Another IMS question :-(

[JFP in PA]

While my opinion may differ from that of others, I do RMS/IMS retrofits for a living, and therefore have a somewhat different view of the subject.

If you have 150K on the car, and it has a leaking RMS, it is only a matter of time before the RMS leak is going to foul the clutch and need replacement.; that is a simple fact of life. To have a shop replace the RMS (and the clutch), you will spend 80-85% of the cost to do a solo IMS retrofit. If both cases, the trans, clutch and flywheel have to come out, and then both the RMS and IMS are out in the open. It takes about 5 min. to do the RMS with the factory tooling, and about another hour or so to do the IMS once the engine is in this condition. Not replacing the IMS at this time therefore makes little economic sense, as you would have to pay a second time to do it in the future. Similar economics come into play on some other updates as well, the AOS for instance takes a good shop about 2 hours on an assembled car, but with the trans out becomes a 15 min. project.

As for which IMS to use, realistically there is really only one based upon the totally numbers of successful installations: the LN units. We have installed many of them without any problems, and currently there are nearly 25,000 of them on the street world wide without problems. No other supplier can even remotely come close to making that statement, and many of the "me-too" options are not everything they are made out to be. Don't make your choices on the basis of cost alone, look at the unit's reputations and installed base before coming to a conclusion, and you will be glad you did long term.

[Chuck W.]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

While my opinion may differ from that of others,....

What is your opinion on upgrading to the IMS Solution. Is the extra money worth it?

[Gilles]

Originally Posted by Chuck W.

What is your opinion on upgrading to the IMS Solution. Is the extra money worth it?

The IMS Solution is the way these engines should have come from the factory to begin with…

[Chuck W.]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

While my opinion may differ from that of others,....

What is your opinion on upgrading to the IMS Solution. Is the extra money worth it?

Originally Posted by Gilles

The IMS Solution is the way these engines should have come from the factory to begin with…

I did a search after I posted my question. Backwards, I know.... & know better. Anyway, the Solution is twice the cost and a lifetime fix. You'll break even with the Solution at 100,000 miles of install. The Solution appears to be the best fix yet and once you do it your IMS bearing concerns are over. However, as thstone has found, there are several other ways to blow up an engine besides the IMS bearing.

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by Chuck W.

What is your opinion on upgrading to the IMS Solution. Is the extra money worth it?

Depends upon where you head is at. I have the Solution in both my personal M96 cars, and have several customers running them as well. Yes, it cost more, but it is the only permanent retrofit, so if you plan on keeping your cars for a bit (one of mine is an 01 986 with less than 12K miles on it now that I bought new and intend to hold onto for a while). And when I did that car, I also gave it a brand new clutch, throw out and pilot bearings, the PTFE RMS, and the latest AOS, even though none of these original parts were problematic. All of the customer Solution installs were handled the same way, as it makes no economic sense to have to go back in there again in a year or two, and you can resell at least the low mileage clutch to someone on a tight budget.

Are there other things that can fail? Sure, but now I know one that is never going to fail, ever. And from my customer's experiences, cars carrying the Solution command a premium at resale time.