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I did think about the lemon law, but in California the car has to still be under “new car warranty”. So since this happened just over a year after the warranty expired, it’s not legally eligible.
My choices right now are:
1) replace with new motor - I believe those are $25K+
2) replace with used motor - those are between 5K and 15K, but have no real history with them, so are massive risks on their own.
3) Beg Porsche for a goodwill replacement. They’ll want to inspect it and if they say no, I’ll probably be left with the dealer inspection bill. If they say yes, I’d expect they’d want to only cover part of it - so I’ll probably still be left with a $10K+ bill. I did open a case with them so I might pursue it - I’m just not confident it will be worth it.
4) repair this motor myself.
The last one is the only way I can be as sure as possible that it’s done properly, with upgraded parts where possible to reduce the likelihood of failure, proper use of thread lock to ensure bolts don’t just fall out, etc.
Thanks!
S.
If the car is in CA, you may still have some recourse with the BAR. That is because the manufacturer may still have to cover failures THAT EFFECT THE EMMISIONS status of the car. If the original failures created CELs, then that may certainly be the case. Call the BAR and discuss with them. What can it hurt?
If the car is in CA, you may still have some recourse with the BAR. That is because the manufacturer may still have to cover failures THAT EFFECT THE EMMISIONS status of the car. If the original failures created CELs, then that may certainly be the case. Call the BAR and discuss with them. What can it hurt?
Funny story, same kind of problem just happened to my 2016 Macan Turbo. Any more updates? Chain still seems to be intact, only 112,000 miles on the dash. Bought it used from a BMW dealer back in October in California. Same bolts seem to be the culprit.
Not funny that Porsche engineers seem to have problems with choosing appropriate bolts and /or thread-locking techniques.....sad., this is Mechanical Engineering 101 stuff.
Not funny that Porsche engineers seem to have problems with choosing appropriate bolts and /or thread-locking techniques.....sad., this is Mechanical Engineering 101 stuff.
Makes me wonder how many of these bad design choices are driven by new "green" federal regs. Porsche never used to have bolt failures inside engines in their older cars.
Older engines have their own problems. "Green" had/has nothing to do with it.
Older engines rarely if ever had bolts come loose internally. New federal regs forcing manufacturers to reduce weight and oil viscosity are part of the green agenda.
Older engines rarely if ever had bolts come loose internally. New federal regs forcing manufacturers to reduce weight and oil viscosity are part of the green agenda.
If you want I can go through Porsche's entire engine history starting with the 356 and call out all the engineering screw ups that caused them to fail prematurely. Including a few instances of bolts backing out. Most recently the connecting rod bolts on 3.8L 991.1 GT3 engine. No way they were trying to make that engine "green".
Reducing weight? Are you joking? Modern cars are heavy pigs. Oil viscosity had nothing to do with these bolts loosen up. Not using 2 cents worth of Locktite is the culprit.
Last edited by Carlo_Carrera; 07-20-2024 at 10:32 AM.
Bad joint design is the root cause. Bad choice of parent material + fastener material + torque spec. Bad vibration mitigation. Bad joint geometry vis-a-vis vibration source and path. Bad mating parts geometry and stiffness.
The above are identical to the Jaguar inline-6 engine from the 1960s through the late 1980s. History indeed repeats itself.
Porsche engineering failure. Loctite is not the solution.
Partly, but as chassis detailed in his post it’s more than just the metallurgy of the bolts. It’s poor engineering at the core of it all.
What details? There were no details. It was a list of possibilities. If chassis wants to be convincing then they should post something more expository and in the context of this failure mode or at least that of the 95B not just a laundry list.
The topic of use of aluminum fasteners on the 95B has been discussed in several threads on this forum. There are a bunch of places on the 95B where aluminum fasteners are used but are specified with fastening torques that are inappropriately high for the fastener size used.
What details? There were no details. It was a list of possibilities. If chassis wants to be convincing then they should post something more expository and in the context of this failure mode or at least that of the 95B not just a laundry list.
The topic of use of aluminum fasteners on the 95B has been discussed in several threads on this forum. There are a bunch of places on the 95B where aluminum fasteners are used but are specified with fastening torques that are inappropriately high for the fastener size used.
State the requirements for expository.
Fasteners can be cotter pins made from balsa wood if all of the other design parameters support the use of such material. Taken in isolation, fastener material does not assure failure or success.
The totality of the facts result in Porsche having failed to get the engineering job done properly. Threaded fastener joint design, particularly in a high-ish temperature high vibration and chemically challenging application is multivariate calculus.