boxster ims bearing failure
 

i have a 1999 boxster 986 with 72,000 miles on the clock.

recently i am reding lots of articles about how prone the early boxsters are to getting an intermediate shaft bearing failure. even on a book i bought recently it says you should change the ims bearing at least every time you change your and flywheel, since it will be easy to reach then, and failing to do so may cause major damage to the crank instantly.

the thing is, my boxster still has its original clutch on it, and the car runs like clockwork. should i just remove the clutch and flywheel,(which i will then change to new ones once theyre out) to change the ims bearing, or should i wait for the clutch to fail first?

is the ims bearing failure really that serious, that it doesnt give you any notice prior to it failing?

any suggestions please?

just do it when you change your clutch..........check your oil filter for lots of little metal debris when you change your oil, that is one way to tell its going bad

The book you are probably referring to is Pellican's book and they planned to bring out a bearing replacement kit using the same design parts as Porsche originally did.

Certainly the IMS issue has been discussed to death on the forums. Can it happen? Yes. Expensive if it does? Yes. Happen to every car? No. Any way of predicting if it will happen to yours? No. Any facts about how often it occurs? Probably not even Porsche knows. My guess is around 1% probability per car year. If that is the right guess, would you rather spend money potentially preventing a problem with that probability of take your chances?

further information at lnengineering.com and flat6innovations.com

Only you can figure out how much you are willing to spend on preventative maintenance.

Agree with MikeFocke. Wait until you need to replace the clutch and then replace the IMS if its really bothering you that much.

The majority of Boxster owners never replace the IMS bearing and the majority of owners never have a failure. But if it does happen to your car, then the engine is likely ruined. My best guess is about 3% will ever fail.

Another way to look at it is Porsche has sold over 200,000 Boxsters and there have only been about 2,500 replacement IMS bearings ever sold. You can do the math, research the problem, and come to your own conclusion.

Well... Its going to need a new clutch soon anyways. Its better to just do the job once, and preventative measures come first. Just do a clutch and IMS soon. You don't really have to do a flywheel, but you could if you felt like it.

The IMS bearing failure is a huge ordeal, potentially destroying your motor. When it "fails" it falls apart, throwing metal, bearing bits all through out your oil. These bits WILL catch and destroy your motor.

My opinion? Well, knowing that a used 986 motor is going to cost you at least $5000, I would change the IMS bearing as soon as possible.

Also, I work at a German Autoshop and having seen and done this job, if you don't have a lot of mechanical ability, this could result in a lot of swearing and beer in your near future... Haha. Good luck :)

P.S. Most IMS bearings fail because, as a porsche phone rep told me once, "Its built like a race car, if it fails because you don't drive it that way, its not our fault..." Haha, so if you enjoy your car the way its supposed to be enjoyed in some ever so often "spirited" driving, then you can/should wait til your clutch is done. Also, I would spend the $500-600 to get the upgraded IMS bearing, you can then rest your head knowing that it is most definatly not going to fail....

thanks guys for all of your replies, great help.
i just changed my oil, it was after just 2,000 miles,since i dont use it much. but since it had been over 1 year that i had last changed the oil, i felt it was time to change it. the mechanic told me that the colour of the "old" oil that he emptied was almost exactly the same colour like the new oil he was putting in, still very clean. i also always change oil filter and the pan of the oil filter was aslo very clean. i had swapped the original oil drain plug, for a magnetic one, and even that had absolutely no fragments on it.
so, i think ill just take my chances and change the bearing when the clutch goes.

someone told me that if i change the clutch its best to change the flywheel since it would have "worked" as much as the clutch.
what do you guys think?

I tore my filter apart when I changed my oil the 2 nights ago thankfully there was nothing at all in there, I thought I found a microscopic metal shaving in there but could not find it again.

I hate this IMS failure issue. It bugs me that Porsche doesn't do anything about it, and it's like a time bomb sitting in the engine. I just dropped $15K on an 03 986 and I would probably not have done so had I looked more into this IMS issue before purchasing (this is my second Boxster and it was less of a well known issue five years ago).

That being said, my strategy is as follows:

1. Frequent oil changes, and tear up the filter each time.

2. Magnetic drain plug, check carefully.

3. Run the Durametric check each Saturday comparing Cam variance 1 and 2 and make sure they are still solid.

I have a Tiptronic S, so there's no regular clutch job to provide an excuse to to the IMS bearing retrofit.

While this is now a well known problem, the number of failures taking place appears to be well less than 10% of the users on this board who were surveyed. That to me doesn't justify $3K out of pocket to pro-actively replace the bearing.

Interested to know what others think.

