Jake replaced my IMS bearing LAST week

[mikefocke]

But I'd have trouble stopping there. Jake and Charles have discovered so many modes of failure that, if I'm gonna do that, I might as well let them rebuild the whole engine with all the improved parts, replace the water pump and the AOS, renew the under body panels...

And since the bigger displacement mod doesn't cost that much more...

By that time, the engine will cost more than the car is worth. (I don't know of anyone who has tested the market value of a flat6'ized Boxster by selling theirs so I have to assume it doesn't add value except to a very few knowledgeable folk who already have theirs.)

It is a slippery slope doing anything pro-actively. I frequently find I overdo it and would have been better off dumping the unit after I got the initial issue fixed. It is always a good idea to buy from me.

Where do you start and where do you stop?

[gschotland]

Originally Posted by mikefocke

But I'd have trouble stopping there. Jake and Charles have discovered so many modes of failure that, if I'm gonna do that, I might as well let them rebuild the whole engine with all the improved parts, replace the water pump and the AOS, renew the under body panels...

Where do you start and where do you stop?

Stopping's not a problem. My wallet tells me when (moths start flying out). :-)

$3,500 + travel costs + flyweel = pushing $5k. That's not chump change for most anyone. To me it was a rational and sensible decision in line with what I paid for the car and my expected ownership horizon. Having the clutch and flywheel done here would have run me ~$2000 parts/labor. For a bit more I have piece of mind and the work done by someone experienced who has a solid reputation.

As word spreads about IMS there's undoubtedly going to be some premium for cars that have had the retrofit done. There are certainly plenty of potential buyers that have been turned off by it; I was amost one of them. This is likely a contributing factor in 986 and 996 values being in the toilet. I wouldn't have purchased if I hadn't gotten a great deal on a car that I knew was well cared for and had extensive service history. To think I was shopping Miatas... horrors.

If I were a knowledgeable buyer I'd certainly pay a bit more for a car that had the retrofit done. If I recoup 50% of my investment in the retrofit at the end of the day I'll be pleased.

[gRed04]

Originally Posted by mikefocke

By that time, the engine will cost more than the car is worth. (I don't know of anyone who has tested the market value of a flat6'ized Boxster by selling theirs so I have to assume it doesn't add value except to a very few knowledgeable folk who already have theirs.)

I have to agree with Mike on this.

I think anyone who is seriously considering a ims boxster and has any knowledge whatsoever about all the potential failure modes will not feel too secure unless most everything known has been addressed.

So now you have additional 20k+ tied up in the engine. What do you think someone will want when they try and sell. Remember they will be pricing against boxsters now going for 10-15k. I don't think anyone will be interested.

Additionally you will start seeing high 30k for a new ims-less boxsters shortly and they still have 3 yrs warranty left. Already showing up at 41-42k and these hopefully have all factory problems solved.

Seems like it may be better to just ride it out and hope for the best unless you really really love your current boxster.

[clickman]

Originally Posted by gRed04

you will start seeing high 30k for a new ims-less boxsters shortly and they still have 3 yrs warranty left. Already showing up at 41-42k and these hopefully have all factory problems solved.

I have absolutely zero faith in the new engines being more bulletproof than the old ones. There are usually new failure modes with a new design, and the history of the M96 doesn't leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy about what the Porsche engineers can accomplish with reliability. That'll take hundreds of thousands of road miles to sort out.

I still think the best bang for the buck is to put a Raby upgrade into a roller.

[blue2000s]

These types of forums can really magnify these types of issues. There are plenty of M96 engines out there with 70,000+ miles that have never had a problem. The truth is, no one knows if the failure frequency is 1% or 20% and I bet that 90% of potential Porsche buyers and existing owners aren't even aware that there is a potential IMS bearing weakness. So I doubt any of this has caused much of a reputation outside of people like us and has had little to do with resale values.

