K miles limit.
you will look at various components that will wear out, typically that is what service schedule is about and they have it for p-cars same was as for any other cars so you know what should be swapped at 50K miles mark, 100K miles mark, etc.

I would realistically expect that some motors at 150K miles will require rebuild. But most street only driven cars will be just fine.

 

What does your "friend" drive ????
A pick up?

 

I don't think Porsche spent all their R&D time and money to ensure that their engines failed at 150K. For a company that has a reputation to build things that last a really long time, I don't think they'd go down that route.

 

Get off this site and get a life!

 

read this as well.
nothing is carved in stone, but, all info is out there.
http://www.lnengineering.com/buyingausedporsche101.pdf