IMS Failure is not a Myth.
 

We just caught this one. The customer called me saying there was a bad noise coming from the bell housing.

I told him to not run the engine any more and then went to get it with my trailer.

I just got started, but look what I found in the filter:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1329419846.jpg
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1329419860.jpg
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1329419872.jpg

In the pan:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1329420672.jpg

Series9, Will you do me a favor when you inspect the bearing, will you tell me if there is any traces of grease in the bearing?
What year and mileage?
Thanks

I'll have the bearing out tomorrow and will take pictures.

2003 118k.

Thank you Sir

2003 with 118K...not bad for going that long and now having IMS bearing going out. At 118K this engine should have a major overhaul.

Bad news. The engine has been previously replaced and this bearing isn't serviceable.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1329425392.jpg

If it's not a 3.2, now's the time for change. Let's see...03 with 118K on it with a crapped out engine...$2500- $3500 for the bones. A decent used engine $5500-$8500. Guess the time is now for this owner to look for a newer boxster.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. This is a 2003 911.

The engine was replaced at 67k miles with an IMS failure. This is number two for this vehicle.

Those of you who think this is a 3% thing are dreaming.

Series 9...................
Why isn't the bearing Serviceable. Not disputing...just have never heard of that before.

double tap....ooops

Newer designed bearings require splitting the engine case for removal, older / original IMS bearing designs could be removed with a puller while the motor stayed intact / assembled while in car. Man, 2 motors kaput in a 911, that'd be enough for me. :barf::barf::barf:

Well, no one thinks that the IMS failure is a myth. Its real and it happens. No doubt about it.

However, with over 200,000 Boxsters sold, if the failure rate is 5% or greater then there should be something like 10,000+ cars failed.

LN hasn't sold anywhere close to 10,000 replacement bearings. Sure, maybe some people part out the car rather than repair it but then you also have to take into account that some large percentage of LN bearing sales go to cars that have never had a bearing failure in the first place (preventative replacement). Other owners might find a salvage engine from a car that was totaled in an accident but there aren't 10,000 of those either. And last, if the numbers were that high then the aftermarket/eBay would also be flooded with failed engine Boxsters and we just don't see any of this happening.

The only conclusion is that the engine failure rate is much less then 5% (or failed Boxsters are with all of the socks that disappear from the dryer).

And some people still claim that the "final solution" large diameter IMS bearing used from 2005 on (and in replaced/rebuilt engines after 2005) "solved the problem" and won't fail......... Right, just keep drinking the Kool Aid..............

As the owner of an independent Porsche shop, I have to respectfully disagree.

This single VIN has experienced TWO failures in 118k miles.

All I can report is what I see. What I see is between 10 and 20 percent.

As expected, each individual shop will see different numbers. Its the aggregate that makes up the big picture.

But please do not take my comments out of context. For the owners of cars with failed IMSB, the fact that it happens at all (and twice to one car) is obscene and Porsche really should do something about it.

And thanks for the pic's. Very informative.

When I was at the 'New' 911 opening there was an engineer/mechanic there to answer questions. We talked for a long time and he was very knowledgeable. The one thing he was strictly not allowed to talk about was IMS. He couldn’t even enjoy my story about recently changing mine...I guess that would have been considered acknowledgement.

While I respect your expertise as a Porsche mechanic (an expertise I absolutely do not share) I have to ask you to respect mine as a statistician. And I have to say this doesn't make any sense.

I'm not saying it's NOT 10-20 percent; I'm only saying that unless all 200,000 Boxsters are regularly serviced at your shop, you can't possibly have any idea what percentage of the total Boxster population is affected by IMS woes. Yes, perhaps 20% of the Boxsters you see have IMS failure. But is your clientele a representative sampling? Perhaps you have a reputation as a great IMS bearing expert, so everybody within 100 miles of you who has an IMS failure comes to see you. Then you would be seeing 100% of the problem cars in your area, and every other shop would be seeing 0% of the problem cars. (I'm exaggerating for emphasis.) So if we asked them, the failure rate is 0%, and if we ask you, it's a huge number.

I went to Jim Ellis Porsche last year to ask about an LN install on my '04. They are LN authorized installers. I was basically saying, "Tell me I need to do this and I'll give you $3000 or so to do it." The Service Writer talked with me a long time. He had been there 4.5 years. In that time they had dealt with 5 M96s with failed IMS bearings, and two of them were late model 997s. His words in conclusion? "If I was buying an 03 or newer Boxster right now there's no way on earth I'd have the IMS replaced unless the car was showing signs of needing it."

