Shortlived Boxster engines survey

[san rensho]

Originally Posted by 49er986

Hello there everyone!

I am a newbie to the site and as a Porsche 986 owner. I have a 98 w 69K. Bought it for 9K it is is immaculate inside and out, feel very blessed. As my luck, Check Engine Light came on the day after I bought it which is actually great timing. I panicked a bit because of all the issues I kept reading about IMS and other failures. So, I consulted with many on where to take my Boxster and sure enough found a reputable shop ready to take my money as a result. They were very helpful and very informative, made me feel like they would take care of me.

They gave me a break on total cost to inspect the vehicle and gave me a print out of what is wrong. I have to replace the water pump and some other items plus they will replace the serpentine belt at that time which is good I'd wager. Total cost of all seven items to be worked on? $2.2K.

What I want to ask is whether or not I should just replace the IMS at the time I do that work? Given what I have seen so far in this thread, it looks like it would cost less do it at that time because of the work being done for the water pump? Is that correct or does it matter? In addition, is there anything else I should do at this mileage threshold?

I am following ALL the positive advice I find on the forum like registering with Porsche for example. I want to baby Heidi (Yea, I christened her). She deserves it so I'm doing all the work plus an oil change. In July, new meats, too.

I still can't believe I'm a Porsche owner, really. She's just so wonderful to drive even though I'm am babying her till the end of the month. Once she comes back, we are driving up HWY 1 on the California Coast.

Thanks in advance for sharing your rolodex of information. I look forward to browsing through more of the forum. Peace.

Here she is BTW:

You have a dual row IMSB bearing which has a failure rate of less zthan 1%, so you have a decision to make, replace it now to make sure you do not fall victim to a very small chance of failure or wait to replace it when the clutch goes, one even not to replace it when you replace the clutch.

My car has a dual row bearing and I'm not doing anything until I replace the clutch.

[Mart]

Looks immaculate !

[Porsche Boy]

I am a new owner of a 2003 Boxster with 49000 on the clock. Based on the service book a new engine was installed after 22000 miles in October 2005. After some research it looks like it has a Porsche reman. Engine number is M96/23AT65469 where I believe AT indicates remanufactured and the 4 indicates 2004. Looks like 69 is the serial # so I don't know if that means the 69th reman built of that series?
I have not seen many postings on second engines biting the big one so I am wondering if by 2004 Porsche was doing anything different with a now obvious problem or were they just throwing engines in the cars to satisfy the customer. Would the RMS be much better by 2004?
Like everybody else I am wondering what to do. For what you can buy these for today its not terrible to put some more money in for the IMS but I don't believe it needs a clutch or RMS yet. I guess I am lucky its already been done once which hopefully makes my odds a littler better.