Hello all,
New here. Looking for a wee bit of help/knowledge advice..
Car:
Boxster S 986 2002 103k miles manual
What happened:
Driving home from my brother's wedding in Brighton with the missus, taking the South Downs route back and avoiding LDN, I was driving "enthusiastically" (but not ridiculously as the gf doesn't enjoy it to quite the same extent as I do..) when i suddenly felt and heard a rather large one-off BANG from the middle or back of the car.
In a slightly panicked state (as I was on a twisty road with medium amounts of traffic) I naturally slowed down a bit but then found I was free-revving in third and then second gear, before I found some power in first (limp mode?) and managed to pull into a country cottages entrance / side road.
I switched off the engine immediately fearing, as is natural, that it was an IMS fail and the engine was toast.
Called for rescue. Rescue came. To everyone's amazement, the engine turned over, it idled fine, there were no oil leaks anywhere, no metal in oil, no noises at all, and it even engaged first gear and traveled down the path. At this point, I think the mechanic thought I was a bit mad. So did I. My gf is already totally used to me.
Anyway, for fear of doing further "damage" I had it lifted to a specialist near me. They test drove it. "Drives fine." I've driven it since and bar a slight idle concern, it does seem to drive absolutely fine. No noises. Pulls OK (although I've not gone beyond 4500RPM). Clutch engages fine. No slipping. All seems well.
But, as a mechanic said to me: "A car doesn't just fix itself.."
Bit of background:
Car very recently had a major service. Oil Separator had recently gone and was replaced. Had a stall / limp mode incident (presumably due to the AOS) but those issues seemed to have cleared up. Mostly. The car is still (to this day - 2-3 weeks later) idling a little weird. Occasionally it will drop to about 500RPM then surge to 1000 then settle where it should. It isn't dramatic enough to worry me. It doesn't do it all the time. I'm guessing it's a sensor issue and can be addressed as and when I want to address it. - any thoughts on this as a separate issue would be great.. (thinking MAF / TB clean / O2 sensor replacement is due).
Prior to this incident, the car has either misfired or has lacked pull / slipped. Not massively so, but it got me thinking that the clutch might be on its way (after I ruled out alternator / battery issues). There's no smell coming from the clutch unless I rev it massively and ride / slip the clutch, accidentally. Sometimes, instead of snicking into 3rd, it will sort of pop slightly into third like there wasn't a normal engagement (again this only happens at high revs, when hot etc)
However, on the way to Brighton (before the bang), after I'd been through the South Downs, traveling mostly in 2nd and 3rd and driving enthusiastically, when I eventually encountered some Brighton stop start traffic, the clutch felt like it didn't want to play ball. At a busy uphill roundabout approach, the car stalled once and was a bit of a b1tch to move. The clutch was "grabby," the pedal felt light / hot and the signs clearly pointed to a fading clutch. The clutch has felt "light" when hot / used at high revs for a while. Fine. New clutch probably needed, right.
Then I had the bang issue.
It's been booked in for a clutch and flywheel change, as I'm about to embark on another trip (to Edinburgh) and I want a reliable car.
Could the violent bang and limp mode / slipping / over-revving/no power ALL be due to a bad clutch? Or could there be something else wrong that maybe connects all these dots? Potentially engine / tran mount? Is the diff toast? Does this sound like a tranny issues? Wheel bearing? I'm not a mechanic so excuse my lack of knowledge..
The car drives mysteriously well, considering this bang. But as everyone can probably imagine, I'm still pretty uneasy driving it. I don't really trust it.
All thoughts and tales of similar experiences much appreciated!
