Engine/gearbox disaster ??

GOOFY · Oct 29, 2007

Call me cynical, but Porsche (unlike VW, Audi) have a different philosophy :
Most Porsche buyers change after two years, hence facelifts etc. Secondly most are unlikely to exceed 20-30k miles in this period of ownership. Hence their "repeat" buying new customers will always have a warranty and won't be too phazed when it goes in for a new engine. Porsche probably factor this probablity i.e. % of cars with blown up engines etc within two years = negligible so don't bother to fix the problem as new repeat customers affected very low. Its the 2nd owner onwards who will suffer, and then they will always be wanting to buy into the Porsche anyway ! Hopefully someone like VW (with a mid engined VW Coupe) or Audi (as has recently), or even BMW could bring in a mid engine car to challenge Porsche. In which case I know I will part exchange for a Mid engined VW - based on their legendary reliability. Until then stuck with the Porsche (until the Audi becomes affordable !)

jac in a box · Oct 30, 2007

You have my sympathy Rob and I do hope Porsche replace the engine at no significant cost to you.

Your car has shown the typical signs of the auxilliary drive shaft shearing/support bearing failure.

Having been the victim of a total engine failure at 9k miles on a 01 BoxsterS (3 split liners) it does rather take the shine of the Porsche ownership experience.
IIRC, Porsche in a penny-pinching move actually reduced the specification of the support bearings from a double roller race to single roller type. Judging from the number of failures of this type reported around the bazaars, it seems to have been a misjudged move.

As someone else has already pointed out, the number of Porsche owners who've experienced these major failures AND who frequent Porsche forums represents a small number of the Porsche population in total. There are are too many of these failures to suggest this can be attributed to "one off unforseen incidents"...I believe the engine design is fundamentally flawed.

If the likes of Hartech and Autofarm are willing to spend considerable time and money in investing in repair solutions for these "common" failures, I'd suggest there is some credence in what I've written.

Good luck Rob and let us know the outcome.

Dave

JCB.. · Oct 30, 2007

ORIGINAL: jac in a box

You have my sympathy Rob and I do hope Porsche replace the engine at no significant cost to you.

Your car has shown the typical signs of the auxilliary drive shaft shearing/support bearing failure.

Having been the victim of a total engine failure at 9k miles on a 01 BoxsterS (3 split liners) it does rather take the shine of the Porsche ownership experience.
IIRC, Porsche in a penny-pinching move actually reduced the specification of the support bearings from a double roller race to single roller type. Judging from the number of failures of this type reported around the bazaars, it seems to have been a misjudged move.

As someone else has already pointed out, the number of Porsche owners who've experienced these major failures AND who frequent Porsche forums represents a small number of the Porsche population in total. There are are too many of these failures to suggest this can be attributed to "one off unforseen incidents"...I believe the engine design is fundamentally flawed.

If the likes of Hartech and Autofarm are willing to spend considerable time and money in investing in repair solutions for these "common" failures, I'd suggest there is some credence in what I've written.

Good luck Rob and let us know the outcome.

Dave

I'm not sure it does lend credence as it is too small a number in relation to the total number of M96 engine units that have been manufactured to suggest a fundamental design fault.

jac in a box · Oct 30, 2007

Guess no-one outside of Porsche will ever know the real failure rate.
My point was being made in the light of the investment made by specialist repairers such as Autofarm and Hartech - hardly likely to do it if they didn't see a likely return on their outlay.

Dave

garyw · Oct 30, 2007

To put another view...

BMW and the S54 engine as found in the M3 and MZ3..

The engine is prone due to oil issues (I believe) in spinning the main bearings..
They recalled the M3 cars and sorted the issue out... the MZ3 was left alone even though its exactly the same engine as not enough owners suffered the problem...(read:complained) the percentage of M3 to Z3M S54 (79) is quite a bit different but BMW played the odds and seem to of got away with it..
Sure I know of a few owners in the Z3 variant whom have had the bearing failure and they replace the engine without too much complaint... recall them all ??? don't think so...

