IMS failure
 

I have just experienced the joy of an IMS failure. I have a 2004 Boxster S special edition. The car has 30,290 miles and went out of warrenty about 6 months ago.

There was absolutely no warning that anything was wrong. Driving along and stop at a light and hear THUMP..THUMP..THUMP. Shut down the engine. Restart and no noise...drive slowly and the engine light comes on. Drive 2 miles to the dealer (lucky for me) and while he is getting me a loaner my wife asks me if I'd be surprised that oil was pouring out from under the car.

When we drove to the dealer, the engine was running without noticable problems except for the original THUMP..THUMP..THUMP. The car never had a temperature issue or and oil pressure issue.

New Engine ... here I come. THank goodness for extended warrenties.

Did your dealer suggest approaching Porsche with a warranty claim despite being out of the warranty period? Porsche has offered at least a partial fix for those in a similar situation but having an extended warranty may have made that issue mute.

Who is your coverage with and how have they responded so far?

IMS FAILURE 2003 Boxster S
 

2003 Boxster S with IMS Failure at 59,679 miles. Bought it last January and was not aware of engine failure issues, so no extended warranty. No help from Porsche (yes, I've tried). WP0CB29853U662794

Posted safety complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and complaint with BBB. I'm disappointed at how few complaints NHTSA has registered.

Car has been sitting in our garage for a month, and I don't see any solution. It's not worth fixing - unless a miracle happened and the bearing failed without destroying the rest of the engine. Is this very likely? Not from what I've read, but would like to hear if it happens sometimes.

It would take about half the vehicle value to put in a used engine - with potential for same failure. Most of the vehicle value to put in a fancy remanufactured engine with corrections.

I don't think it can be sold for much with the IMS failure - anyone know what the car in this condition goes for?

There on many posts on bulletin boards saying that this problem is amplified by the internet . I don't know, but I've got one of the bad ones. If Porsche's statistics on these engines are fine, they should publish them. Maybe then I could stop being pissed at Porsche, and accept it as bad luck.

Tranny types: Are the tiptronics less susceptible to IMS failure than the manuals?

and...

Driving habits: If you run em hard, are they more susceptible to IMS failure? I would think so.


btw... I have a 98 Boxster 2.5 w/tiptronic, and drive it like an old man (slow n easy) and always at the posted speeds. It drives my girlfriend nuts that I'm not at least doing 10 over, lol.

Chris

1999 Engine Failure
 

My 1999 stock Boxster lost an engine with about 22,500 miles on it . Got a new engine no charge from factory. Way different after that. No more oil leaks. Car sounded better and felt more powerful. Up the 63,000 total miles now and no problems at all

IMS Failure
 

on my 04 Boxster S 550 SE, 86k miles, just had engine totally rebuilt with aftermarket "fix", don't have the exact details from the engine rebuilder, but cost was 9500 for total rebuild with "fix" and one year warranty on the engine... love the car, so if I get another 85k miles and I won't complain. Bought the car for 24k three years ago and have driven it hard and fast. Car was modded with softtronic, headers w/o primary cats, free flow airbox, but when engine "blew" it was just at idle at a stoplight. Interesting to note that the engine rebuild used more 996 parts than 986 parts, will post list of new parts if interest...

ims question
 

01 boxster S 42K miles.
I was replacing the rms last week and had mentioned to a buddy that i wanted to check the ims bearing to see if it was going bad when he, thinking that he was lending a hand removed the flange on the ims bearing before i had locked it in tdc and lossened the tensioners now the bearing is wedged around 2 oclock in the hole . called jack raby on friday and he said to get it retimed. so i have been looking for a porsche guru with the proper tools to come to my house where the car is jacked up and re-time the cams.----So far, Hard to find . --- Today another friend of mine with porsche knowledge but no tools, was over looking at the project and mentioned that he did not think it would need re-timing. so i am posting a picture of what the bearing looks like now with the flange off and still in tension.
I was thinking if i can make a tool out of nylon material in my shop to fit in the inside of the bearing, the outside would be slightly off-center then rotate the tool untill the bearing is centered, then lock the tdc and loosen the tensioners.
now the question is (hopefully jack reads this and can respond) will that put the cams back to where they were before the flange was removed or am i still screwed? and need it re-timed?
by the way it is a double bearing made by NSK, since the bearing is exposed i popped the seal off to see what it looks like inside, i found no grease but it had oil that seeped out. The bearing feels solid and the balls look shiny and not pitted, the oil that was in it was not dirty (i run amsiol 10-40 high zinc) if i leave the seal off to allow the oil to lubricate it freely will it be ok for service? or will it remain a high risk

If you were in Austin -- I'd be able to help you :-(

all this info below is from Jake and Charles.
I believe that oil in there takes out the grease - and the steel balls
do not get enough lubrication from the oil and can't take the heat.
the IMSRs use ceramic ball bearings, tougher and more heat tolerant.

