How many miles are on your IMS Retrofit? - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

autodoctor911 · 08-07-2010, 06:47 AM

The best extended warranty plan that I have ever dealt with has been from Nissan, so if you can, find a porsche for sale at a Nissan used car lot, or even just go to a Nissan used car salesman and have him findyou one that you like at another dealer or at an auction. Dealers trade the cars with each other at wholesale so he can sell it to you for the same price you would pay wherever it was. then you would be able to purchase a kick ass warranty. I've worked on a mercedes with a Nissan warranty and they payed the dealer $2500 in repairs for fixing lifters, and maybe some oil leaks, which I know was probably BS. It probably just needed the plastic oil crossover tubes. then they misdiagnosed the ac and put a FEC(front electronic module) in it for $1100. The ac still wasn't working when he brought it to me. I checked it out, determined that the codes stored in the ac control unit were keeping the FEC from activating the compressor. the codes were caused by the fact that the compressor did not funtion when activated. I just had to think for myself and go outside th pinpint test boxes mercedes publishes and generate my own signal to the compressor to determine that it was the cause. I called the Nissan warranty and they approved a $1000 compressor job without even sending an inspector.

autodoctor911 · 08-07-2010, 07:11 AM

one way to tell a crappy warranty is how they pay for the repair. any good warranty is going to give a one time credit card # with the approval or right after the repair, so patment is recieved before the vehicle is picked up. If a company tries to pay any other way they are being shady and probably not going to pay at all.

autodoctor911 · 08-07-2010, 07:26 AM

I do see one giant loophole on the ims failure in some warranties:
"internally lubricated parts"
Because Porsche had the bright(dumb) idea of using a sealed bearing this would possibly leave it open to someone's interpretation who looks at the part as being not internally lubricated, which would be correct, but I doubt anyone at these warranty companies has figured that out yet.

Frank M · 08-07-2010, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by autodoctor911

I do see one giant loophole on the ims failure in some warranties:
"internally lubricated parts"
Because Porsche had the bright(dumb) idea of using a sealed bearing this would possibly leave it open to someone's interpretation who looks at the part as being not internally lubricated, which would be correct, but I doubt anyone at these warranty companies has figured that out yet.

maybe not but an inspector should.

BTW when I had my shop I did not do any warranty work for customers. I would tell them, we will fix it and give you a detailed bill for the warranty company.
Most customers said "forget it, just fix it" and pay me when completed.

andyv94 · 08-07-2010, 03:58 PM

Thank you all for your replies. The company where I am buying my car in Austin is not a big dealership (i.e Porsche, etc....) it is from a used car company that sell high end imports for the most part. I never trust these types of dealerships to be honest.........so I will have a pre-purchase inspection done to the car prior to me buying the car. If everything checks out I will buy the car, if there are too many red flags I will walk away.

So I think what I will do if I buy the car is to forgo the extended warranty and take the car to an Austin Porsche mechanic to do the retrofit for the IMS............

Does that sound like good logic to you folks??

gschotland · 08-07-2010, 08:12 PM

Jake did IMS bearing (and clutch, flyweel, and RMS) on my daily driver '02S in Oct. '09 at 70k. He showed me that the factory bearing was in the early stages of failure, with some race looseness and evidence of oil leaking by. He believed the bearing, best case, would have lasted another 20k miles, which was well short of my projected ownership horizon. This reinforced my already strong feeling that this was money well spent - FOR ME.

Even if the bearing had been perfect, I'd still have felt that having this procedure done - particular by Flat6 - was well worth it. I'm not an overly conservative, "nervous Nellie" type who spends his life obsessing about everything bad that could happen. On the contrary, as a real estate developer I'm inherently a risk taker, but I know value and take calculated risks. At about ~$1500 over what a clutch job alone here in NJ would have cost me, having Jake do the IMSR was solid value.

Sure, I could have gotten it done closer to home, probably for around the same price, saving myself a 5 day vacation to GA, but experience has a lot value in my book. The best guy did my car, the possibility of an "oops!" was minimized, and I got a loaner Box to tour the Antebellum Trail while the job was being done.

I'm now at 78k miles and enjoying my car more than ever partially because the retrofit gave me piece of mind.

It just amazes me that hundreds of people on this site with plenty of money in their cars won't think twice about blowing a couple thousand on a fancy stereo will in the next breath choke about spending less than that on an IMSR, or will instead spend a few thousand on a warranty of dubious value.

As they say, "You pays your money and you takes your chances."

Gary
FSI-0151

andyv94 · 08-08-2010, 08:12 AM

That is probably what i am going to end up doing, except that I will have my retrofit done either in Houston or Austin..............so if anybody knows of a shop in either city (or Dallas) that has done the retrofit.........by all means, let me know!!

Thank you

Jake Raby · 08-09-2010, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gschotland

Jake did IMS bearing (and clutch, flyweel, and RMS) on my daily driver '02S in Oct. '09 at 70k. He showed me that the factory bearing was in the early stages of failure, with some race looseness and evidence of oil leaking by. He believed the bearing, best case, would have lasted another 20k miles, which was well short of my projected ownership horizon. This reinforced my already strong feeling that this was money well spent - FOR ME.

Even if the bearing had been perfect, I'd still have felt that having this procedure done - particular by Flat6 - was well worth it. I'm not an overly conservative, "nervous Nellie" type who spends his life obsessing about everything bad that could happen. On the contrary, as a real estate developer I'm inherently a risk taker, but I know value and take calculated risks. At about ~$1500 over what a clutch job alone here in NJ would have cost me, having Jake do the IMSR was solid value.

Sure, I could have gotten it done closer to home, probably for around the same price, saving myself a 5 day vacation to GA, but experience has a lot value in my book. The best guy did my car, the possibility of an "oops!" was minimized, and I got a loaner Box to tour the Antebellum Trail while the job was being done.

I'm now at 78k miles and enjoying my car more than ever partially because the retrofit gave me piece of mind.

It just amazes me that hundreds of people on this site with plenty of money in their cars won't think twice about blowing a couple thousand on a fancy stereo will in the next breath choke about spending less than that on an IMSR, or will instead spend a few thousand on a warranty of dubious value.

As they say, "You pays your money and you takes your chances."

Gary
FSI-0151

Gary, Glad to see that you are pleased and feel that what we provided was a solid value.

I just performed the IMSR on another forum member's Boxster last week and his bearing was in PERFECT condition.. Probably one of the best I have ever extracted of the single row variety. Thats the problem, you never know if it was good or bad until you extract it.

Even that perfect one could have started to wear in the near term.