My point is all the manufacturers play the odds... Porsche I don't see as any different..

garyw

jimso · Oct 30, 2007

There's an epidemic...

http://www.boxa.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=29982

[:-]

GOOFY · Oct 30, 2007

The fact that even "Honest John" in the Telegraph now recommends not to buy a Boxster - unless higher mileage, you know it's a common problem.

I think it really is a serious problem as the number of times you have to take the car in for RMS alone is ridiculous. It seems every 30k miles, (if your engine doesn't blow before then). What other car do we know of needs to have engine oil seals changed at least 3 times in 100k miles. Remember this is a modern car - not a 50's classic car.

I personally would not have purchased my Boxster had I known of this problem. I think I would have rather bought a VW GTi until VW came out with their Mid engined sports car. Perhaps mistakenly I had thought the legendary reliability of the VW Beetle had carried on into Porsche ! Mine will be on the market in Spring having just forked out a fortune for a clutch flywheel change after 26k miles -even though I never trash the car !

Guest · Oct 30, 2007

Today the OPC which has been handling my problem informed me that Porsche will supply a new engine and cover 75% of the labour charges, I will pay the remaining 25% and consumables. The fact that I contribute gives me 2 years warranty on the new engine.

As I am sure you can imagine I am very happy about this outcome. The car was out of warranty, my fault I know but you dont expect a high performance engine to do what mine did after only 26000 miles. I think that my OPC has actually worked very hard for me and from the outset appeared to be on my side, which has certainly restored my faith in them after several bad experiences.

Firstly, I would like to thank all of you who have replied to my thread. The response has been very supportive, sympathetic and interesting .

Secondly though, I reallly do think that Porsche have a problem with this engine that they do not wish to be let out into the public domain.Many of you have mentioned percentages of failures that we know of in the UK, this car is marketed and sold worldwide, so how many others have there been?

Ok, they acknowledge the RMS problem but they are to my mind are fully aware of this problem with the intermediate shaft which is far worse. With an RMS problem at least you get advance warning with minor oil leaks. You get no warning at all with an Intermediate shaft failure. It just happens! Its not a result of poor servicing, bad engine management, its a design or material fault.

During the 6 days since my engine destroyed itself, I have been doing a lot of soul searching. Questions like, Do I want the car back? Of course I do, to me nothing could replace it. But could I sell it and tell the prospective buyer, yes its a great car, oh but it had to have a new engine because its first one destroyed itself. I dont think my car is now worth as nuch as it was last week, even with a new engine.

What really gets me about this is that none of this was my fault, I only bought a sports car built by one of the greatest car manufacturers, and that is the reason why I bought it, I did not expect this at all.

I will keep the car and the faith for now, but I have just renewed the tax for six months only.

Sorry for venting my spleen ( or was it intermediate shaft).Once again thanks for your input and support

jimso · Oct 30, 2007

Rob, that's good news indeed. Goodness knows you needed some.

Which OPC are you dealing with? I must admit, the experiences detailed in this thread have made me feel a little uneasy. My car has done just 35k miles and I have to say, I have been dwelling somewhat on the whole business. However, the sun was out and I enjoyed a few pleasurable miles driving today so, heres hoping...[&:].
I hope you get to enjoy the same without much further delay.

Jim

daro911 · Oct 31, 2007

ORIGINAL: Rob Higham

Today the OPC which has been handling my problem informed me that Porsche will supply a new engine and cover 75% of the labour charges, I will pay the remaining 25% and consumables. The fact that I contribute gives me 2 years warranty on the new engine.

Great result! but sorry "I am not happy with final outcome"[

] ....

If Porsche have accepted 100 % liability on the engine failure, on a car that is out of warranty, then IMO they should accept 100% and not 75% of the labour charges and consumables.