Not sure if my mechanic would do a Houston house call.
We've got the tools to retime as well as replace the IMS with
Jake/Charles IMSR.

If you are interested, I can check with him and see if 1) it is possible
2) what it would cost.
Possibly cheaper to have it flat bedded to us.
(I paid <$200 to haul a car from Corpus to Austin 2 weeks ago)

email me mike at lonestarrpm dot com.

thx,

Mike

If the IMS flange was pulled with the tensioners in place, and/or without the crank locked at TDC #1 cylinder the engine must be re-timed.

You must take this seriously as their is virtually zero margin for error.

Even if the engine isn't far enough out of time to experience a piston/valve collision it has definitely seen camshaft timing deviations between the 1-3 and 4-6 banks of cams which will lead to low fuel mileage, poor performance and general lousiness.

This procedure must be done in a progressive manner, the first thing that is accomplished is crank locking for TDC #1 and the second is tensioner removal. If not done in this manner expect issues.

Someone did not heed my warnings last month and ended up with 3 busted pistons.

The IMSR procedure is not difficult, but it must be done in a prescribed manner, which just happens to be the simplest manner as well.

If you found no grease inside the bearing when the seal was removed, then the bearing has worn to stage II and the seal has been compromised, allowing engine oil to wash the grease from it. This would be fine if the seal hadn't been impeding the proper amount of engine oil from finding its way to the balls. To properly inspect the bearing it must be removed and taken apart, worn races can't be seen with the bearing intact. Worn races lead to spalling of the balls which leads to failure.

IMS Engine failure 2000-2004
 

2000-2004 (2003) IMS Failure 27000km. 2.7

Call Viking Motorsports 832-250-5995 he can fix this for you. Viking is going to be doing a few of the IMS upgrade kits soon

IMS Failure
 

I have experienced an IMS failure at only 15,159 miles on my '04 Boxter S special edition 550 Spyder. Out of Warranty, Porsche are holding out with an offer of meeting some of the cost of replacement, but I think it is less than others have been offered, anyone willing to give me details of settlements in similar cases?

If you haven't been to this forum already, go here
 

http://www.ppbb.com/phorum/list.php?19--Pete's Boxster board.

There are several guys on the board with the same model that have had an IMS failure. Send them a PM to discuss.

Since you are in the UK, I suspect you'll be treated differently by Porsche than if you were in the US; it seems like the UK owners get less help with these issues for some unknown reason.

2004 Special Edition IMS Failure
 

I need a way to change my answer. I voted no in the poll last year, but my 2004 Special Edition suffered an IMS failure with 20k miles on it this month.

It looks like a scary ratio of the 2004 SE's have had issues.....not good.

I know I am reaching to try and find some false sense of security here, but out of the peple polled, how many were S models? Seems more S than non.

IMHO, enjoy your car, and stop looking for answers when non are forthcoming. Make your risk decision, and forget about it, ie. warranty? Upgrade IMS bearing? Emergency fund? None of these? I drove myself nuts for 2 years, and still bought one.

Very true- and nowadays everything seems to be a depreciating asset

IMS got me too
 

I had an IMS bearing failure a little while back but was able to catch it early enough to simply replace the bearing. With a lot of help from Don at EBS and a little mechanical know how I re-timed my cams myself. It seems to be a lot easier to re-time a 3 chain engine versus a five chain, but as far as the removal of all 3 timing chain tensioners (not counting the one inside each valve cover) I was only able to remove 2 on the bottom of the engine. I believe that the 3rd sits snuggly under the A/C compressor from the pictures of an engine that Don had sent to me. I did all that I could short of depressurize the entire system to get to it before I gave up. I have however had my exhaust cam jump timing on me and I was wondering if anyone knew where I might have gone wrong.

I need a way to change my answer. I voted no in the poll last year, but my 2004 Special Edition suffered an IMS failure with 20k miles on it this month.

It looks like a scary ratio of the 2004 SE's have had issues.....not good.

Ever consider your modifcations to your Boxster may have contributed to your failure?

What modifications? The only non-factory modification I have is secondary cat-bypass pipes. If you are suggesting cat bypass pipes would be a contributing factor toward an IMS failure I'd say you need to put down the crack pipe. It's bad for your health. :)