Is it still worth it?
 

I recently purchased my 986 with 82k on the car. A reputable local performance shop is quoting around 6K to do the following:

IMS bearing replacement
New clutch
New or refurbished flywheel
New seals around spark plugs and a few other minor replacement parts that were leaking oil.

Does this seem to be in the ballpark for what others have experienced? Also, does this add extra value to the car at resale? Does it add anything to a 11k car?

I just had a dealership do my clutch and IMS bearing. They also replaced some oil seals, spark plugs, etc. It was about 6K, which I thought was horribly excessive -- talk about sticker shock! But I'm glad to have the IMS bearing done now I can drive the car all day long without the nagging feeling in the back of my head.

Make sure they replace the IMS with an LN Engineering one and not a Porsche replacement. The LN ones cost about $900 or you can spend an extra grand and get one of their new ones that get a constant oil supply and are guaranteed forever. I almost went with that and kind of wish I had.

At first blush, that price seems high. But we'll need more details to be certain.

An IMS / clutch / flywheel upgrade is generally $3K. But there are a range of IMS options available and priced differently - from replacements that last a certain # of miles to ones that are a permanent replacement. So it's important to know which IMS is included in your est to determine if the overall price is in the ballpark or not.

Replacing spark plug seals isn't difficult or particularly labor intensive, so that shouldn't be a budget buster.

"A few other minor replacement parts" is too vague. Porsche parts are by nature expensive, but no way to judge an est based on replacing a few parts. Which ones?

Doing these items DOES add value to your car. The first question a prospective buyer will ask is if the IMS has been replaced. Not a deal breaker if it isn't, but the price will be discounted $3K if it hasn't.

When I bought mine, I had a very good shop do the ims, rms, and new clutch. A little over 3k. 6k seems a bit high to me but flywheels are expensive (why do they want to replace yours without even seeing it?)

Will you ever see 6k out of these repairs? Very unlikely, but it's a total crap shoot. It depends on year, condition, etc but in general you may see half of it back if you sell it soon. But, if you're selling it soon, why bother with any of these things?

There are plenty of guys who drop huge $ on these cars, but they gave a true love affair with the vehicle and know full well they will never see that money again.

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Whats the year model? If its mid 2000 and older there's a good chance it has the double row bearings. In that case I wouldn't worry about it.

I struggled with this. I have a '99 and was told I shouldn't worry about it. But other things I read claimed that there has been an increase in number of failures on these older models. For me, it came down to peace of mind. I love driving the car and the ability to drive it without worrying about bearing failure just adds to the enjoyment.

By the way, the bearing they took out was in perfect condition. Mine is a '99 with 85K miles on it. But I still don't regret it.

I question why you are needing these items done.

Clutch - Why do you need a new clutch? You shouldn't need a new flywheel unless the clutch is below the rivets. They want to replace it cause it can't be resurfaced. Should only need to replace it is there is gouging or has too much play in it.

IMS - Wouldn't even bother. Overblown in my opinion. If it isn't broke, dont touch it.

Plug tubes - Easy to do on a Saturday or for a shop to do in a few hours on a lift. Cheap, do it if you are leaking oil or other issues will come up later.

$6 is high I think for a non dealer to do all this work at the same time. Doing the clutch at the same time as the RMS and/or IMS only adds 1 hour of labor, maybe 2. Sounds like they are charging book time for each job as if they were doing them separately not combined.

If you were to do all the work and the next day try to sell the car it wont make it a $17k car (all other things being equal). Would make it maybe a $12k car, but that just depends on what someone is willing to pay.

I would fix any oil leaks and then just drive & enjoy the car. of course it is your money. For me I dont do the IMS on any car I buy or sell. Just doesn't add any value to a car this old. If it blows up, it's cheaper to just pull the engine & put in a different one, but so far haven't had to do that yet.

Go someplace other than a performance shop.... a performance shop will always charge more.

The only part of this I can compare, cost wise, I just had the IMS done on my 996 and my Indy charged 1800.

$ 6000 sounds way overpriced to me too.

I have a 99 Boxster that I purchased at 100000 miles and I rebuilt the engine because the timing chain jumped over. The clutch was toast, but the flywheel was in good condition so I put it back on and still there`s no problem with it. I`ve read somewhere that a new flywheel is needed roughly after the second clutch set. Depends on driving style of course. Is there anything wrong with your clutch and flywheel?

IMS was in perfect condition in mine too, probably it`s totally fine in yours too, especially if it`s the dual row. I wouldn`t touch it, or if I did, I`d use the factory dual row as a replacement, should be good for another 100k at least.

Instead, I`d rather get the cam deviation checked and get the small chain pads checked in the heads, together with pulling the sump and looking for plastic debris. Those chain pads are much more likely to fail at this mileage than the IMS, and can cause serious trouble, IMHO.