[gRed04]

Originally Posted by clickman

I have absolutely zero faith in the new engines being more bulletproof than the old ones. There are usually new failure modes with a new design, and the history of the M96 doesn't leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy about what the Porsche engineers can accomplish with reliability. That'll take hundreds of thousands of road miles to sort out.

I still think the best bang for the buck is to put a Raby upgrade into a roller.

We know when the 987 was released the RMS was still present and being reported by the auto mags when the first cars were delivered. Between IMS and RMS that probably accounts for the vast majority of all critical failures.

Well the RMS is fixed and there is no IMS. Cars have been out for a year. I havent heard of any real issues yet. I would guess that alone should give us reason to hope for a more reliable engine.

[Dragonwind]

Originally Posted by gRed04

We know when the 987 was released the RMS was still present and being reported by the auto mags when the first cars were delivered

I should hope so otherwise the crank doesn't go outside the block!

[mikefocke]

Specifically the one issue you hear about and that many brands that have gone to DFI have had ...soot. Haven't heard of a catastrophic failure yet though.

[mikefocke]

have the Raby/Navarro engine mods been tested?

Couple of dozen cars/engines. Been doing some for about a year and a half. Unknown number of miles on each car. Unknown number of mods to each engine. Design changes along the way.

While I agree that many unit testing over time is what will give us a baseline of confidence, it seems to me that you are holding Porsche to a higher standard than Jake/Charles in the quote below when you base an opinion on the OEM reliability on the number of test miles the new design has run. Didn't this IMS-less design go in the 911 line of cars some months before the Boxster/Caymans? So there must be thousands of new design engines running around the world today.

Please understand I have nothing against Jake...in fact he and I have discussed this very point of quantity testing and he does run himself what he installs for others (as does Charles...when you put your wife in one you show some confidence). It is just I don't want to be a fan-boy and not be intellectually critical in my thinking about his products even as I root for him to be wildly successful.

Originally Posted by clickman

I have absolutely zero faith in the new engines being more bulletproof than the old ones. There are usually new failure modes with a new design, and the history of the M96 doesn't leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy about what the Porsche engineers can accomplish with reliability. That'll take hundreds of thousands of road miles to sort out.

I still think the best bang for the buck is to put a Raby upgrade into a roller.

[gRed04]

Originally Posted by mikefocke

I root for him to be wildly successful.

+1.

I also hope both Raby and Navarro are very successful. Their work gives us a greater understanding of the issues we may face. They offer options that porsche doesnt for our M96 engines.

My comments were specifically about MY justification of expensive preventative maintenance and the cost of replacing the engine that is greater than the value of my NOW working car.

Something at the moment I am not I would do.

[clickman]

Maybe you're right, mikefocke, but if I was to take a choice of putting megabucks (here in Canada) into a new Boxster with an unproven engine with the reliability history the designer accountants at Porsche have shown, or for way less $ get a good condition older car with an engine that has many beefed up parts to address known failure modes, I know which one I'd pick.

[gschotland]

Originally Posted by mikefocke

Couple of dozen cars/engines. Been doing some for about a year and a half. Unknown number of miles on each car. Unknown number of mods to each engine. Design changes along the way.

Jake told me over 100 had been done and that mine was the 14th he'd done; number 15 arrived from CA the day I picked my car up.

[silver arrow]

Performance wise, where does a Raby car fall compared to a new Boxster in 2.9 and 3.4? Seems like a 2 year old new design would be a tough pass if they turn out to be more reliable, faster, and have much nicer interiors. I'm prepping my 02 2.7 for sale now. On a side note, after 2 piston failures on my 08 Subaru STI, I bought a set of Mahle forged pistons ($450) and had the engine rebuilt. Total was $2400 for parts and labor at the dealer. A complete new engine would have cost me $6400 installed at the dealer. I just don't know how you can justify $13,000 - $20,000 for an engine rebuild in any car. I've come to the conclusion that M96 cars are not worth saving at the current price point. The cost of the rebuilds will have to come down 40-50% to make it a sensible option. I have nothing but confidence in Jakes ability to build an engine, but I don't think he has control of the economics of the situation unless he becomes a nonprofit charity for damaged and neglected Porsches.

