1) Stick
2) 3.2 "S"
3) No hints it was coming. No oil leaks, had the rear main done at under 10k miles under warranty. It's driven hard, but no track stuff, I have another car for that.

Based on all the "searching" on the forums I've done I can't seem to find any direct correlation among the failures. It's like you are either lucky or you aren't. I did find (2) other 2004 550 SE owners that had their IMS go out right at 20k miles though which is bizzare. There were only 900 of those cars that came to the US, figure what low % of owners are on these forums and 2 of these cars (possibly 3) had failures right at 20k miles........obviously not near a big enough sample to draw any conclusion, but odd none the less.

I too hope it's not the IMS, but that sound at idle "ain't good" at all. There's a local guy I trust that used to be the master tech at Porsche of Lexington before they shut down that just opened his own shop. I'll probably get him to pull the tranny to confirm it's the IMS while I wait for a slot with Jake Raby in June. However, if it is a comfirmed IMS it's probably best to let Raby do the work on it.

There is no reason to think a 90k+ miles car
 

won't have an IMS problem. Know of several. It really seems to have little correlation with miles driven.

we need an IMS failure facebook page :)
Porsche won't like that....or maybe one already exists..

Can we get some hats and t-shirts made up too? :D

We should get spoiler decals made up too, saying, "..No IMS failure...YET!" :D

"My IMS failed and all I got was this lousy t-shirt ... and a massive repair bill"

I just checked...there's no "MY IMS FAILED" facebook.

Although if you're going to do that something much more inflamatory would be in order.

"My $80K Porsche engine exploded...can you spare a Benjamin?"




keep them coming :D

In good will, did Porsche cover half the cost of the tee shirt at least? :D

Another IMS failure on a '04 Anniversary Edition w/60k reported on Renntech this morning, ouch:

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?/topic/32741-intermediate-shaft-failure-need-2004-anniversary-engine/?

wasn't there a forum member here who had two IMS failures one being the 550 anniversary car?

Yep, his name is Dennis, and I know him personally. He ended up selling the 04 SE for a 350z. One was a base 986 that failed on him, and then the 04 SE. He had enough. After 2, I don't blame him.

He's got to be in the smallest % of 986/996 owners. Not only did he have one which I'm guessing is probably what less than what 10% of all owners? He then got hit by lightning a second time. That's gotta be single digits.
But the really amazing part is that he signed up for Porsche number two.
The number of people who took that step must be in the fractions of 1%.

I dunno...I put all this down to cars making horsepower gains way too quickly.
I'm not really familiar with Ford and Chevy engines but all European cars have some engine issues. from the 60's to the 80's horsepower didn't really go up by leaps and bounds. Look how little HP an M3 had even in the early 90's, what less than 240 hp? The standard Carrera after decades and decades didn't cross the 300 hp mark until 2005. Yet every year these guys keep finding more and more HP. I don't think the engineering was keeping up in terms of engine integrity.

The IMS bearing problem is really just that, a bearing design flaw / wrong application problem. It really doesn't have anything to do with horsepower. You are right though regarding the leaps and bound horsepower numbers have taken. A 2010 Boxster S has more horsepower than the ground breaking 1978 911 Turbo.

Update
 

I was able to tow the car to a local Porsche tech who was unfortunately able to confirm that my initial diagnosis of an IMS failure was correct. Now I've got to figure out what to do. Initial thoughts are:

1) Let Jake Raby take a look and get his thoughts. Unfortunately he's on almost a 2 month backlog before he can even look at the car. It will be June before I can even tow it down there to get his thoughts. He's indicated even on a failure caught as quickly as mine was, it's probably less than a 50% chance the motor can be saved(debris in the engine everywhere). If it needs to be rebuilt, I would probably go ahead with the 3.2->3.6 upgrade, but if that is decided in June it will be approximately February 2011 before that work can be completed according to Jake. So I would be out out the cost of the rebuild plus being without the car for almost a year. :(

2) Do a new crate motor from Porsche and replace the bearing with one from LN before sticking it in the car. This is easily the option that gets the car back on the road the quickest and sadly may end up being one of my least expensive alternatives as well.