So your two stories are wildly different. I don't believe either of you is lying or even leaving part of the truth out. I believe neither of you has enough of the story to draw any sort of statistically relevant data.

thanks,

^ I agree with you completely. This has been discussed to death and no one really knows the numbers except Porsche and they aren't talking.

But I'd also caution about trusting the company that created the problem in the first place and has ignored it since then. Always remember that your service writer's paycheck has "Porsche" written at the top.

Strictly from my own perspective ? I find this pathetic. :mad:

I might be stepping out on a limb here but he has a non-stock baffle in the pan. We all know the consequences of racing these engines. Is some of this self inflicted. I'm planning to run mine again in 30 days. If it would go bad I won't swear at the IMS gods. It is a chance I knew increased the possibility

+1

After many years in the machine design business, one thing I have learned is that Bearing Failure Is A Process... Not An Event.

I'm not trying to excuse anyone... the better the design, the longer the process, but the statistical failure rate seems low (though not necessarily compared to many cars) enough that there are definitely outside factors beyond just a poor bearing selection.

2 failures on the same car with totally different engines leads me to believe maintenance/driving habits MIGHT be suspect on this vehicle!

What do you think Porsche knows? I think they have good data on cars repaired under warranty or when they gave a "good will" adjustment on repair cost to the owner. They may have some limited data on cars that failed out of warranty, but I doubt they spend a lot of time or money worrying about it. So, perhaps they could extrapolate a failure rate from the data they have, but I doubt they have really good data on cars like mine.

Moreover, the failure mode and rate may be affected by the age of the cars. My car is 12 years old now. I'm not the first owner and I usually work on it myself or take it to an independent. Other than hoping I may one day buy a new Porsche, I doubt their accountants and MBA's can make a business case for chucking $10-15k at me to replace my engine if it were to fail.

Here is what I think that Porsche knows:

1. Failure mode(s) of the bearing
2. Conditions which accelerate bearing failure
3. Conditions which slow bearing failure
4. Statistical failure rates based on year and mileage curves

Porsche is an engineering powerhouse. I am quite sure that they have studied, modeled, and analyzed the IMSB problem quite well. The ultimate conclusion? In 2009, the intermediate shaft was designed out of the engine. No, IMS means no IMS bearing failures. QED.

Well, I am going to add my to 2 cents worth here. I believe most failures come from Porsches with standard transmission. Why the failure, the Tip's produce less stress on the back of the engine as where as on a standard you would have more stress from everyday driving. That's why clutches wear out. I chose my pre-owned Boxster with a TIP just because of the cost of replacing a flywheel, disk, pressure plate and release bearing. I really enjoy my Boxster with a TIP. On the back side I also had a few words with a couple a Porsche mechanics here in Orlando about the IMS issue. Since the first Boxster they think that maybe one Boxster had an engine failure.:matchup:

While there may be some element of truth in this, there is a more basic reason; the total number of Tiptronic cars is a very small fraction of the total number of the Boxster fleet. As the result, few Tips fail simply because there are fewer of them to begin with. But they do fail.

Interestingly, there are more than just one or two single owner, multiple IMS failure reports; so driving style may play into what factors lead to the problem; but again, only one source has most if not all of the data, and they ain't talking.....

What would Shakespeare say ?

To replace ... or not to replace ... that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubled IMS bearings. And by opposing it ? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end ; The heart-ache of IMS failure .

right, that is the point I was trying to make,that there are several cars I have heard of that have had MULTIPLE failures with different engines, but the same car, and you have a lot of cars that have NEVER had a failure,which leads me to believe there might be something to do with driving habits, maintenance, etc...Im almost wondering if this 996 might have even had a failure with a ceramic bearing:confused:

That is not only false, but irresponsible. My dealership, the largest/bussiest in the state, has never seen one. I guarantee they sell and service considerably more Porsches than any independent shop. You only see vehicles needing service. At 10-20% that would mean over 100,000 IMS engine failures between 1997 and 2007 and that is crazy talk. On this forum, with a high percentage of used Boxsters, we don't have anywhere near 2% and these are Boxster's only. You sir are incorrect.

Thank you Mile High!! Finally, the voice of reason.

