Can I tell with the engine number whether IMS is problem?

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by geraintthomas

How can it have nothing to do with mileage?

Yes there have been some that have failed even in higher mileage and daily cars, but seals will fail due to little use resulting in them drying up, which leads to a brittle seal, which cracks and fails. This is far more likely to be found on low milers than ones which are driven daily.

So let's just get this clear a second for everyone:

Are you saying that if one person bought a 14 year old Boxster with 12,000 on the clock, and another person bought a 14 year old model with 120,000 on the clock, the chances of problems with the bearing are going to be the same between both? That blows my mind if you think that.

It is not "what I think", it is what the data says.

And we have seen absolutely no evidence to support your conjecture that "seals will fail due to little use resulting in them drying up, which leads to a brittle seal, which cracks and fails. This is far more likely to be found on low milers than ones which are driven daily". We have pulled IMS bearings out of cars with as little as 6K miles on them on 10+ year old cars, and the seals looked brand new, and were soft and pliable. We have also pulled IMS bearings out of daily drivers with over 100+ miles, whose seals were dried out and cracked.

[jborchel]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

It is not "what I think", it is what the data says.

And we have seen absolutely no evidence to support your conjecture that "seals will fail due to little use resulting in them drying up, which leads to a brittle seal, which cracks and fails. This is far more likely to be found on low milers than ones which are driven daily". We have pulled IMS bearings out of cars with as little as 6K miles on them on 10+ year old cars, and the seals looked brand new, and were soft and pliable. We have also pulled IMS bearings out of daily drivers with over 100+ miles, whose seals were dried out and cracked.

I've found another Boxster to look at. It has 100,000 miles and is very clean. Can you point me to the new fix that is available? Does this new fix have certain engineered characteristics that substantially lower the possibility of future failure if the car is maintained regularly? Is the fix low enough in cost to do it even if there are no signs of pending failure?