I'm in trouble.

I am a young guy in Atlanta, GA and new to the forum. This is my first post. All of my life I've wanted a Porsche, but could not afford one. Five weeks ago I finally found one.

I purchased a 2003 Porsche Boxster Base with a 2.7 L and tiptronic transmission. I paid 15,000$ cash. I did my due diligence, and found one at a dealership with only 58k miles, one previous owner, and a decent pre-purchase inspection.

I was able to drive it for only 36 days before the engine seized.

It happened the very first time I floored it. I suppose the automatic transmission could not shift gears fast enough and it over-rev'ed. The check engine notification popped up and it coasted to a stop, smoking oil out of the exhaust. It would not start again, and shuddered a bit in the attempt.

The only silver lining to this story is that a friend's brother happens to be a Porsche mechanic in Atlanta. While we do not know exactly what happened, two things are certain. The crank is completely locked and there is metal debris in the housing of the oil filter.

I'm gonna need some help from you guys. My friend says that it doesn't really matter what precisely is wrong with the engine because for the labor to take it apart it's most likely worth it to just buy another engine.

So where can I look to find a good deal on a used engine? What is the seized engine really worth in a swap? How do I know that the failure just won't happen again? How do I know if the transmission and other systems are still good?

The truth is that I am so new to this that I don't even know if I am asking the right questions. I feel like I have a mechanic I can rely on and will work with me, but I'd like to have some more advice so that I can make good decisions going forward.

The real questions are:

What would you do if you were me?

How much should all of this cost?

What can be done to prevent this from happening again?

This is new territory for me and I need all of the recommendations and advice that I can get. This is my first Porsche. Needless to say, I've had better days.

Thanks.

 

Really guys? Wow, the Porsche struggle is real. I would just like to add that despite this experience, I still hope to join the Porsche community. I do feel that I have options. If this is one of those topics that people don't like to discuss, please private message me with any advice, recommendations, or resources that you can offer. This is quite a setback and I could use some council.

 

Sorry this happened to you.

You are posting in the wrong Forum. You want the 986 Forum.

What would I do if I were you? I'll say "sorry" again, because you won/t like my answer:

1) Buy a Porsche when you can fully afford one. And when you can afford one that goes 'boom'. Buying on a budget is never a good idea.

2) Cut your losses now, and part it out.

3) If you can afford a repair, send to Jake at Flat 6 Innovations.

Good luck. Study/work hard, and come back to the brand some day. These are great cars and even better people.

 

Ugh, that sucks Sounds like IMS failure, which is a known problem afflicting a small (but too large) % of these cars, and not a whole lot you can do about it but replace the engine or part it out. Flooring it is not what caused this failure; the tip is more than capable of keeping up, and your 2003 has e-throttle which means it literally won't let you do anything via the gas pedal that could damage the transmission or car. If there was an internal failure in the engine or transmission, there is little you could have done about it.

There are a lot of these cars getting crashed and perfectly good engines parted out, and the 2.7L engines are cheaper than the 3.4, but it's still going to be costly.

Q to the internet lawyers out there: since he was only 36 days out of the dealership, and the car they sold him clearly defective, is the dealer liable for this? Would lawyering up help him?

 

if the dealer will not help you ...dump the car for whatever you can get.putting more money into it is not the answer.unless you can get a motor and labor for just about free. hard lesson learned....these cars aint built by the gods

 

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. As noted above, not possible to over-rev with Tip so don't worry about that. Did you buy from a P-dealer? Maybe talk with them and see if they or PCNA would help at all but probably unlikely. With crank seized and debris in the filter it sounds like it's toast. If it were me I would map out a few options and rough cost est. 1- used motor swap, but there would be some uncertainty about the used motor condition. 2- remanufactured motor, more costly but known condition, you can check with Suncoast parts to get cost, 3- project car with a 3.6 swap. 4- sell it for parts and walk away. None of the first 3 are cheap. You'll surely have way more money in the car than it would be worth. Swap with a 3.6 would be the most fun. Hate to say it but sell for parts and walk is probably the most practical.

 

Unfortunately you have a model year Boxster that has been known to suffer IMS failure.

If you can find a 2.7 from a wreck that is in your area you could perform an engine swap that wil most likely cost a little more then what you are willing to spend but will get you back on the road.

You need to decide to walk away and sell the car for parts or spend the money to put it back on the road depending on parts and labour budget.

 

If you can't get any help from the seller, and you need to speak to say the consumer fraud department of your county to see if there's something on the consumer law books that might help you, I'd look into a replacement engine.

Dealer/factory sourced engine is expensive. You can price one just to confirm but be sitting down when you get the numbers. Keep in mind your engine will probably not suffice as an acceptable core.

You can swap in an engine from another similar model. Stay with the same MY or MY's which would be IIRC from 2000 to 2003 MY's.

If you want you can find and install a larger engine from say a similar range of Boxster S MY's or even a 3.6l engine from a 2000 to 2003 996.

I do not think the engine is rebuildable and it would cost something (~$1K?) to have this confirmed.

If you think you want to go the engine swap way you need to find a shop that has done these swaps before and can advise you of the costs and risks.

