I get the impression that these engines wear out quickly

[Pat]

Disclaimer: I own a 99.5 A4 1.8T. It has 192K miles on it. Although driven hard, it has been maintained better than 99+% of the cars on the road.

I did a compression check on my engine a year ago, and it showed the engine was in almost perfect condition. Keep in mind, this is with a bigger turbo and many track days on it. I have no worries about my engine "wearing out" or having any real problems whatsoever.
I'm in the market for a 986, and after doing a lot of reading here over the last couple weeks, I get the impression that many of you think these engines are "old" after 100K miles. Is there really any validity to this? In my experience, if engines are maintained properly (warm up, oil change, etc.) they should go for at least 200K miles. At least.
So, my question is, "Why do people seem to think these engines are 'old' after 100K miles?"

a. flat six design
b. poor engine design/manufacturing
c. people just don't drive P-cars a lot, so an engine that has 100K on it generally means the car is 15+ years old and the rest of the car is degrading
d. something else?

Have many of you performed compression checks on these flat sixes that have 100K miles on 'em?

Thanks in advance, guys.

[blinkwatt]

I don't know of anyone that has done a compression check with over 100k,but I know several people on PPBB are approaching near 200k and they say their cars still pull strong.

[racer_d]

I think it the issue has a couple of prongs:

1) The tainting of the early cars having complete motor failure

2) Not many (especially original owner cars) have over 100,000 miles that we get to hear about. It seems that many Boxsters have gone through multiple owners even before 50K miles so getting examples of original owner cars with over 100,000 miles is hard to come by.

3) As you mentioned, it takes many Boxsters 10-15 years to hit that kind of mileage. These cars for many are 3rd car luxuries. Not daily drivers since day one. This isn't an indictment, just an opinion on who buys a Boxster nowadays.

I recall seemingly countless stories of both 914-4 and 911 (particularly 911SC owners) who logged 100-200K miles on stock motors without incident. At a time when "domestic" motors barely went 50K miles, this was unheard of, especially in a "performan car". Bulletproof is what many call the SC motor because of this legacy. Understressed and overbuilt. I don't think the 2.5 or 2.7 986 motors would be termed either understressed or overbuilt, but I don't see why properly maintained they won't go 100-200K miles before rebuilding. I am not sure how many people who own cars know what proper maintenance even means, let alone are willing to do it themselves or pay someone to do it right. This is especially true if one "dumps" the car after they get a nice expensive bill from their dealer.

[2000SoCalBoxsterS]

racer_d makes some good points. When I bought my Boxster it was 4 years old with only 23,000 miles on it. 3 years later I've only put 15,000 on it. The car is now 7 years old with only 38,384 miles on it. It is not my daily driver. Spends most of the time in my garage waiting for nice days during the spring, summer, and fall. Still looks brand new.

[Dohertycm]

Porsches are just like aircraft, the more you drive them the better off they are.

Porsches are meant to be driven, driven hard but treated with respect not abuse.

If you let them(Porsches and Airplanes) sit around and not run or fly things tend to get weak and leak and then when it comes time to drive them they break.

My mechanic says that you dont break porsches when you drive them, you just find the weak parts...

So Pat you are right in the respect that you drive your car, you know every noise that comes from it and you take care of it...Some Porsche owners dont. They dont know their car well enough to know what needs attention before it gets out of hand, and end up breaking it worst in the end.

Racer_D was also correct, in the begining there were some design or manufacturing flaws that put a bad taste in some peoples mouths. I own 2 porsches and they run fabulous. The key is shop around and do your research on what to look for when buying one.

To be quite honest, coming from AUDI I dont see why you are not trying to find an S4 for an 85-88 quattro for racing. Good cars and they have a great club.

[Pat]

Great post, thank you.
Yes, I drive my car a lot, and know it inside and out. I can pick out any little thing that might be wrong with it. I am concerned that it'll take a while before I get to that point with a new car, and because of that I won't know when something isn't quite right immediately. Oh well, I guess I'll just revert back to beeing a nOOb for a while.
Believe me, I will do a TON of research before buying. I've acutally been lucky enough to have one of the local Denver guys respond to my PM about chatting with him and some of the other local guys about what to look for. Not to mention all of the archives from this board and Rennlist that I have save in my favorites.
As far as buying another Audi....well, I've thought about it. Keep in mind, my car right now is every bit as fast as any generation S4 was in a straight line, and corners/brakes much better. Also, I've driven a few S4s with larger turbos, coilovers, etc. Yeah, they're fun, but they just weight a bit too much for them to be as nimble as my car. Hence, the search for a Boxster. There's not much incentive for me to get another Audi unless it's something like an RS2 converion Coupe Quattro or similar. But then I just get into more maintenance, which is one of the primary reasons for jumping ship to a newer car with fewer miles.
Don't get me wrong, I don't race competitively. I just like to get in a couple/few track days each year.

[1JB]

I don't know where you get the impression that most Porsche owners think their engines are "old" after 100M miles or what exactly you mean by "old." You seem to have made an assumption and validated it on your own to get a response to the simple question of how many people have done compression checks on their engines after 100M miles.

