I get the impression that these engines wear out quickly

[Pat]

First, I didn't assume anything. I was surprised to find through searching the archives that so many people had attitudes about their Boxster with less than 100K miles being "old." One of many posts I can reference is a recent one with a guy contemplating selling his car simply for the fact that it almost has 80K miles on it. It was running just fine, but he seemed to fear something bad would soon happen.
Regarding the 1.8T, there were oil sludge issues caused mainly by people not running synthetic oil. There is an oil line running from the turbo over the exhaust manifold that gets hot. As you can imagine, many owners did not use synthetic oil and change it at regular intervals. This was the main cause of the problem- people using low-grade oil and not following the prescribed maintenance schedule. I don't know of anyone that has driven their car harder, more than I have and in such a short amount of time. As with most cars out there, with proper care, it will go for hundreds of thousands of miles.
I'm sorry if I came off as accusatory or agressive. That was certainly not my intent. As I said before, I was SURPRISED to see many people here have that perspective, because I always considered Porsches to be some of the best made cars available.

[Brucelee]

Rather than "wear out" I think the Boxster owners should be much more concerned about posts that follows. This IMS issue is real and it can strke at any time.

We have had many members post on IMS failures and it has been written about by the tech guys in Excellence mag. It would be nice if Porsche fixed this flax.





On my way to work yesterday and my car died. No warning, no nothing. Today I'm still in shock can't believe that the dealership told I have to get an entirely new engine put in. Told this was due to a broken internal shaft bolt. I don't understand how this could happen, my 01 box doesn't even have 50,000 miles on it and I have taken it in on a regular basis for the routine maintenance.

Has anybody ever heard of this happening or has had this happen to you?
Don't think my insurance will cover this and unfortunately I do not have any warranty on the car. Any comments or suggestions on what to do would be a great help.

Thanks,
MAC986"

[vipola]

Sorry, what IMS standing for ?

[1JB]

Originally Posted by vipola

Sorry, what IMS standing for ?

It's RMS - Real Main Seal

[YellowJacket]

Originally Posted by 1JB

It's RMS - Real Main Seal

No, IMS is not "rear main seal." IMS is "intermediate shaft." RMS failure generally means a couple dots of oil on the garage floor and a day's labor for a new seal (if dealt with in a reasonable amount of time). IMS failure is the more serious "catastrophic engine failure" people refer to.

[1JB]

Originally Posted by YellowJacket

No, IMS is not "rear main seal." IMS is "intermediate shaft." RMS failure generally means a couple dots of oil on the garage floor and a day's labor for a new seal (if dealt with in a reasonable amount of time). IMS failure is the more serious "catastrophic engine failure" people refer to.

My bad thanks for the correction. Thought the IMS was a typo in Brucelee's post. I've seen "intermediate shaft" referenced but not IMS so I assume RMS. Nice in a post that's about not making assumptions eh!

[Pat]

Ahhh...now I understand, thank you.
I glanced at the first page of that link. The average owner there has maybe 50K miles on their cars. That doesn't really do much for me regarding longevity.
Maybe I just found a few unrepresentative posts and extrapolated from there without using a significant sample size.

Thanks though. All that really matters is that these engines should have no problem going a few hundred thousand miles assuming proper maintenance. That's what I care about, because I planning on driving it 20K miles per year.

[humara]

wouldn't that be IS instead of IMS? or is inter mediate 2 words now?
i guess that's worse than IBS?

[ikdavis]

http://www.autofarm.co.uk/engines/water_cooled/shaft_tech

Hi guys. My Boxster has suffered the same fate and Porsche dont give a damn they are only interested in money taken off owners like us. check out the link above for the cure, these guys are in the uk but my car is fixed by them and it is now cured f all IMS problems.

[Jeph]

Originally Posted by humara

wouldn't that be IS instead of IMS? or is inter mediate 2 words now?
i guess that's worse than IBS?

Yeah, and if we're getting into semantics, isn't "100M miles" actually 100,000,000 miles?
I'd say that's an "old" engine. (I'd also say it's reliable.)

[1JB]

Your question was: "Why do people seem to think these engines are 'old' after 100K miles?

a. flat six design
b. poor engine design/manufacturing
c. people just don't drive P-cars a lot, so an engine that has 100K on it generally means the car is 15+ years old and the rest of the car is degrading
d. something else?"

And now in your last post you're "SURPRISED to see many people here have that perspective." I've been a member here for a while and don't think many of the people here have that perspective. To the contrary I think the vast majority of the people here think their cars will be on the road for a very long time to come, though they have no illusions about the cost of maintance and repairs. Many here who have Boxsters with more than 100M miles on them or who have seen them and ridden in them consider them classics of the highest quality though they've only been in production for a little more than 10 years. Hence my statement that I think you're making an invalid assumption about what many of the owners here believe. I wasn't saying that you were accusatory or aggressive. You have reached your own conclustion about a prevailinng belief you attribute to the members here and I believe it is incorrect.

I don't know what terms you searched for but a search using the terms "old" "engine" and "100K" didn't turn up threads with people making this statement. You may want to read this thread if you're looking for how many miles people have on their cars, what problems they've had.
http://986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7697&page=1&pp=20&highlight=break

Originally Posted by Pat

First, I didn't assume anything. I was surprised to find through searching the archives that so many people had attitudes about their Boxster with less than 100K miles being "old." One of many posts I can reference is a recent one with a guy contemplating selling his car simply for the fact that it almost has 80K miles on it. It was running just fine, but he seemed to fear something bad would soon happen.
Regarding the 1.8T, there were oil sludge issues caused mainly by people not running synthetic oil. There is an oil line running from the turbo over the exhaust manifold that gets hot. As you can imagine, many owners did not use synthetic oil and change it at regular intervals. This was the main cause of the problem- people using low-grade oil and not following the prescribed maintenance schedule. I don't know of anyone that has driven their car harder, more than I have and in such a short amount of time. As with most cars out there, with proper care, it will go for hundreds of thousands of miles.
I'm sorry if I came off as accusatory or agressive. That was certainly not my intent. As I said before, I was SURPRISED to see many people here have that perspective, because I always considered Porsches to be some of the best made cars available.