You can of course just dump the car for what it would bring as a salvage car, probably around $3K, which means you take a $12K loss right off the bat. Ouch.

I would not part the car out as I do not fancy myself running a one car salvage operation for the next 5 or 10 years as the car slowly sublimes away as the occasional stranger somehow connects up with me and buys a part.

 

Oh, jeez, that sucks royally. They are great cars, but a small percentage (estimated in the range of 5% or so) suffers these catastrophic IMSB failures. Wasn't there at least a 60 day warranty? Seems like most dealers provide them, even the low end used car lots.

As stated above, it isn't the tip over-revving that caused this. It was just very bad luck, very likely the IMSB.

In terms of what you can do to prevent it in the future... there are many aftermarket IMSB options available, including the ceramic bearing one from LN and various options from Jake Raby. Many people swap out the original IMSB with an aftermarket one upon purchasing the car (or try and find one where this was already done).

I'd sell the car for parts and try again. Very sorry to hear this about your car. As Macster says, I'd just sell it whole unless you want to become an auto dismantler and spend your life on Ebay, etc.

 

My opinions...

We have no idea what caused the failure and won't until someone who is a real expert in the internals of the M96 got in and for $$$$ pulled it out and looked. All we know is that, because there is debris in the engine, it is probably more $ than it is worth to rebuild the engine due to the improbability of getting all the debris out of all the little oil passages and thus the risk of future repeats.

The car as is is maybe worth ~$3k.

I wrote this little "your options with a blown engine" guide a while ago, not much has changed. The same site has a list of sources of engines from wrecking yards.

The risk with buying any used car out of warranty is what happened to you. The car ran fine for 30+ days, the dealer presumably had no way of knowing something was going to happen and it would again take too many $$$$ to prove otherwise.

If the car is going to cost too much to get it fixed, there is a ready market for good used cars with blown engines. One near Atlanta is Flat6Innovations in Cleveland GA. They also buy blown motors because they can use parts since they are internals experienced.

 

Thanks for your replys. I purchased from a non-Porsche used car dealership in Tampa, FL, and paid over 400 for a pre-purchase inspection from a proper Porsche dealership there. The bill of sale says "As is - No warranty" but this is absolutely appalling. I plan to call the dealership on Monday. What can I do or say that might make them feel inclined to help pay?

From the sound of things, I can be the guy who took a 12k loss and drives and cheap car, or I can be the guy that put over 20k into his 03 Boxster. I think that I would like to be the latter, but this would leave me unprepared for any other failures that might occur in the near future. If my buddy finds me an engine I will absolutely have him retrofit the IMS.

So what else can go wrong here? If I pay to have the engine swapped I'll need a car that works for at least a year without major system problems. My inclination is not to walk away from this. However, given how catastrophic and sudden this failure was, I just don't know what to believe about these cars.

 

Not sure what you can do or say that might make the PPI provider or the seller be inclined to help any.

You'll have to explore what consumer protection laws there are in your region and probably speak to someone in consumer fraud. Generally each county has a division of consumer fraud that you can call and speak with someone there that after hearing the facts can offers suggestions. You won't get real legal advice of course, but sometimes you can pick up some ideas that prove helpful.

I would make this call *before* I called the other parties involved so you start out on your best foot.

There probably isn't fraud though, just so this is clear. There have been more than a few cases of a perfectly fine Boxster (or 996 911) just up and spilling the guts of its engine out all over the road with no forewarning. What I'm thinking is there may be some implied short term warranty related to suitability to purpose and function.

What can go wrong with an engine swap is barring just a real screwup by the installer is the "new" engine is crap. So, you or your mechanic want to expend some effort to find a good engine from the outset and of course install it correctly.

And if possible you want to buy an engine from a business that offers some kind of "warranty" that if the supplied engine is crap out of the box you can at least return it for an exchange. A large business can set up and spin an engine on a test bench and check its compression at least.

There is no guarantee the replacement engine will not do the same thing. Just because it is good out of the box doesn't mean it can't go boom later. Remember the engine in your car originally was good for some weeks after you bought the car before suddenly turning into (probably) scrap.

You can of course fit an IMSB upgrade of whatever flavor you and your mechanic prefer. This addresses at least one major weak point with the engine but there are other weak points anyone of which can render the replacement engine scrap.

Not trying to be discouraging just trying to be thorough.

The odds are good the engine with the IMSB upgrade (and probably even without it) will be fine.

 

I am surprised no one has mentioned this sooner, but it's possible your motor is not toast? To me it sounds like your vapor separator could have failed dramatically. Have you guys tried removing the plugs and cranking the engine over? It is definitely worth it to see if it's hydrolocked with oil. How much metal was in the filter?

 

IIUC if the motor got "hydrolocked" with oil it would wreck the engine too...perhaps with bent connecting rods.

 

Been there done that. Happened on my bmw. Got a used engine and put it in. Been flawless since. If I were in your shoes, I would look for a used engine. Maybe a 3.4 or 3.6. But if the selling dealer won't help (and it's unlikely they will) either get a new or used engine or part it. New from porsche is about $22,000 installed with a 2 year unlimited mileage warranty.