This smacks of the dealer making sure he gets something for his trouble from YOU![

]

I agree come sale time explaining a "new engine" may dent the residual but then again so does a new front or rear end so as they say "stuff happens"

Good luck and enjoy your Box when it's all back and sweetly humming along again [8D]

Guest · Oct 31, 2007

Rob I'm sorry to hear your story. I've just logged in to see if anyone had had problems with their Boxster. Last Friday I took my 03 Boxster in to the garage because it smelt funny. On the way there I noticed at one point some smoke but as I was going to my garage I carried on. The upshot is that a tappet had broken up and I now need a new engine (costing just shy of £9,500). Porsche were approached for goodwill but have declined to pay anything. Do I buy another car, get it fixed or contact a solicitor???? Anyone with similar experiences?

oliver · Oct 31, 2007

As I said above, these failures may be fairly rare, but it is the reason that many people extend the warranty. And, the price of the warranty/no claims limit, confirms that major failures cannot be all that common.

Out of warranty (after two years) there is apparently a 'goodwill matrix', and each one is judged on various criteria, ie:
- Age of the car
- Mileage of the car
- No of owners
- Was it UK OPC/PCGB supplied?
- OPC Service history
- Diagnostic feedback
- Customer relationship
- Etc

I don't know the full details, but sometimes they pay out in full, sometimes they make a contribution, and sometimes they won't pay anything. However, even in the last scenario it may be worth pursuing, depending on the circumstances.

In fairness, no manufactrer can be responsible for their products indefinitely and, unlike some companies Porsche don't exclude track day use.

Black80XSA · Oct 31, 2007

ORIGINAL: guest07

Rob I'm sorry to hear your story. I've just logged in to see if anyone had had problems with their Boxster. Last Friday I took my 03 Boxster in to the garage because it smelt funny. On the way there I noticed at one point some smoke but as I was going to my garage I carried on. The upshot is that a tappet had broken up and I now need a new engine (costing just shy of £9,500). Porsche were approached for goodwill but have declined to pay anything. Do I buy another car, get it fixed or contact a solicitor???? Anyone with similar experiences?

Another 03 MY 2.7 ? - I know of two others which have had blocked oilways on the tappet on the drivers side bank.

Not exactly endemic, but not what you expect from a prestige (now volume) manufacturer

jimso · Oct 31, 2007

Guys, I don't wish to fan the flames...

but...

http://www.boxa.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=29947

It's getting to be a little unsettling! [&:]

jimso · Oct 31, 2007

In fact the top two must recent threads on both this forum and boxa.net are associated with wrecked engines.

Sandeep · Oct 31, 2007

I have a 1997 2.5 boxster which has done 54,000 miles. Reading these threads has made me worry that it could happen to my car. Looking back at the file of receipts I have for the car I noticed an invoice dated in 2002 from OPC for a 12,000 mile service that was carried out. The technician has noted on it below the service items 'Intermediate shaft tension seal leaking' but doesn't look like anything was done about it. Then reading through other invoices there is another one dated 2005 fro a specialist noting 'very slight engine oil leaks-"sweat-suspect crankshaft rear main/intermediate shaft seal area'

Last year the rear main oil seal was replaced would this be related to the intermediate shaft seal area the invoices are explaining. After reading all these threads this has really got me worried.

Black80XSA · Nov 1, 2007

The intermediate shaft seal is above the RMS - if they replaced the RMS then they should have noticed the other seal - do not fret over a slight sweating.

JCB.. · Nov 1, 2007

ORIGINAL: jimso

In fact the top two must recent threads on both this forum and boxa.net are associated with wrecked engines.

Which in real terms means what - all our engines are going to blow up this weekend? [&:]

This thread is actually about one wrecked engine.

jimso · Nov 1, 2007

I hope not. I'm using the car at the weekend just as I'm using it today.

John, you have to admit it makes sad reading. I know that there is much woeful comment on the forum. As I noted in an earlier post, many folk come here to share problems and seek support. They don't often take the trouble to comment that another day has passed without something going wrong - why would they?

I love my car and hope to avoid the worst that can happen. Nevertheless, these are dire failures and they should not happen.

How many Honda V-tech engines have destroyed themselves over the years? According to Mr Clarkson (driving an S2000 on TG a few weeks ago), not one recorded failure in umpteen million engines produced. Thats how it should be!

Mark_Bennett · Nov 1, 2007

An RMS leak, and indeed Intermediate shaft leaks, are just that - leaks. Engines leak oil now and again. Having a slight leak doesn't mean anything is going to happen!