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Unhappy Boxster Owner

J

johnbay

New member
I've owned a 03 plate Boxster for 4 years and done reasonable mileage (55,000) and I've tried to look after it (regular servicing by Porsche, etc.). In deed the last service was less than 8 weeks ago and I was told that the car was in good woring order.

2 weeks ago I heard a noise coming from the engine, so stopped drdiving it immediately and I got the car taken into a Porsche centre to be looked at.

I was totally amazed when the Porsche centre informed me that the intermediate shaft bearing had failed and that the engine was ruined. The replacement cost including labour and VAT was in excess of £11,000!!

Porsche are not showing any goodwill as the car is over 6 years old (6 years and 10 months to be precise) so I am expected to foot the entire repair cost.

When I asked Porsche why this problem was not picked up on the service, their response was that the intermediate shaft bearing is "not a serviceable item". The only way to check it is to strip the engine down. Isn't this a design flaw ?

Is this a problem that has been known to occur on the Boxster ?

The car is barely economical to repair, any suggestions as to what I can do ?

Thanks

John
 
As well as Barry Hart you might want to contact Autofarm
http://www.autofarm.co.uk/engines/water_cooled

Both companies are very good.

The Intermediate shaft has been known to fail - and sadly it's not predictable. Even if Porsche had been able to look at it during the service there would not likely be any indicators to show it was going to fail. [&o]

 
Could be less than half the £11k estimate you have had. Depending on the damage, a Hartec-rebuilt engine could be better than a replacement from Porsche since they fit an updated bearing. I really do encourage you to talk to Autofarm and/or Hartec.
 
ORIGINAL: johnbay

I've owned a 03 plate Boxster for 4 years and done reasonable mileage (55,000) and I've tried to look after it (regular servicing by Porsche, etc.). In deed the last service was less than 8 weeks ago and I was told that the car was in good woring order.

2 weeks ago I heard a noise coming from the engine, so stopped drdiving it immediately and I got the car taken into a Porsche centre to be looked at.

I was totally amazed when the Porsche centre informed me that the intermediate shaft bearing had failed and that the engine was ruined. The replacement cost including labour and VAT was in excess of £11,000!!

Porsche are not showing any goodwill as the car is over 6 years old (6 years and 10 months to be precise) so I am expected to foot the entire repair cost.

When I asked Porsche why this problem was not picked up on the service, their response was that the intermediate shaft bearing is "not a serviceable item". The only way to check it is to strip the engine down. Isn't this a design flaw ?

Is this a problem that has been known to occur on the Boxster ?

The car is barely economical to repair, any suggestions as to what I can do ?

Thanks

John
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about this one ... can I ask where you took the car for the service/bad news and who told you that Porsche wouldn't show any goodwill?


 
Firstly, thanks to everyone for the feedback and I have contacted Hartech and AutoFarm.

To answer a couple of questions ....
- I took the car into Porsche Centre in Bournemouth who told me that the intermediate shaft had failed. I have spoken with Porsche UK in Reading, but they will not offer any goodwill as the car is over 6 years old.
- The car is out of warranty (I didn't know that you could buy extended warranties, and quite honestly even if I had I would not have necessary as I was not expecting such a major failure of the engine on a car that is less than 7 years old @ 55,000 miles).

John
 
commiserations john
like you,i didnt take out the extra warranty as i thought as it had been running fine then i would risk it-and saved about £3000 during my ownership-however i was aware that if a problem arose i would have to stump up.definately would have gone the indi route tho so would agree with the others thats the way to go.over 7yrs not paying for the extended warranty-you wouldve saved enough to pay for a recon engine from an indi so not all bad news eh?!!
 
Barry Hart has made quite a few posts on this subject on other forums, and was good enough to quote some prices on 911UK. This is an extract of one of his posts, which shows some rates for the complete job. They offer a variety of other options too.

"If we undertake the whole job from receipt of car to re- supply tested and running (this therefore includes for the stripping and rebuilding of the whole engine including oil, coolant, gaskets and seals etc but excludes the cost of the actual specific repair or optional extras), to make pricing simpler - we have a total cover charge (to which you add the specific repair or optional extras you also require) of £3000.

You can see from this that if we were undertaking the whole job (from receipt to completion of the finished car) and you only wanted the minimum to repair a fault - the costs would be as follows.

(1) Replace cracked liner £3600

(2) Repair IMS and supply with new bearing and spindle £3150

(3) If you had the a cracked cylinder but also wanted the other 5 bores re-rounded and restrained as well to prevent future failure £4015

(4) If you had the IMS problem and also wanted all 6 bores re-rounded and restrained £3650

(5) If - while you had either of the above repairs - you also wanted to have supplied and fitted new chains (roller primary chain) and top guide plates, new crankshaft shells (3.4) and the new IMS set up you must add £505

(6) If you also wanted a new oil separator and the heads all reconditioned "" add £300

There can be additional charges for drilling out and helicoiling snapped exhaust bolts, cleaning debris from serious engine problems. Collection can be arranged at around £1/mile one way. Our hourly rate is £60 and our machining facilities provide several jigs and fixtures to enable special repairs to be undertaken with high quality and minimal costs."

I have absolutely no affiliation with Hartech. I am just very impressed by the amount of work, and the innovative solutions, they have done to get cars back on the road at a relatively affordableable cost.
 
