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Serious Engine Problem

I Understand your frustration and agree with what your saying especially since the car has always been serviced by them.
It wouldn't hurt to at least check for play in the IMS bearing now and then.

I do think that its a bit far down the line to get anything done by Porsche as in recalls etc. If it were life threatening faults they would have too.
Lots of people have made lots of noise about this issue before. one example http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/08/porsches-deadly-sin-1-1999-porsche-911-996-3-4/

+ the fact is no one really knows the percentage of this failure and the scaremongering is great business.

Hopefully your engine can be rebuilt by Autofarm or Hartech for not too much £
They are the only people I think I would want to touch my car.
Certainly not Porsche.
As I said before Porsche did the RMS on my car once and it lasted 10 Days.

Again I wish you the best of luck.


 

I am afraid having just sold my 993 I have decided not to buy another Porsche for the moment, despite my initial enthusiasm for moving up to a 996 or early 997, having been put off by the engine failures regularly documented here and on other forums. I am going to stick with my 28 year old 3.2 Cab.

It is such a shame as otherwise one of these fine cars would have been proudly sat in my garage by now, but I am not prepared to always be worrying about what "might happen" to my expensive purchase. I have had a number of very different cars over the years, including modern and classics, and have never had a warrenty in my life. I find it unacceptable to be effectively told the only way to own and enjoy a modern Porsche is to have an expensive warrenty so you are prepared for when it goes wrong. This is not the image of a precision made car that I had bought into.

Just my thoughts, I am sure some will disagree.
 
Hi Tony,

I thought most people sell there 996 to buy a 993?.

And people sold there 993 to buy a 964.

Nice Cab by the way.
 

ORIGINAL: Peter Bull


ORIGINAL: AndrewEllinas

I am going to contact Customer Services myself  and write to the MD, but I'm not very hopeful. 
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Hi Andrew

I wouldn't waste your time contacting Porsche GB -the customer service department are unhelpful and rude - unless of course you happen to be a perpetual buyer of new Porsche's.

My recent experience with them over my sports exhaust failure ( document here on the forum ) was not very pleasant. I also wrote to the MD, Andy Goss, with all the details etc and despite knowing him personally for over 10 years I never heard a words from him. How disappointing that was.

They even questioned my loyalty to the brand because I had not had an extended warranty! Anyone in the club who knows me would realise how insulting and hurtful that was to me.

You claim, like mine and everyone else is judged on a matrix of information and if it doesn't fit the model then tough - you are on your own.

I would love to be proved wrong in your case, so the best of luck to you.
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hiya peter, i find it astonishing that you have been treated in this way, your loyalty should never have been questioned and to not recieve a reply from an md you have known for such a long time is totally unacceptable, if this is how porsche treat an administrator, what hope for the rest of us? thank god for the indie specialists, regards jason p
 
ORIGINAL: n8ony

been put off by the engine failures regularly documented here and on other forums. I am going to stick with my 28 year old 3.2 Cab.
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Buy a turbo, different engine entirely used in the 1998 Gt1 le mans car and no common faults[:)] better still buy mine. (Gt3 aslo has the different engine)
 
ORIGINAL: n8ony

This is not the image of a precision made car that I had bought into.
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As I stood by the side of the road waiting for the flatbed truck, a chap asked what had happened.  I told him and he said "that's ridiculous, Porsches don't break down".

The image is (or has been) that they are bullet proof.  That is the image I bought into.  This has been a real disappointment and has given my 'Porsche hating' friends plenty of extra ammunition.

I originally went out to buy a 993 for the usual reasons - air cooled and gorgeous shape.  But at the time I was still doing the morning school run and was seduced by the extra comfort of the 996.

After I get the car repaired, the question I face is what to do with it?  At the moment, I think I will sell it and get a Carrera 3.2 for fun and city car for the journey to work.  The 996 was meant to satisfy both needs - what a shame.



Edit: quote tags
 
Really disappointed for you, I remember the pain well.

I have tried to find my copy of the letter Andy Goss sent to me when I challenged the negative response from Porsche customer services when my 996 engine let go. I can't find it and can only assume that I ripped it up in annoyance at the time. I could have sworn that any goodwill claim for me was rejected on the grounds that my car had never had an extended warranty which could have been good ammunition for you.

I think that legally, the reality is that you won't have a leg to stand on, it just seems a pity that a modicum of goodwill is completely absent, even to enthusiast owners who have stood by main dealers for servicing. Best of luck in finding a satisfactory solution.
 

ORIGINAL: rob.kellock

............ it just seems a pity that a modicum of goodwill is completely absent, even to enthusiast owners who have stood by main dealers for servicing.
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Rob I'll second that too!
 
It's sad to say but BMW are at the top of their game for that. I'd forgotten what goodwill was until my local BMW (Northampton) treated me so well.

It had such a big effect that if there was any BMW model I wanted, I would have one now. You can't beat knowing you've got a good team behind you and they made my ownership experience the best I've ever had.. even though the car I bought from them was not new! It was 6months old, used approved.

Other manufaturers could learn a lot from the day I spent wondering around the showroom pondering which BMW I could have next because I wanted to stick with the garage, just a pity they haven't made a car to replace the Z4M.
 

ORIGINAL: DivineE

It's sad to say but BMW are at the top of their game for that. I'd forgotten what goodwill was until my local BMW (Northampton) treated me so well.

It had such a big effect that if there was any BMW model I wanted, I would have one now. You can't beat knowing you've got a good team behind you and they made my ownership experience the best I've ever had.. even though the car I bought from them was not new! It was 6months old, used approved.

