changed my ims bearing. was like new

[boxster]

Originally Posted by B6T

I just did my bearing too. '03 S with 119k miles on it. The original bearing was as tight as the new Pelican/NSK bearing I replaced it with. I was expecting to see munched roller balls and the worst type of mechanical carnage imaginable when I popped the cover off, based on what I've read on this forum. But it was totally fine.

Now I have mixed emotions about the adventure - if I didn't swap the bearing, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the car because of the "imminent catastrophic failure" that would always be on my mind. Now that I've swapped the bearing, I have piece of mind, but I've invested over 20 hours of work, and have a few broken exhaust bolts I need to deal with, and had to deal with the timing chain skipping both cams. So having the knowledge that the OE bearing was fine changes my perspective from it being a valuable preemptive replacement to a waste of time. But, or course, that knowledge was only attained after I popped the bearing cover off, which is 90% of the work of changing the bearing anyway. Blah, rant over.

Yep, my feelings exactly. Every time I used to hear a noise in the car I used to think the engine is going to go "kaboom" ,with an ims bearing failure. Now though, that I saw with my own eyes, a car that was typically in the group of most bearing failures, " garage queens with very limited mileage" I have a different idea. I would leave it alone until I REALLY have to drop the transmission for a clutch change and inspect it then. I know some people were unlucky, but I guess its with everything, you only care about what happens to you, and not anyone else. What I'm hoping now is that I didn't do the wrong thing by replacing it, I hope that I didn't wake up a sleeping dog!!