Sorry to hear of your problems , unfortunately the intermediate shaft has a tendency to fail up to about 60 k it can be due to a variety of reasons ranging from the bearing to the stub carrier , both of which are addressed by a rebuild. If you have a full service history on the car from Porsche it may be worth going back to them and pressing the point this is a known failure and that the part is internal to the engine and not commonly considered a wearing part. The price to repair at porsche will be more than Hartech , but Porsche will supply a complete new engine rather than repairing what you have, this is why you pay about half the cost yourself as you are benefitting from a new engine.
 
You have my sincere sympathy as I can only concur with the recommended independent garges in your repair options.
Hartech and Autofarm,both very well known as excellent garages for various engine failure/soloutions to 996/boxster engine failures in recent years at a more resonable cost.
Sadly this is typical of what we hear often and I believe it to be a disgrace on Porsche's part and a sad reflection of the times and proof they care little about older cars and their owners/customers as proven many times.
Even new cars are not devoid of this attitude to warranty claims if they can avoid them they will and this is before the recent VW tie up.
BMW may not be perfect but over the years but they have replaced many older cars ie the V8 had failures and up to 7 years old with a full factory replacement was not uncommon, therefore I will not buy another, after nearly 20 years of porsche ownership, though I love to driver the cars, bad design or workmanship in this market is not acceptable if a fault and given the high replacement cost of failure- to not recognise this issue is NOT ACCEPTABLE,
no matter how rich or poor the owner.
 
ORIGINAL: browser

You have my sincere sympathy as I can only concur with the recommended independent garges in your repair options.
Hartech and Autofarm,both very well known as excellent garages for various engine failure/soloutions to 996/boxster engine failures in recent years at a more resonable cost.
Sadly this is typical of what we hear often and I believe it to be a disgrace on Porsche's part and a sad reflection of the times and proof they care little about older cars and their owners/customers as proven many times.
Even new cars are not devoid of this attitude to warranty claims if they can avoid them they will and this is before the recent VW tie up.
BMW may not be perfect but over the years but they have replaced many older cars ie the V8 had failures and up to 7 years old with a full factory replacement was not uncommon, therefore I will not buy another, after nearly 20 years of porsche ownership, though I love to driver the cars, bad design or workmanship in this market is not acceptable if a fault and given the high replacement cost of failure- to not recognise this issue is NOT ACCEPTABLE,
no matter how rich or poor the owner.
Click to expand...

This reflects my sentiments exactly!
 
Not a good experience ..I find dealing with OPC and Reading a waste of time it is always one way traffic in my experience had issues with wheels and tyres and despite being under warranty did not want to help share costs .I am not technical in any way but was talking to a friend and he emailed back this link not sure what all the contents are but seemingly gives details on the IMS Good luck in your quest to get it sorted .
www.lnengineering.com
 
Great for residuals ....

£11,000 for replacing a 55,000 mile engine.

What history is there on the new Direct Injection engines ?

I understand that these reduced the number of components by 40% --- on a cost saving or reliability improving basis ?

It would be good to know, since a reasonably specced Boxster is now the best part of £50k.
 
I am really sorry to hear this terrible story!!
I have to say I think this is disgraceful attitude by Porsche
The IMS issue is obviously a manufacturing fault
They know very well it exists and should repair any engine suffering such a terrible fate FOC without any questions
The fact thet the IMS can fail on any car - in warranty or not with a FPSH or at least an Full Indy one is ridculous
The fact that a service has nothing to do with the IMS means that its basically pot luck for any owner
I am sure if Top Gear were to do a feature on this Porsche would be quick to change their policy
Is it worth someone from the Posrche Club contacting the BBC? (Top Gear were struggling for features during the last series)
I'm sure the Hamster and May would be interested as they are Porsche fans and I know Clarkson would like any excuse to bash the Germans!!

The only downside for us owners is a reliabilty issue could effect the sell-on price of our motors, but if Porsche were worried it would effect their brand I am convinced they'd issue a statement saying all IMS failures would be fixed FOC - They'd have to surely!? - Result = reliability and hence our prices restored!!

Please let me know your thoughts everyone
Does anyone on this forum work on Top Gear or at the BBC
Lets see if we can get it featured
You never know!

Cheers All (rant over)

S2RJN
 
I would suggest a little time searching boxa.net, renntech.org. 6speedonline.com and pistonheads may reveal others with a similar problem and the process they went through to ge the matter resolved by porsche. I would advise however that i'm not aware of engines being replaced completely free of charge , it would be reasonable to expect paying close to half the overall costs as there is an element of betterment from having a new engine. In the cases I've seen to date this has usually been the agreed outcome.
 
As i have stated earlier i am not technical and do not understand the engine workings in any way but i suggest people read the links in www.lnengineering.com it states that this fault and others can be detected before it happens and the oil used is a factor ,I know this does not help our poor poster but it might just help him build up a case .
 
Can't see that this has anything to do with the oil. The bearing that fails is a sealed unit, it has its own supply of grease retained by two oil seals. I can't understand why they fitted a bearing of this type, most other IMS's run in a white metal bearing lubricated by the engine oil. I have seen suggestions that one fix might be to remove the oil seals and let the engine oil lubricate it. Not sure about this though.
 
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