Quote:
Originally Posted by MWS
LOL....glad to see my little rant is still making the rounds. So what have I learned: 1:drive car. 2:drive car. 3:drive car. 
A quick insight for a new owner on the IMS; we don't need to seque into yet another IMS discussion, just wanted to add my opinion for a new owner...here goes: At some point you are going to wish you that never heard ANYTHING about IMS failures; the more you look into the issue, the more you will think "today is the day my car might die horribly". If you never knew about the issue, you might have many years of happy driving, which at some point (MAYBE) you would have a catastrophic failure, at which point you would scream "Why didn't I know about this!". Not to sound morbid, but it's akin to "if you COULD know the time and manner of your own death, would you WANT to know?" The IMS bearing is not quite that bad, but you do have several factors against you... 1-it's a known failure point. 2-single row bearings fail more than dual row. 3-there is no way to inspect current bearing. 4-by the time you know something is wrong, the damage is likely done. 5-there is a better solution than the Porsche part. The really irritating thing is that even a better bearing can fail (albeit less), and even if it was invincible, some other part COULD fail leaving you with pretty yard art. Point is, you have a decision to make.
For me, I finally did mine, and ya know what? My old bearing looked brand new. The strangest part of this story is... in retrospect, if I somehow knew before removal my old bearing would be prefect upon extraction, I still would have done the upgrade. Just one less thing to check off the old (literally) mental freak out list.
In summary, do the maintenance, consider upgrades, drive, drive, drive and smile...a lot. |
My original plan was to not get the IMS done because of the $3000plus quotes that I got from the 2 independent shops in my area. I only paid $10k, so that's 30% of the car's cost. Since my decision, it has been on my mind, "is this the day the IMS is going to destroy the car we love!"
So, I called the dealership to see how much they would charge to replace the IMS with the Single Row Pro LN Bearing. They said I would need to supply the part and tools. This is my cost:
IMS Single Row Pro: $588
Faultless Tool kit: 354
Basic tool kit: 316
Labor: 1068
RMS: part and labor 93
I was surprised that a dealerships cost was better than an independent shop. If I can sell the tools for $500 then my final cost would be $1919. I got a great deal on my new car and what I know about the IMS and RMS issues I would have paid an extra 2k if these items were replaced before I bought the car. I have an appointment next Tuesday to get it done.