Other manufaturers could learn a lot from the day I spent wondering around the showroom pondering which BMW I could have next because I wanted to stick with the garage, just a pity they haven't made a car to replace the Z4M.
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Really? Not the experience my mother had with hers.

She had a 5 series - the engine blew up, it was sold for scrap (no help from BMW)

Then she bought a 7 Series, the engine died - she got a new one under warranty. She made another claim on something else, they accused her of lying (in the showroom) and made her cry. They then recanted and realised she wasn't and paid up. Then once again the engine gave way and it's been sold for scrap (no help again).

She wanted to buy a Range Rover but realised they used BMW engines so decided instead to by an S-Class which has been superb.
 
I can add an agreement to that, though I suspect much depends on the actual dealer or service manager.

My son had a Mini Cooper supplied new by a main BMW agent. After 18 months, the gearbox chewed itself up, a not uncommon problem with early Coopers. It was taken into the agent who rang 2 days later and said 'New gearbox needed; unfortunately we won't cover it under warrantly so that will be £2300 please'

On querying the reason, we were told: you have fitted a new induction kit and so it has put increased load on the gearbox. Now the induction kit itself probably added no more than 5HP to the output; BMW themselves do a John Cooper kit that adds 20HP and they don't make any changes to the gearbox. He also had a letter to the Mini Owners club from a BMW Customer Service rep at head office confirming that small aftermarket mods would NOT affect the warranty apart from that part itself.

A suitably worded letter to Sewells BMW provoked a grudging acceptance of the warranty claim, but it was with very bad grace. 2 months later a friend of my son, also with a Cooper, had exactly the same problem- gearbox just chewed up with no warning. She took it back under warranty to the same dealer who next day phoned to say: 'sorry, you need a new gearbox at £2300, but we won't do it under warranty as you have changed the tyres to a non standard make'

Bearing in mind that the new tyres were the same size, and of a reputable brand, we advised her to write a similar letter pointing out their legal obligations. This had the desired effect but it all leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth.

Happily that dealer went bust and was taken over by another one- Elms of Cambridge, who have been much better to deal with.
 
I've decided to have Hartech carry out an engine rebuild.

Fingers crossed they don't find anything too horrendous when they split the engine down.

I'll let you know how I get on.
 
I Had a similar problem in may as i was taking the car off the drive, it cut out, on re start it sounded like it was misfiring, when the AA Arrived, they told me misfire in cylinder 4, called porsche specialist, who said 30.00 for coil pack, told him to get on with it, then came the bad nbews, he called to say it had started by there was water comming out of cylinder 3 which meant there was a crack on the engine head, and the engine needed replqacing or re done, i phonned aroud and porsche offerewd me a Brand new engnie for my 996 c2 2002 for £8k plus vat and 2 year guarantee, specialist quoted 4400 for rebuild and repaqir, so got it rebuilt anf seems ok now, was told common problem on 5% of all 996 haqve this issue, sad but now sorted only took 6 months to raise cost of engine (merry xmas to me)
 
5% of all 996s i suppose isnt too bad ideally it should be 0 but its just unfortunate if it happens to you as 4k is a bit of a big bill to swallow.
 
Hartech carried out an engine rebuild and, so far, all seems to be fine. In fact, the engine feels tight and new, it's amazing the way you don't notice how it slowly deteriorates over time.

Hartech were really good. They arranged for the car to be collected from London, stripped the engine down and confirmed that it was an IMS failure. Grant then came up with a short list of items that should be done at the same time, which I agreed to. These included re-rounding the cylinders, supplying and fitting restraining rings, new latest design IMS, crank shaft oil jets, crank shaft bearings, timing chain set, chain tensioner rails, cam chain guides, hydraulic valve lifters and a low temperature thermostat.

He was very good, in that he explained every non-essential repair and we discussed whether to do it or not.

The end result was a rebuilt engine with a new IMS at a cost of £6.5k plus VAT, £7.9k.

A lot of money, but half the estimated cost from my OPC.

Hartech were recommended on this Forum and get another recommendation from me.

If you've got a 996 - have the IMS checked!
 
Good to hear your back on the road.

Unfortunately if your going to check your IMS then you may as well replace it. As your going to have to drop the trans anyway.
unless of course its a;ready gushing oil, but then that could just be RMS.

Russian Roulette springs to mind.
 
I'm not sure whether I posted this before, but my OPC took me to Silverstone in January and I got the chance to drive a new Gen II 997 around their track as fast as I dared - fantastic fun.

There were four of us sitting around a table having some lunch and it turned out that three out of the four of us had had engine rebuilds - two 997s and my 996. The fourth chap always bought new and moved on to a new one within 2/3 years, so he never had a car long enough to experience any major problems. 75% of a random sample of Porsche owners had cars that required engine rebuilds - thats scarey!

And ... one of my close friends, who I helped buy a Cayman S (2005) from my OPC rang me yesterday to tell me that he'd just had a call to say that they'd dropped the sump and found 'bits of metal' in the oil and they suspect his IMS is about to let go. Luckily he has a current Porsche Extended Warranty. The service technician said that they had a 'spate of these' recently.

I'm not sure how much longer Porsche is going to able to keep this quiet. Sooner or later the media are going to get hold of this and they'll have a field day. God only knows what Clarkson would do!


 
But Porsche wont replace IMS Bearing?.

As for keeping it quiet, Its not just google "996 IMS " its the first engine problem you will find on what ever side of the world.

Its not life threatening so Porsche don't have to do anything about it.

If it were a stearing rack etc that would be different.

Bottom line is we replace our IMS or we take the risk.

Even if he gets a new engine from Porsche I would still have LN's Bearing fitted.




 
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