The engine in the Boxster has been basically the same as that in the 996 & 997 since it's introduction in 1996. That's when they went from air cooled to water cooled. There have been issues but I haven't heard an overall loss of compression at 100M miles as one of them. Given Porsche's history with the number of it's cars still on the road I am confident you will see many Boxsters, Caymans and Carrera's with the M96 engine with well over 100M miles on them happily motoring for many years to come.

As for the Audi 1.8T: "Consumer Reports has included the 1996-2001 Audi A4 1.8T on its list of used vehicles to avoid, principally because of a worse than average record with respect to engine repairs, but engine cooling, electrical and brake problems also caused concern." (form Canadian Driver) There also was a problem with sludge buildup in the oil that caused Audi to extend the warranty to 8 years. Not that I'm a big fan of Consumer Reports but I believe you will find the Boxster on their list and others of recommended cars to buy in its category.

The long and short of it is I think it's incorrect for you to assume that most think their Porsche engines are old at 100M miles. As with any car their may be issues but Porsche's track record upward of 100M miles certainly seems better than the most. I'd certainly take a Boxster with 100M miles on it over a 1999 Audi A4 1.8T with 100M miles on it if I were betting on reliability.

[Pat]

First, I didn't assume anything. I was surprised to find through searching the archives that so many people had attitudes about their Boxster with less than 100K miles being "old." One of many posts I can reference is a recent one with a guy contemplating selling his car simply for the fact that it almost has 80K miles on it. It was running just fine, but he seemed to fear something bad would soon happen.
Regarding the 1.8T, there were oil sludge issues caused mainly by people not running synthetic oil. There is an oil line running from the turbo over the exhaust manifold that gets hot. As you can imagine, many owners did not use synthetic oil and change it at regular intervals. This was the main cause of the problem- people using low-grade oil and not following the prescribed maintenance schedule. I don't know of anyone that has driven their car harder, more than I have and in such a short amount of time. As with most cars out there, with proper care, it will go for hundreds of thousands of miles.
I'm sorry if I came off as accusatory or agressive. That was certainly not my intent. As I said before, I was SURPRISED to see many people here have that perspective, because I always considered Porsches to be some of the best made cars available.

[Brucelee]

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]

Sorry, what IMS standing for ?

[1JB]

Originally Posted by vipola

Sorry, what IMS standing for ?

It's RMS - Real Main Seal

[YellowJacket]

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]

Your question was: "Why do people seem to think these engines are 'old' after 100K miles?

a. flat six design
b. poor engine design/manufacturing
c. people just don't drive P-cars a lot, so an engine that has 100K on it generally means the car is 15+ years old and the rest of the car is degrading
d. something else?"

And now in your last post you're "SURPRISED to see many people here have that perspective." I've been a member here for a while and don't think many of the people here have that perspective. To the contrary I think the vast majority of the people here think their cars will be on the road for a very long time to come, though they have no illusions about the cost of maintance and repairs. Many here who have Boxsters with more than 100M miles on them or who have seen them and ridden in them consider them classics of the highest quality though they've only been in production for a little more than 10 years. Hence my statement that I think you're making an invalid assumption about what many of the owners here believe. I wasn't saying that you were accusatory or aggressive. You have reached your own conclustion about a prevailinng belief you attribute to the members here and I believe it is incorrect.

I don't know what terms you searched for but a search using the terms "old" "engine" and "100K" didn't turn up threads with people making this statement. You may want to read this thread if you're looking for how many miles people have on their cars, what problems they've had.
How many miles do you have?

Originally Posted by Pat

First, I didn't assume anything. I was surprised to find through searching the archives that so many people had attitudes about their Boxster with less than 100K miles being "old." One of many posts I can reference is a recent one with a guy contemplating selling his car simply for the fact that it almost has 80K miles on it. It was running just fine, but he seemed to fear something bad would soon happen.
Regarding the 1.8T, there were oil sludge issues caused mainly by people not running synthetic oil. There is an oil line running from the turbo over the exhaust manifold that gets hot. As you can imagine, many owners did not use synthetic oil and change it at regular intervals. This was the main cause of the problem- people using low-grade oil and not following the prescribed maintenance schedule. I don't know of anyone that has driven their car harder, more than I have and in such a short amount of time. As with most cars out there, with proper care, it will go for hundreds of thousands of miles.
I'm sorry if I came off as accusatory or agressive. That was certainly not my intent. As I said before, I was SURPRISED to see many people here have that perspective, because I always considered Porsches to be some of the best made cars available.

[1JB]

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]

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]

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.

[LuisR]

Originally Posted by 2000SoCalBoxsterS

racer_d makes some good points. When I bought my Boxster it was 4 years old with only 23,000 miles on it. 3 years later I've only put 15,000 on it. The car is now 7 years old with only 38,384 miles on it. It is not my daily driver. Spends most of the time in my garage waiting for nice days during the spring, summer, and fall. Still looks brand new.

2000SoCalBoxsterS,
I noticed that your car description indicated your Boxster has Limited Slip Differential. Did you install an aftermarket differential on your car?? As far as I know all Porsches, except the 997 GT3, do not come with Limited Slip differentials.
LR

[Brucelee]

We don't know how many Porsche engines fail prematurely and Porsche is certainly not going to issue any data.

Anecdotely, there are more than a few IMS failures in the 1997 and on engines.

[humara]

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

[ikdavis]

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.