Thanks for the agreement, but as to the last part, his paycheck actually says "Jim Ellis Automotive Group" at the top -- I know because Jim is a neighbor, and he owns over a dozen dealerships covering 11 brands, of which Porsche is probably the smallest by an order of magnitude. I am sure that if Ellis was enticing their service writers to outright lie, it would be for the purpose of encouraging unnecessary expensive repairs, not for the purpose of discouraging necessary expensive repairs. :)

rookie question on this problem
 

I have a 2000 base, w/ 5-sp, and was looking to convert to a tip, so when I saw an '03 "S" tip at a local NWO auto dealer, I stopped to check it out. Had ~65k on it. Started it up and it sounded like lifters clapping, turned it off almost immediately.
What does the IMS sound like when it start to goes out?
This dealer (not Porsche) came back to me couple days later and told me he "drove it for 15-20 minutes and the sound went away".
I asked him was he nuts to drive it with that noise even 5 minutes would be crazy - and no, I'm not interested even dropping the $$ 3k.

Two failed IMS in the same 911 engine?

Wow. Is that like getting attacked by a great white shark on Coney Island twice :p


Questions to anyone:

1-Have there been any recent IMS failures of LN IMS unit?

2-Have there been unusually high IMS failures in BSR/BSX Boxster spec racing?
I think of these cars because they are usually driven hard but not driven frequently, they must sit for long intervals.

See Jake's post on this thread:
http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/33092-another-ims-solution.html

Has anyone taken a replacement engine or the 05+ apart and looked at the bearing? I would like to know if it is a greased or oiled bearing, 2 or 1 seal and the part number on it.

That little nugget (3 failures out of 4,000 IMS ugprades) deserves its own thread.

But my first question is how many of these egnines have seen siginficant mileage since most cars have had the upgrade in the only the last two years. But that's pretty theoretical because if you believe that an overwhelming majoriity of un-touched factory IMS bearings will not fail, then even if the LN turned out to have a high failure rate in the high single digits, sounds wholly unlikely though, you're still talking about a really tiny group. I mean how unlucky can you be?

But I'm curious to hear about the Boxster Spec racing IMS failure rates. I'll have to dig into those forums.
That's has to be a really well tested group to analyze. I think about the wide range of revvs rather than the vanilla revving from predictable highway driving.

I had done some research on the life span of the bearing Porsche used. According to a "person" in a bearing company that supplied Porsche with the IMS bearings, the 6204 has a limited life span. The bearing was shipped out with 1 seal missing and no lube in the bearing, so who knows what was used as lube, and who, what, or where... they used to snap on the other seal. Also, 1 more tidbit there is a percentage of lube used to the speed limit of the bearing. Example.. if the bearing has a limiting speed of 10,000 rpm, and you are running it at 7,500 rpm, then you fill the bearing between 33% to 50%. If you are running the bearing at 2,500 rpm, then you fill the bearing 50% to 66%.

Porsche should of left the bearing filling, and seal installation to the bearing to the mfg. and this would probably be a non issue. This research was done on the double row bearing used to '99, and if the bearing, was filled correctly, and not damaged on intallation, or overrev'd etc. should of lasted into 100k's with no problems. OH, and as soon as I mentioned "Porsche" the "person" shut up and would not give me anymore info.

The service manager at that same dealership told the prospective buyer calling to schedule a PPI of my 2000 996 with 65k miles that my car wouldn't last another 5 to 10k miles before the IMS bearing failed, but we can put you into a CPO 997 for 2.5 times the money. He didn't buy my car, but the guy who did over two years ago is still going strong. He uses the same indy I do anbd he hasn't had an IMS failure. I changed the oil every 5k miles just out of old habits, not knowing it would eventually probably be the reason I haven't had a failure. My point to that is you can't trust Jim Ellis Porsche for anything.

Jim Ellis replaced a lot of M96 engines under warranty. Every Porsche dealer did. Porsche and the dealers got really good in turning around the engines as rebuilds and this to cars all with less than 50k miles. I've been driving M96 cars since 99 and I know a lot of people that had them fail, although I haven't had one go yet, and my 986S has one of Jake Raby's engines, so I'm not worried about it failing.

Porsche actually has good numbers but they aren't sharing. You can bet their statistical models indicated a serious issue or they would not have redesigned the IMS over and over and over until finally eliminating it altogether 12 years after the first of the water pumpers hit the streets.

The TT doesn't have the IMS issue, right?