There was one guy one here who had his fail catastrophically, pics on Rick's site as mentioned earlier. I think repairs cost him north of £3k and ultimately he sold the car. I think he'd have been better off selling the car for spares with the engine broken, but that's with the 20:20 hindsight factor.
Mine would have failed on my coupe, perhaps not immediately at the next key turn, but soon given that it was a 1,000 mile a week daily driver at the time.
My indie checks them on any S2 he sees for the first time and he's replaced loads (he's also quite cheap as he gets the cams from Porsche's supplier direct. Depending on exchange rate he can usually do a 968 for under £1k and the S2 is cheaper). He is not someone who creates work that doesn't need to be done, so I trust him when he says they are worn. He can spot the case hardening failure so I assume it's visible if you know what to look for - splodges of a different colour metal showing through maybe?
There's enough value in an S2 still that it's worth replacing them if they need doing on an otherwise decent example. I think maybe it's not worth fixing the damage if there is a catastrophic failure though, as that can be much more expensive to fix. It's for that reason I beat the drum periodically on this - not to worry S2 owners nor put potential purchasers off, but to try to prevent ignorance of the problem writing cars off or making people pay over the odds for a car with an expensive and serious engine issue to be resolved.
If you don't think an S2 is worth £1,000 in preventative maintenance to give its engine another 15 years and 100k miles of life then that is of course a valid view, but I suspect most owners of the model would rather grimace and pay up than accept they are running a car that might lunch its engine such that they have to throw it away.
Oli, you're better off than all but those who have also had the cams replaced. What I would say to you (and Andy L and anyone else with a new chain) is think about motorbikes; you never replace a chain on a bike without doing the sprockets also, because a worn chain has a level of corresponding wear on the sprockets and fitting a new chain to an old sprocket accelerates future sprocket and moreso chain wear as the new chain doesn't mesh perfectly with the wear created by the old one. I don't know that it's the same for the S2 cam drive, but it's the same type of chain so it would seem more than likely it is to my logic.
I expect a large number of S2s have never been checked, primarily as Porsche don't specify a need to check them in the maintenance schedule. Most people on here do know to check though. I don't know the life expectancy of a car with failing case hardening, but I do know that a car with misshapen teeth will start to shear teeth off and will ultimately fail completely, possibly quite soon.
Mine would have failed on my coupe, perhaps not immediately at the next key turn, but soon given that it was a 1,000 mile a week daily driver at the time.
My indie checks them on any S2 he sees for the first time and he's replaced loads (he's also quite cheap as he gets the cams from Porsche's supplier direct. Depending on exchange rate he can usually do a 968 for under £1k and the S2 is cheaper). He is not someone who creates work that doesn't need to be done, so I trust him when he says they are worn. He can spot the case hardening failure so I assume it's visible if you know what to look for - splodges of a different colour metal showing through maybe?
There's enough value in an S2 still that it's worth replacing them if they need doing on an otherwise decent example. I think maybe it's not worth fixing the damage if there is a catastrophic failure though, as that can be much more expensive to fix. It's for that reason I beat the drum periodically on this - not to worry S2 owners nor put potential purchasers off, but to try to prevent ignorance of the problem writing cars off or making people pay over the odds for a car with an expensive and serious engine issue to be resolved.
If you don't think an S2 is worth £1,000 in preventative maintenance to give its engine another 15 years and 100k miles of life then that is of course a valid view, but I suspect most owners of the model would rather grimace and pay up than accept they are running a car that might lunch its engine such that they have to throw it away.
Oli, you're better off than all but those who have also had the cams replaced. What I would say to you (and Andy L and anyone else with a new chain) is think about motorbikes; you never replace a chain on a bike without doing the sprockets also, because a worn chain has a level of corresponding wear on the sprockets and fitting a new chain to an old sprocket accelerates future sprocket and moreso chain wear as the new chain doesn't mesh perfectly with the wear created by the old one. I don't know that it's the same for the S2 cam drive, but it's the same type of chain so it would seem more than likely it is to my logic.
I expect a large number of S2s have never been checked, primarily as Porsche don't specify a need to check them in the maintenance schedule. Most people on here do know to check though. I don't know the life expectancy of a car with failing case hardening, but I do know that a car with misshapen teeth will start to shear teeth off and will ultimately fail completely, possibly quite soon.
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