[cnavarro]

Since January, there are about 100 retrofit kits and 25 IMS upgrades done in house.

Our track car has about 10,000 miles and 30 track hours on it's early IMS upgrade, before we switched to ceramic bearings.

[mikefocke]

I said early on in public (and privately to Jake) I'd need to watch and see the number of cars done and their mileage before I'd be able to tell the success of the program. And I said this while pointing people to look at the Charles/Jake products/programs so you know I'm not anti..just skeptical as I feel we all should be of any maker/supplier's claims.

I was once responsible for producing a complex product and I know that testing a large number of units can reveal parts quality variation problems. And length of use testing/monitoring can revel suitability issues...in the case of cars, suitability over a wide range of conditions from 2 mile Walmart runs to racing, from Alaska cold to Death Valley heat, from every 3 months (!) oil changes to every year.

Lets use those numbers cited in the quote below and assume he has been doing these for ~10 months. 15 done. Average 1.5 per month. 82.5 estimated months of use. 2k miles per month. Translates to maybe 165k miles of testing. Pretty darn good. Especially considering that there are another 85 out there of some approximately similar longevity done somewhere else by someone else.

Consider that the IMS failures are normally at the 20k-60k miles point according to the way I read the stories and don't occur in all the factory units. We haven't achieved enough cars with IMS mods getting well through that mileage. We have more than enough units tested. But not in miles per unit tested. Once that number gets much higher than it now is, I think we'll be able to say for certain that the replacement design is better than the original. Until that time, the theory sounds good (and I'd go that route if I needed to) but my intellectual jury is still out.

This gets even more complicated because every car is different in the number of mods that get done to it and the individual mods change over time. So there are many combinations...many one of a kind.

And is the success truly perfect? We haven't heard of a single product failure, have we? (IIRC there was an engine that failed but it was not one of their products that failed) Is that normal?

And as for value added in the resale market by these improvements, I somehow doubt they will bring back much of their cost considering almost no other mods do. I've seen people say you get 10-15% back on the cost of your mods if you are lucky and sometimes the mods make it harder to sell the car.

Suppose the average potential buyer sees 2 cars advertised:
car 1: complete history, no major problems and no unresolved problems
car 2: major internal engine improvements to improve reliability

Is car 2's advertising confidence building or doubt creating? I know when I was looking for a Porsche, I originally thought of the 928 but the number advertised with very extensive rework told me this would not be an easy/cheap car to keep for a long time. So which car will the average buyer pay more for? Be looking at first?

I certainly wish the original thread poster good experience with his mods. And hope this discussion hasn't thrown too much cold water on his increased enjoyment and confidence in the reliability of his engine. I certainly think he did the mods at the right time when the clutch needed to be done too so the total expense was minimized. And he got a nice trip out of it.


Trust but verify.

Originally Posted by gschotland

Jake told me over 100 had been done and that mine was the 14th he'd done; number 15 arrived from CA the day I picked my car up.

[blue2000s]

Mike - Excellent points and I agree 100%. The only issue I see in your statement is that the 165k miles should be considered initial miles. In wear-type failures like the one we're dealing with, it's important to consider the individual component useage as opposed to the compiled component useage. For example, 1,000 cars with 10,000 miles each are less likely to give good statistical results in a wear out issue than 100 cars with 100,000 miles each.

Lifetime failures in general follow what's popularly referred to as the "bathtub curve". Where failure rates are high initially as manufacturing defects are exposed, then there is a long period of low incidence as the product functions as designed, and then at the end of useful life, the failure rate increases again as parts wear out.

It is safe to say, though, that the modifications that LN is selling are stronger, more robust parts than the ones they are replacing and will most certainly have a positive effect on failure rate. The magnitude of the effect is what remains to be seen.