I bought my '99 last year, it is the first Porsche I ever owned. I did a lot of reading from various sites and the world seems to be split on replacing the IMS on pre-2001 cars. For me, it came down to two things: peace of mind while I own/drive the car and peace of mind for when I sell the car some day. Like I said, mine was in perfect condition but I still don't regret doing it.

The dealership told me that my flywheel had some shiny spots on it but they recommended not replacing it. He said if it felt fine with no chatter then it will be fine and it wasn't worth spending $900 on a new one. I agreed so we did not replace it.

It was a LOT of money (more than I expected) but I have no regrets. I absolutely love driving the car and I cherish my peace of mind. I think the $6K I paid should have been only half that but what's done is done.

I'm not trying to start a debate, but in my humble opinion, you should indeed replace the IMS -- but only when it's time to do a clutch. If your clutch is fine then let it go until it needs one.

My understanding is that there is no "factory" duel row replacement... you can only buy the IM shaft complete with the bearing, which means splitting the engine cases...

Yeah, I thought the same until I came across this:
https://www.123bearing.com/bearing-BD20-17-A-DDUA17NX01-NSK

Someone else pointed it out for me in a separate thread. This looks like the same exact thing. No need for spacers, just pull the original which usually is in perfect condition at around 100k miles, put the new one in, should be good for another 100k.

Thanks for the info, that's good to know. Makes replacement of the dual-row simpler, as you mention. Do you know of anyone who has used this bearing?

But it is still not a Porsche factory part... which is likely a good thing ($$$).

I don`t know of anyone who used this. The original bearing is a special one manufactured by NSK for Porsche. This is exactly the same size, with similar numbers, made by NSK. I don`t think they would manufacture a bearing like this for an application other than the IMS because it has a very unique width with a very uniquely positioned groove. That`s why I think it`s the same exact thing. It`s more robust than the replacement bearings because those are narrower and the two races are closer to each other. Therefore you need a spacer for those to fit. I played a lot with these options when I replaced mine and did a lot of measurements, and finally went with a completely different solution, but I would have bought this if I had known about it.

How do you know it broken?

Or maybe in other words, how can one tell it is about to die except oil inspection for metal shavings. Furthermore, how long does it take for it to fail?

Mine is 2003, 2.7, with 110k miles.
Clutch seems to be very good. Crisp engagement and smooth, hence not really needs to be done.

Finally - any way to tell it was done from "outside" or some "scope inspection"?

In order asked:

Easy, the engine is trashed.

You can't, its failure is sudden and totally catastrophic.

Not possible; you either have to take the car apart and look, or have documentation it has been done.

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful replies. Here are the numbers from the shop. Probably not the best deal, but the work was done correctly and the shop found time savings which brought the price down.

Parts total was $2157.21 including the IMS bearing and new clutch. Labor came in around $2500. With tax the whole job was $5035.00. The IMS bearing was $800 and clutch kit was also $800.

As expected, the IMS bearing was just fine but the clutch was close to failure. The metal rivits on the clutch plate were already scrapping onto metal. As my mechanic said, well, if you do one you do the other so the repair was justified and I have it documented if I ever sell the car on BringATrailer.com.

In reality the $10k boxster is just a myth and as my mechanic stated, few people sell these cars in perfect order. Now that the car is running, I can learn about it more slowly and work my way back into the engine. First big project on my own, getting the rear spoiler to deploy.

So I'm curious, what shop did you use?

That's true. It's also a myth that you shouldn't put more money into a car than it's worth. If you plan to keep the car and want to enjoy it then you can put as much money into as it you want. Very few cars in this world are considered investments, the rest of them are just transportation or fun toys.

Nobody ever buys a brand new car expecting to get their money back when they sell it. So why do we expect that when we buy a used car?

I don't know, I would counter that point. If you can turn wrenches and do your own diagnostics (this the the key point) I don't think that this is a very expensive car considering what you get out of it.

I bought mine 3 years ago with 27k miles (00 base) for $12k. Since then the 2 most expensive things were the ims/rms/clutch replaced ($3k, I didn't know the first thing about cars at that time so I had a shop do it) and installing godspeed coilovers ($1k). Michelin ps4s set me back a grand but are holding up well. On top of that I have done a ton of stuff - UDP, rear lcas replaced, new plugs and coils, new injectors, 996 tune, low temp tstat, sway bar bushings, double din radio, short shifter, power stop pads and drilled/slotted rotors, custom intake custom exhaust, rear wing. I'm pretty big on buying non oem replacements and have yet to had to replace anything that I have installed (except my pos ln TStat which failed within 2 years). Altogether all those projects maybe ran $2k in parts at most. The labor is intense though.

So, altogether I have under 20k in this car. Ok, so not 10 lol. But it's a hell of a car for that price and still has less than 50k miles. I would argue that it's hard to beat that.

I totally agree with huey though, cars are money pits in general and you will never see any of it back that you sink into these cars in particular. Lord knows I have destroyed the resale value of my car with all the custom mods I've done. But, I decided a long time ago that this car will die in my hands, one way or another ;)

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