What are peoples' opinion on preventative maintenance?

[Boxtaboy]

And what I mean here are items that potentially can leave you stranded if they fail, like an AOS, water pump, alternator, and idlers/pulleys. Not long ago, I had my water pump crap out on me, which almost left me stranded (luckily, I had enough time to drive it to the dealer). I actually had thought about replacing the water pump at 60k miles as a preventative, but it died on me at 59k. Lol. I guess my point is do you replace these things even when they're not broke, knowing that they probably will break at certain mileage, or do you chance it and keep driving and hoping it will not happen?

Reason I ask is because I'm thinking about replacing my AOS and all my idlers/pulleys this Spring, but it's not as if Porsche recommends replacement of these items at any set mileage or age interval. However, I just hate getting stranded, and failures of any of these items means I'll get stranded. I even change out my battery every 4 yrs as a preventative. Lol. So, what are your thoughts? Leave well enough alone or change em out?

[landrovered]

I am a strong believer in preventative maintanance to a certain point. Wear items need to be replaced. It is my opinion that parts usually do not fail without warning IF you know what to look for. That being said I don't know that I would replace a water pump if it was not giving signs of failure. Belts, sure, bushings, yes, coil packs and plugs, certainly. Combining jobs to ease installation "while you are in there" makes sense from an economic sense as well to reduce labor in some cases. Like an IMS when you do the clutch.

When I off road I usually have several hundred pounds of spare parts with me, hell I even bring parts along for trucks I don't even own but this is a different situation. If you break down way way off in the booneys then it can cost you thousands to get your truck out of there and back to the pavement. So in this case it makes economic sense to carry lots of tools and parts that reduce economy and fill up a lot of space.

Of course this is different than driving a car that does not even have a real spare tire. With Porsche I carry no spares and only a minimal tool kit consisting of a few screwdrivers, spare light bulbs, fuses, a socket set and a crescent wrench. It weighs maybe three pounds. The most important tool you can carry in a Porsche is a cell phone.

The other thing I do even in the Porsche after years of driving British cars is play my favorite game of "guess that noise". I am always listening to the sounds the car in operation. If you know what to listen for and can discern whether it is consistant with speed, revs or increases with turning left or right then you can do a pretty good job of finding out what "the next thing to go" is and head it off at the pass.

[Brucelee]

I generally replace items before there is evidence of impending doom. Like batteries. On the issue of the other things, like water pumps etc. the suggestion above makes total sense. Combining.

I don't see a perfect solution but it seems to me that if you are "going in there" you might as well attend to the usual suspects.

Good luck.

[Jake Raby]

Fixing something before it breaks is key...

Imagine if the FAA didn't require specialized PMs on aircraft and people treated them like their Porsches... I'd say we'd be losing planes on a daily basis.

It never ceases to amaze me how much people neglect these later Porsches, I never saw that with the aircooled cars.

We are doing an IMS Retrofit downstairs right now.. Two days ago when the owner dropped the car off and waited to see the "before" dyno evaluations I heard some horrible sounding chain tensioners and lifters when I fired the engine up. That prompted me to ask him how often he serviced the car, he said every 15K miles...

Those extended oil service intervals will cost him 7,000.00 in worn parts and labor, the bill is due tomorrow.

[landrovered]

IMHO...

Proactive owners with dirt under their fingernails do not service their cars every X number of miles. They never stop servicing their vehicles.

[mikefocke]

Sometime in 2007, they issued a recommended service interval chart that now recommends 12k oil changes.

I wonder how many of us knew that? I didn't until yesterday.

[Boxtaboy]

Originally Posted by mikefocke

Sometime in 2007, they issued a recommended service interval chart that now recommends 12k oil changes.

I wonder how many of us knew that? I didn't until yesterday.

I did, because I posted that link on PPBB.

It is kinda interesting that they originally suggested 15k intervals between oil changes on the early models, and then later retroactively recommended that interval go down to 12k (they did the same kind of back peddling on other items for the car too, if you look at the chart). Same car, but all of a sudden, they tell you it needs more servicing than they originally thought.

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by Boxtaboy

And what I mean here are items that potentially can leave you stranded if they fail, like an AOS, water pump, alternator, and idlers/pulleys. Not long ago, I had my water pump crap out on me, which almost left me stranded (luckily, I had enough time to drive it to the dealer). I actually had thought about replacing the water pump at 60k miles as a preventative, but it died on me at 59k. Lol. I guess my point is do you replace these things even when they're not broke, knowing that they probably will break at certain mileage, or do you chance it and keep driving and hoping it will not happen?

Reason I ask is because I'm thinking about replacing my AOS and all my idlers/pulleys this Spring, but it's not as if Porsche recommends replacement of these items at any set mileage or age interval. However, I just hate getting stranded, and failures of any of these items means I'll get stranded. I even change out my battery every 4 yrs as a preventative. Lol. So, what are your thoughts? Leave well enough alone or change em out?

There are some obvious cases that make sound economic sense for doing “preventative maintenance” on these cars, usually due to the design layout and component interactions and work flow (doing the IMS, RMS and clutch all at one time is an example). For example, if you have a base car and are thinking about going to the larger “S” oil cooler, it would be a good time to do any cooling system items (thermostat, water pump, etc.) because you are going to be opening up and draining the cooling system anyway, so why do it twice. To do the oil cooler, you need to remove the tube from the air box to throttle body, so why not change the air filter while you are in there. Something like the serpentine belt that can both stop you dead on the side of the road, as well as damage your engine, should be changed as part of normal service rather than waiting until it needs it as many auto part outlets do not stock these belts, even though they are a $20 item. We check the tensioners and idlers whenever we change out a belt; and check the water pump and alternator for bearing noise or play as well, but we do not change them unless they need it.

As for the AOS, we watch the earlier cars closely as then tend to have more issue than the ones with the redesigned units. That said, if you are in the engine bay for something else, you might want to consider changing it if it is an early unit or shows the slightest signs of going south.