To the above concerned. I only fix things when they need to be fixed except for reg. maintenance , oil changes etc. Having said that I am getting installed the ims guardian asap. I did my research before I bought my 2001 Boxster with only 31000 miles on it. Very happy with the car and after 6 months of ownership, nothing has gone wrong. I tend to agree with Mike Focke's thinking and will take my chances but backed up with a $400 ims guardian.
Hope this helps.
Guy

the guardian is something I have been thinking of too

The Guardian cost/benefit is different on a TIP (or a '07-'08) versus doing the bearing replacement because of the expense of replacing the bearing when compared to a stick shift car.

You either have no clutch (TIP) whose replacement helps with the cost of the Removal and Replacement (R&R) costs of separating the transmission from the engine for the installation of the IMS bearing or, in the case of the '07-08 models, you have the third generation IMS shaft/bearing which can be replaced only by tearing the engine in half and paying LN to rebuild the entire shaft and bearing. In either case you are probably talking more than $3k to have someone knowledgeable replace the IMS.

In any of the cases, if you are one of the few unlucky ones, if the Guardian goes off you are going to have to spend serious money to replace what is breaking and it could not be the IMS at all..other things can break and trigger the Guardian..those failures are not as well publicized and sometimes people just assume it was the IMS when it really was another of the many possibilities of failure that took out their engine.

Keep in mind that by far the majority of Boxster owners will never experience an IMS failure. Either because they are one of the majority and lucky ones or because they won't keep the car long enough for the odds to catch up with them

All engines have the possibility of failures. I've replaced/rebuilt 3 engines because of internal engine failures in ~48 years of car ownership probably averaging 2+ cars owned at a time over that period. Both new and used, almost every make imaginable. Neither of my Boxsters ever had any internal engine problems at all.

Although I agree with everything previously stated, I have never found some one that raced there boxster (Even if its less than 10 times a year), that has had their IMS bearing fail. A few facts that most people hate to face. You can't drive Porsches like you do other sports cars. They like to be revved up!! Keeping it around 2-3000 rpms on the streets (Even when cruising) keeps it alive!!! Thats what they are built to do :P I know it kills your MPG, but if you care that much, you should buy a Honda Civic....

if i were to change my clutch, is there any way you could check if the ims bearing is still in good shape, without actually removing it?

Well I know someone whose IMS failed and he was a very regular racer/instructor/DE guy and was on the track at least 10 times a year with his car. He replaced his bearing and has installed a Guardian.

So yes regular/frequent oil changes and good oil and reving occasionally when warm and long trips and frequent use do help keep contaminants out of the bearing. But there is no sure way to prevent seal deterioration.

And can you tell by examining the bearing housing from the outside that it hasn't gotten to the stage 3 or 4 level of failure...yes...if you have seen bad ones before. Can you tell if it is at stage 1 and heading for near term catastrophe, no.

boxster, while you are in there, just replace it with the LN part if you are worried. Keep in mind that the majority don't fail for the majority of owners.

ive also heard that it hepls if you remove the seal from the bearing.
but wouldnt that make the ball bearings a bit more prone to coming off then?

I can't see how that would help at all, honestly. Personally, I'm with mikefocke, who is a good voice of logic, reason, and experience when you need it. If you don't want to do it right now, just check/replace it when you do a clutch job. If you're worried about it, have the retrofit done and have some peace of mind so that you can drive your car without worrying about the IMS (this is what I did). The up-front cost now isn't as bad as the cost of a new engine. Maintain the car well and you should be fine either way. If the shaft is going to fail, it's going to happen. In the meantime, don't let worrying about it stop you from enjoying the car you purchased.

the seal does not hold the bearing in place. heck it won't even hold the grease in place. I suppose it could help with lubrication. Here is the catch. the only way to get the seal off and do any good, you have to remove the bearing then reinstall it. seems a waste of time to install the same bearing back in the car

Here is how some of the members of this board voted when asked about the IMS issue: http://986forum.com/forums/zuffenhausen-lounge-happy-hour-after-17-00-somewhere/29756-how-worried-you-about-ims.html

http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/...e/Misc/IMS.jpg

overdrive, in what condition was your ims bearing when you replaced it if i may ask, with how many miles on the clock
i dont plan to change it at the moment as money is a bit tight :) and as i said, clutch is still very good.

I did not really ask that question of the mechanic who worked on my car, to be totally honest. But he's the type of guy that if there were a problem he would have told me so, which leads me to believe that it may not have been in bad shape, but I just wanted it done as a bit of insurance on a 14 year old car with, at that time, 42k miles on the clock. If it were a 97 with 90,000 miles on it, after learning what I have on here and elsewhere, I wouldn't have been as concerned. But old car, low miles, while normally appealing, isn't as reassuring when you learn of this potential issue.

I did not have him replace the clutch and flywheel at that time, because he said they were both in good condition, and the bill was already ramping up outside of the $1600 for the IMS job for other things I was having him do at the same time, so I was fine with that. It does make sense to go in there and do the job when there's a need, such as a worn clutch, because it'll be the same amount labor-wise, but I wasn't going to go overboard with replacing parts for the sake of doing so when half the parts are still fine.