It has occurred: 2005 987S RMS - 986 Forum

eslai · 08-14-2007, 01:30 PM

Haha so I'm chuckling that I'm the guy that has said over and over that I'm not afraid of RMS or what not and didn't think the problem was a big deal with the 987. I guess I get to eat my words!

A few weeks back when I was swapping my new wheels on the car and had it jacked up, I noticed the transmission case coated in oil. Over the past few weeks I've noticed some oil spots on the ground too.

So of course, "RMS" came to mind. I took it to the dealership yesterday and they replaced the rear main seal.

My car was built around March or April of 2005. In checking the TSBs I see that they redesigned the seal yet again on May 17th, 2005, so my car still had the older seal.

30,000 miles before I had a leak. We'll see if it happens again. I have an extended warranty so no fear. Really, this seems like a pretty minor problem--not like intermediate shaft failure--but I would expect Porsche to be covering it even outside of warranty and my understanding is that they don't. So yeah, that sucks.

super66 · 08-14-2007, 03:16 PM

sucks man....but it really doesn't seem like that big of a deal....hey didn't your tranny also go twice? maybe you can lemon law it and get a new ride

oh, when I found out about the tsb, I checked and of course mine was built in May....haven't seen any oil yet.....

Cloudsurfer · 08-14-2007, 03:16 PM

I'm very familiar with the situation, and though it is quite clear to me the problem remains, and could be such a simple engineering/ manufacturing fix to solve permanently, at the end of the day, it is nothing more than an oil leak. A very inconvenient location for an oil leak, but an oil leak. Would it be nice if Porsche fixed the problem for good? Absolutely. However, its still an oil leak and if it happens at lower mileage under warranty, oh well, if it happens at higher mileage out of warranty, its a good excuse to do your clutch. To me, its not that big a deal. Inconvenient, annoying, unfortunate, etc.

Now, IMS failure, THATS a big deal!

Patrick

RandallNeighbour · 08-14-2007, 05:22 PM

There is still a lot of talk floating around the internet, and confirmed by my mechanic, that the RMS failures are due to mechanical issues, not a bad seal. Even the best seal will fail eventually if the shaft is out of round and moving the RMS around all the time.

08-14-2007, 05:31 PM

Eslai, that sucks but you have a great attitude and outlook!

eslai · 08-14-2007, 05:45 PM

super66: I already went down the "I'm going to invoke lemon law" path once with Porsche regarding this car. We came to an agreement on my issues, and of course this is waaaaay past the lemon law time window anyhow. Not a bad idea though.

randall: That is a good point--it could be a very very microscopic problem with the crankshaft being imbalanced or out-of-round, but I would expect that to cause a whole host of problems beyond an oil seal failure. I'd expect the cylinder bores to get worn pretty quickly, or the rings at the very least. A screwed up crankshaft should manifest itself in a variety of ways, y'know?