[MikenOH]

Originally Posted by mikefocke

I said early on in public (and privately to Jake) I'd need to watch and see the number of cars done and their mileage before I'd be able to tell the success of the program. And I said this while pointing people to look at the Charles/Jake products/programs so you know I'm not anti..just skeptical as I feel we all should be of any maker/supplier's claims.

I was once responsible for producing a complex product and I know that testing a large number of units can reveal parts quality variation problems. And length of use testing/monitoring can revel suitability issues...in the case of cars, suitability over a wide range of conditions from 2 mile Walmart runs to racing, from Alaska cold to Death Valley heat, from every 3 months (!) oil changes to every year.

Lets use those numbers cited in the quote below and assume he has been doing these for ~10 months. 15 done. Average 1.5 per month. 82.5 estimated months of use. 2k miles per month. Translates to maybe 165k miles of testing. Pretty darn good. Especially considering that there are another 85 out there of some approximately similar longevity done somewhere else by someone else.

Consider that the IMS failures are normally at the 20k-60k miles point according to the way I read the stories and don't occur in all the factory units. We haven't achieved enough cars with IMS mods getting well through that mileage. We have more than enough units tested. But not in miles per unit tested. Once that number gets much higher than it now is, I think we'll be able to say for certain that the replacement design is better than the original. Until that time, the theory sounds good (and I'd go that route if I needed to) but my intellectual jury is still out.

This gets even more complicated because every car is different in the number of mods that get done to it and the individual mods change over time. So there are many combinations...many one of a kind.

And is the success truly perfect? We haven't heard of a single product failure, have we? (IIRC there was an engine that failed but it was not one of their products that failed) Is that normal?

And as for value added in the resale market by these improvements, I somehow doubt they will bring back much of their cost considering almost no other mods do. I've seen people say you get 10-15% back on the cost of your mods if you are lucky and sometimes the mods make it harder to sell the car.

Suppose the average potential buyer sees 2 cars advertised:
car 1: complete history, no major problems and no unresolved problems
car 2: major internal engine improvements to improve reliability

Is car 2's advertising confidence building or doubt creating? I know when I was looking for a Porsche, I originally thought of the 928 but the number advertised with very extensive rework told me this would not be an easy/cheap car to keep for a long time. So which car will the average buyer pay more for? Be looking at first?

I certainly wish the original thread poster good experience with his mods. And hope this discussion hasn't thrown too much cold water on his increased enjoyment and confidence in the reliability of his engine. I certainly think he did the mods at the right time when the clutch needed to be done too so the total expense was minimized. And he got a nice trip out of it.


Trust but verify.

I agree with what you're saying Mike but because few of these cars are used as daily drivers and annual mileage is probably closer to 8K/year than the typical 12-15K that a daily driver might get, it will take years to get to that 20-60K mileage with Raby's mods in sufficient numbers to demonstrate with certainty that his solutions stop the ticking time bomb in these motors .

In the mean time, owners, especially of the 2001-2004 models with 20K+ on them, have an interesting decision to make. Continue to drive the car and change to the oil at more frequent intervals than Porsche recommends and hope the motor doesn't grenade, sell the car or try to do something preemptive--like Jake's fix.

Since we don't know why all of these bearings don't fail in the first 50K, there is no way you can know with any degree of certainty which end of the equation a Boxster owner of these years might end up.
But what we do know, from jake's work, is that there are multiple flaws in the design/materials selection of the engine, any of which can take the motor out. We also know that Porsche--for their own reasons-- heightened the problem by going with a single race bearing and substituting plastic for metal on the tensioner pad (based on Jake's and others assessments).

Individuals will make their own decisions, but if I had one of those years, I'd bite the bullet and spend the $3k+ to make the changes or bail.

One other thought--I wonder if Jake would consider a preemptive exam on a car with over 100k on it to inspect by boroscope or other means to look at the IMS and tensioner assy; Marc W's 2002 MY car comes to mind. There is a reason why that car has not failed to this point. I think it would be instructive to know what's going on inside that engine.