I get the impression that these engines wear out quickly - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Brucelee · 06-15-2007, 06:54 AM

Rather than "wear out" I think the Boxster owners should be much more concerned about posts that follows. This IMS issue is real and it can strke at any time.

We have had many members post on IMS failures and it has been written about by the tech guys in Excellence mag. It would be nice if Porsche fixed this flax.

On my way to work yesterday and my car died. No warning, no nothing. Today I'm still in shock can't believe that the dealership told I have to get an entirely new engine put in. Told this was due to a broken internal shaft bolt. I don't understand how this could happen, my 01 box doesn't even have 50,000 miles on it and I have taken it in on a regular basis for the routine maintenance.

Has anybody ever heard of this happening or has had this happen to you?
Don't think my insurance will cover this and unfortunately I do not have any warranty on the car. Any comments or suggestions on what to do would be a great help.

Thanks,
MAC986"

vipola · 06-15-2007, 06:57 AM

Sorry, what IMS standing for ?

1JB · 06-15-2007, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vipola

Sorry, what IMS standing for ?

It's RMS - Real Main Seal

YellowJacket · 06-15-2007, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1JB

It's RMS - Real Main Seal

No, IMS is not "rear main seal." IMS is "intermediate shaft." RMS failure generally means a couple dots of oil on the garage floor and a day's labor for a new seal (if dealt with in a reasonable amount of time). IMS failure is the more serious "catastrophic engine failure" people refer to.

1JB · 06-15-2007, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by YellowJacket

No, IMS is not "rear main seal." IMS is "intermediate shaft." RMS failure generally means a couple dots of oil on the garage floor and a day's labor for a new seal (if dealt with in a reasonable amount of time). IMS failure is the more serious "catastrophic engine failure" people refer to.

My bad thanks for the correction. Thought the IMS was a typo in Brucelee's post. I've seen "intermediate shaft" referenced but not IMS so I assume RMS. Nice in a post that's about not making assumptions eh!

Pat · 06-15-2007, 08:56 AM

Ahhh...now I understand, thank you.
I glanced at the first page of that link. The average owner there has maybe 50K miles on their cars. That doesn't really do much for me regarding longevity.
Maybe I just found a few unrepresentative posts and extrapolated from there without using a significant sample size.

Thanks though. All that really matters is that these engines should have no problem going a few hundred thousand miles assuming proper maintenance. That's what I care about, because I planning on driving it 20K miles per year.

1JB · 06-15-2007, 09:37 AM

Make no mistake although overall these engines should go for well over 100M miles if they do have a big problem like the intermediate shaft failure and it's out of warranty it will cost you an arm, leg and your first born. Although failures like that are out there they are no where near something like the failure rates on the early Acura MDX transmissions for example.

humara · 06-15-2007, 11:49 AM

wouldn't that be IS instead of IMS? or is inter mediate 2 words now?
i guess that's worse than IBS?

ikdavis · 11-23-2007, 02:06 PM

http://www.autofarm.co.uk/engines/water_cooled/shaft_tech

Hi guys. My Boxster has suffered the same fate and Porsche dont give a damn they are only interested in money taken off owners like us. check out the link above for the cure, these guys are in the uk but my car is fixed by them and it is now cured f all IMS problems.

Franco · 11-24-2007, 06:27 AM

Hi, Now I'm confused,

When a leaking RMS isn't fixed it could lead to an IMS failure right!!! and the culprit would be the RMS bearing gone bad and causing the IMS ( SHAFT) to spin off center causing the total engine meltdown or maybe the RMS oil leak was only from the 3 bolts holding the bearing housing in place and not cause any IMS failure at all.
Did i get this right

or does the RMS seal and bearing have nothing to do with the IMS shaft failure, meaning that it fails on its own due to a bad design, what I'm trying to say is the IMS, the shaft being spun in place by the RMS bearing or are they not related at all and in different places in the engine.

I need another coffee

Jeph · 11-25-2007, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by humara

wouldn't that be IS instead of IMS? or is inter mediate 2 words now?
i guess that's worse than IBS?

Yeah, and if we're getting into semantics, isn't "100M miles" actually 100,000,000 miles?
I'd say that's an "old" engine. (I'd also say it's reliable.)

Paul · 11-25-2007, 05:30 PM

In accounting terms m = 1000, mm = 1,000,000