hillsdonsmith

Another coolant pipe debacle....

I have had several discussions with our local Porsche dealer re: coolant pipe pinning or welding. They tried to dissuade me several times, saying they had only ever seen it happen once and it only happens in tracked cars in warm climates, which this forum would suggest is not the case.

They advised that if an indy shop pinned my coolant pipes, it would void my CPO.

They did agree to do this for the same rate as a local shop, of $2500, which I give them credit for. They also advised pinning was not considered to be of an adequate standard of work for Porsche and said they would only weld. They are sending the pipes out to be Tig welded, as part of this estimate, so more credit there.

I gave them the Sharkwerks oil coolant lines to put in at the same time and requested they insert new cam actuator bolts if they have been upgraded and to loctite them. They ordered new ones and found they are identical in dimension to the original ones.

Today, they called and advised they cannot reinsert them, as there is no torque value available. I asked if they could contact the factory to get the figure. He said they had and were told that they will absolutely not release the figure and told the tech that if they reinserted them, they would void the car's warranty. They recommend replacing the entire cam actuator, of which there are 4, at $1300 each, as they are "improved".

Given that they are currently tight and the car has 62,000 km on it, I am leaving things the way they are.

My service advisor is trying hard, but he's getting more pushback from the factory then a customer would!

This is ludicrous as I am sure those bolts could be hand tightened by feel. I perform orthopedic surgeries every day and we have torque limiting devices on drills to prevent overtightening of screws in bone plates, which can theoretically cold weld them in, making removal difficult. Guess what? The end feel you get by hand is very obvious and comparable to the torque rating. I have never seen cold welding occur between similar metals (albeit at body temp) and cold welding a cam actuator bolt would be GOOD thing!

What a pile of horse$hit.

1. "We won't fix known, serious problems.
2. We will even make it difficult for you to have this rectified yourself, on your dime.
3. We will withhold torque specs , to prevent an engine-destroying event, that could cost us a new motor under CPO".

CPO runs out in November. I hope the engine explodes in October.

I vote that we send Alex from Sharkwerks to Porsche AG to tune them in on how to provide exemplary customer service.

Thanks for enduring my rant.

Cheers,

Mark

Spyerx

Hey mark, this was discussed here where someone marked removal torque and then tight Torque and came up with a consistent value. Can you use that ? The thread is here somewhere. It wasn't high and was consistent with torque of bolt size.

Found it.
https://rennlist.com/forums/997-gt2-...l#post12136072

MC 968CS

Bummer.

There's a theory around, which you may be across, that the whole 997.2 GT3 cam actuator assembly is actually a matched part hence being sold as a complete kit. If true....it may be better to get the whole kit. Also explains the pushback.

MODOZ maybe will chime in.

hillsdonsmith

Spyerx

Thanks for taking the time to dig that up - an interesting read. It makes some sense to not retorque an aluminum bolt (although 10 ft-lbs does not seem like much) but it seems reasonable to install new ones, vs Cdn$5k for new actuators.

Cheers
Mark

mooty

cam bolt, the company line is they can't re torque it. the repalce entire actuator. i am not saying that's right, but that is the company line.

coolant line failure, if anyone tells you they dont fail they are so full of it.
there's a good chance i had more GT3 variant than your dealer ever sold. over 1/2 of them fail. there are no patterns. hot cold humid dry weather. high low miles, track or not. i have 30000 mile track ***** and 300 mile parked for 4 years and everything in bn they fail. some were about to fail. one car we took motor out, one of the insert fell out when we touched it. i have had 996gt3, 7.1gt3, 7.1RS, 7.2 gt3, 7.2 RS, RS4.0. often more than one copies of them 17 996gt3 and i stopped counting that variant. over 1/2 failed. i dont know if one should fix it but i would fix mine. but the point is they ALL FAIL. it's a matter of when. if it fails in your garage, stained floor, big deal. if it fails when you are taking some speed liberty coming down a canyon at 15+ speed limit, no big deal, you just might be on the bottom of the hill dead.

so i really dont think any shop should tell their customers this doesn't happen. it DOES. and even if it only happens once, that's once too many.

space shuttle dont routinely blow up. but it did, and that's one time too many!!!

this is a SERIOUS issue.

Yargk

Mooty, just curious, did you do any cam actuator work on any 7.2 that you owned?

Izzone

I thought Porsche did something different on a 7.2 RS to address the coolant pipe

Mine are not pinned, nor cam bolt messed with

27,000 miles...22,000 track

NAM VET

Hills.... when you refer to "cold welding" do you mean galling, which is when similar metals fuse themselves. Those of us who shoot stainless steel handguns are familiar with is this issue, although gun manufacturers have learned to make the frame and slide of 1911 handguns out of slightly different metals, and advise good lubrication.

As an owner of an '07 GT3, not an RS, I hope the cam bolt issue does not affect my car. Nor have the clutch disc issue.

All the best...

NV

bovien

Mooty,
When I talk to otherwise reputable shops like Manthey Racing or Teichmann Racing - both running several GT3's in many events like 24H Nürburgring, Spa and many others - and they insist on this not being an issue they have ever come across, and none of their customers (many) ever reported, how do you think that can be? It it so f'ing weird that I can't find anyone in Europe having this issue. Did Mr. P put the RoW GT cars together with another glue and then just screwed the US cars for the hell of it?

I don't get it.. After many attempts I've found a Swedish shop to do the pinning for me (I'm in Denmark), but they haven't heard of it either and no Porsche shops neither (no wonder..)

FJSeattle

https://rennlist.com/forums/997-gt2-...cking-out.html

LateBraking

https://rennlist.com/forums/997-gt2-...ipe-story.html

CRex

Mooty's right. Factory does not sanction torquing those actuator bolts and their only solution is replacing whole actuators. That's all 4 in a .2 car.

The workshop manual doesn't have torque values for those 6 bolts. So for OP, your dealership ain't d_cking you around, they're just following protocol.

Race cars do not have variocam. There's just a big sprocket where the actuator sits in the street car (at the beginning of each cam). One fewer hassle if you asked me...

hillsdonsmith

LOL - with your experience, perhaps you should come up and run the service dept here! Their shirts are nice and the receptionists are pretty . Bring rain hat though.

I will go by dealer tomorrow as want to see my car's innards! Will try to extract from them whether any fittings were loose.

Thanks for the perspective.
Cheers
Mark

Spyerx

I've seen video of GT3 losing coolant on europe and middle east tracks.
The race teams run cup cars. The issue affects them (they use the same process and manifolds) but those components are timed out and/or they don't have the heat cycles of the street cars. Typical race car hours compared to street car is much, much less.

Tom@TPC Racing

Just FYI, the ones that I took apart had steel bolts. I was told by one of my peers that some does have aluminum bolts.