3) Call RUF in Dallas to see about doing one of their 3.6 conversions. I would insist on the IMS bearing being upgraded to the LN one before installation. This is probably the most expensive route, but gets the car back on the road in a reasonable amount of time. Anyone dealth with them before?

4) Take my chances on a salvage motor. Frankly this isn't too appealing to me. If my pristine 20k motor failed, how much faith would I really ever have in one that I have no history on?

5) Sell the car as a rolling chasis for whatever $$ I can get and get the fark away from Porsche all together. It's a pristine 550 Edition, but even with that I would probably be very luck to get $10k for it.

By far my preference would be to deal with Jake. I've talked to him on the phone a couple times and he really seems like a good guy. However, the timing just stinks there and really is a testament to how many problems these cars have that he's booked so far out.

Decisions, decisions.

thats just sad... :(

have you seen the http://www.youtube.com/user/glenn986s 13 series video of the rebuild for a head leak..

well try to look at it this way. Cars are terrible investments. Some people will tell you they aren't investments but I call hog wash on that because ANYTHING that you put your earned income on that can be later be sold is an investment...just because its a bad investment (in terms of appreciation) doesn't mean it isn't an investment of your money. That being said what value does it have for you (fun, enjoyment, quality of life improvement, bla bla)? What would you need to spend now in order to gain an equal amount of satisfaction?

I ask this question because if I sold my very well maintained Boxster S right now I wouldn't have enough money at the end of the transaction to have comparable value. I'd have to spend MORE. and I'm not really sure the extra expense would translate into significantly more enjoyment--the car is that good in my opinion.
I'd have to go into another category: sports coupe, GT, track toy, etc. to get more enjoyment...that means more money.

But in your situation if you were to replace the engine you would 1-get the car on the road again and have the utility 2-have a functional car you could sell and recoupe the cost of the fix...you're taking a bath on the previous value of the car, but again a car is a depreciating investment anyway. I just put in $6K on major maintenance and repairs (IMS upgrade included). I'm not getting that money back...money pits!

How much is the RUF upgrade?
:D

At this rate I may never know. I've been calling RUF on and off since Monday and have been unable to get a live person on the phone. I've left a message and no one has called me back. Someone maybe out of town or something (what I'm hoping/assuming) as it is a little disconcerting to always get an automated system.

I did find out the Porsche dealership in Cincinnati has done/will do a 3.6L swap with a Porsche crate motor into my car. Not cheap, but quite possibly no worse than what RUF will charge and it's nice to at least have that option. It would carry a 2 year warranty from Porsche and I'd plan to do an IMS upgrade with the crate motor before the 2 years ran out. The other nice thing about that option is turn around time. It could be done in as little as 3 weeks for the 3.6, a 3.2L crate swap can be done in less than 2 weeks from order to install. That timing isn't crucial as I have another car I can drive while the Boxster is down, but since convertible weather is really only consistently good from April - September/Oct in this area of the country the thought of losing most/all of it for 2010 is a little disheartening.

I hope to collect a little data on the costs involved in all the options to post here as a reference to others. Obviously you could never hold any of these outfits to what they quote me, but it may help someone else with some ballpark figures.

interesting...

wait for RUF... ask them about these options

* 3.6 X51 Engine
* 996 Flywheel
* 996 Clutch
* RUF Engine and Transmission Mounts
* RUF Tuned ECU
* RUF Headers
* RUF Sport Cats
* RUF Muffler
* RUF Air Intake w/BMC Filter
:D


An anniversary edition and RUF power? The only thing better would be, a 3.8X51! (if you had a 987)

Is anyone doing 9A1 swaps yet? 3.8L and garunteed never to have an IMS problem.

Please report your engine failure.

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/