Poll: RMS and Engine problem questionaire

[YellowJacket]

1997
66k
daily commuter
no track time and minimal spirited driving
all maintenance done on time, +/- 1k miles
bought used
NO RMS

By the way, regarding the .5%-1% requirement for surveys, that's a load of poop. You need around 30-40 responses to start getting directional reads (as in, we could start saying "track cars tend to be more prone than street cars" or whatnot). You need around 500 responses to get reads at 95% confidence, and around 1000 responses to get reads at 97% confidence (have you ever noticed how all those consumer polls by Gallup and whatnot usually specify 3% margin of error with 1006 responses or something like that?). Still, these numbers require that the populations be unbiased and representative of the overall population, but we'd never get that here for 2 reasons:
1. People who've had RMS failure are more likely to respond than those who haven't.
2. Just the fact that you're on a forum for Boxster owners means several things about you that bias the group that would respond here.

Cool concept, but perhaps the only people who could do this survey the RIGHT way is Porsche, and the only people who could do it "almost right" is PCA, unless someone has a national list of Boxster owners floating around. :-)

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by YellowJacket

1997
66k
daily commuter
no track time and minimal spirited driving
all maintenance done on time, +/- 1k miles
bought used
NO RMS

By the way, regarding the .5%-1% requirement for surveys, that's a load of poop. You need around 30-40 responses to start getting directional reads (as in, we could start saying "track cars tend to be more prone than street cars" or whatnot). You need around 500 responses to get reads at 95% confidence, and around 1000 responses to get reads at 97% confidence (have you ever noticed how all those consumer polls by Gallup and whatnot usually specify 3% margin of error with 1006 responses or something like that?). Still, these numbers require that the populations be unbiased and representative of the overall population, but we'd never get that here for 2 reasons:
1. People who've had RMS failure are more likely to respond than those who haven't.
2. Just the fact that you're on a forum for Boxster owners means several things about you that bias the group that would respond here.

Cool concept, but perhaps the only people who could do this survey the RIGHT way is Porsche, and the only people who could do it "almost right" is PCA, unless someone has a national list of Boxster owners floating around. :-)

Hi,

I agree with you so far as statistical analysis goes. But, Porsche is MUM on the subject and PCA hasn't conducted such a survey to my knowledge, leaving only these Ad Hoc surveys to make some sense of it.

Still, whatever the bias, more than 30% of those responding here have experienced the problem.

That's a little higher than I expected because a PCNA Service Rep (on condition of anonymity) confided in me that they are seeing anywhere between 20% and 25% RMS Failure, it fluctuates between the two (he didn't breakdown Model Year, Model, Mileage, Multiple failures. Nor did he distinguish between 98X and 99X). Your caveats may explain the disparity between what he said and what we're seeing here.

If the PCNA Rep is off by as much as half, that's still waay too high for a Brand Name Sports Car in the $50k range. And, the fact that Porsche hasn't resolved the issue in a decade is perhaps even more deplorable. They just keep grinding them out, and the Public (whether ignorant, or just stupid) keeps gobbling them up.

Let's just hope that the Air Bag supplier, TRW, isn't experiencing an anywhere near similar failure rate!...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[jrkauffman28]

2000 Boxster w/ 55 K miles. Origanal owner. No problems so far.

[BoxsterQc]

02 Boxster spirited but not abused driving conditions, not a daily commuter and stored from Nov to Mar.
Bought it used , have 49K and had to change the RMS last spring after a long rest in the Garage for the Winter. When I brought it in for service at 45K they saw that the RMS was starting to go ( few oil drops) . Drove it twice and it started leaking. Had to change with the larger seal. So far have drove it all the summer and it's fine !
I'm going to cross fingers since I'm afraid that long period of storing the car will not help the RMS issue.

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by BoxsterQc

02 Boxster spirited but not abused driving conditions, not a daily commuter and stored from Nov to Mar.
Bought it used , have 49K and had to change the RMS last spring after a long rest in the Garage for the Winter. When I brought it in for service at 45K they saw that the RMS was starting to go ( few oil drops) . Drove it twice and it started leaking. Had to change with the larger seal. So far have drove it all the summer and it's fine !
I'm going to cross fingers since I'm afraid that long period of storing the car will not help the RMS issue.

Hi,

No need to cross fingers at all due to winter storage. See my post in the General Discussions on RMS & Winter Storage.

BTW, I was just in your wonderful city last week as my wife is going to be doing the '07 PGA President's Cup Tournament in Montreal next September at the Royal Montreal Golf Club. We married and honeymooned in Montreal back in '99, so I'll be accompanying her next year and we'll have a 2nd honeymoon there once the tourney's over. Hope this helps...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[Boxter]

Unfortunately for all concerned parties here I think Yellow Jacket's post is spot on.

You typed my thoughts almost to the word.

...and as unscientific as this may sound I also think there is an element of superstition that may influence the Non-RMS replacement crowd from participating.

That said I have a 98' with 73K, only had it for a month, spirited driving, with a small leak back there, but no RMS diagnosed as of yet...

"knock/touch wood" just to cover all bases.