bad oil separator?

[Burg Boxster]

Not necessarily...... it depends on the strength of the vacuum. If you could easily pull off the cap, then AOS might be ok. If there was a severe vacuum which required a lot of effort on your part to remove cap then yes AOS might be bad.

Diagnosing a failing AOS is difficult (as you can tell) unless of course until it has completely failed - which you don't want to have happen. Some visual cues / things to look ar for help determining if it might be failing are:

Smoke - more than just a puff on start up (does it occur on hard accelleration, at idle after engine has been running a while, etc.)

Bellows - drips of oil below/on it, tears, degrading rubber, splits

J-tube - disconnect it at the TB. Look for puddling (more than what a misting would leave) in the tube and or in the TB.

Remember, this part since being intro'd on the '97 Boxster has been revised 4 times (5 iterations total....... so far). On avg, every 2.2 yrs PAG thinks they have a correct solution for it's purpose. In my opinion if you don't have at least version .03, it's really a matter of when not if it will fail. From what I have experienced/heard/seen/etc., the .02 versions and prior usually last < 50K miles.

Changing it out is cheap insurance for what could be catastrophic results when it fails. Parts are ~ $120 US and install takes under 2hrs DIY.

[wanna986]

Thanks, Burg.
It wasn't difficult to remove the cap, but I didn't expect that the engine would react so violently to the cap being off. I hadn't read anything about that in my searches.
I'll remove the j tube.
Thanks for the suggestions.

[Gary in BR]

I found a AOS for under $100.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Porsche-Boxster-thru-02-Oil-Seperator_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2 el1247QQcategoryZ46098QQihZ009QQitemZ190111551349Q QrdZ1QQsspagenameZWD1V

[Burg Boxster]

Good find Gary - just know they list it as version .03
Porsche has had version .04 out for > 1 year now (maybe 2?). I don't know what changes were made from .03 to .04 but obviously they tweaked it some.

The price I quoted above ~ $120 is what I paid from Sunset Porsche in OR for:
- new AOS
- new J-tube (not necessarily required - depending on which previous version you have or if yours is clean)
- grease (for the rings on the bottom)

Price including shipping to PA too.

[wanna986]

This is a good price, Gary.
Looks like he'll ship only inside U.S., though

[kbrandsma]

A new AOS also includes a new bellows and clamp.

[Gary in BR]

I think I may be replacing my AOS this week. It will be the 3rd one in 8 years. My OEM went out on me at 100k miles and I think this one went out on Friday.

I did the oil cap thing and I could hear the vacuume.

Let me explain whet its doing...The start up puff of smoke is now replaced with a smoke screen. After the car is warm the smoke is not as thick to not at all.

The smoking generally only appears during long idelling or initial start up.

Does this sound like AOS to you guys?

Can anyone point me to a DIY, last time I paid someone. I will do it myself this time.


Thanks as usual,
Gary

[Burg Boxster]

Here's a link to a good DIY w/ part #s etc. You cna replace the bottom bellow band w/ a worm-gear clamp or buy the clamp pliers from sears for about $15. If you're somewhat mechanical, should be under 2 hours to replace.

http://mike.focke.googlepages.com/airoilseparatorreplacement

If you're getting that much smoke, you'll probably also want to clean out the TB too.