Dispeling M96 engine rumors
 

I have heard a few people talking about what is being said on this forum, and how it is really freaking many owners out about their cars. I have been a dealer technician for 30 years, the last 20 of which have been with Porsche. I have torn down several M96 engines after failures, and have built several outside of my primary job as a dealer tech. I'd like to offer my input and share what I've seen to the forum, and in the process dispel some of the rumors that seem to be running rampant.

First, the intermediate shaft. This is NOT a hoax. Most of the engines that we have removed from cars have been caused by failure of the IMS bearing. There are several versions of the bearing that have been used across the production run of these engines. The early cars had a dual row bearing, which has proven to be fairly reliable. Then can the smaller single row bearing. This is where we have seen most of the failures. Starting around 2005 the factory started using a much larger single row bearing, and we have yet to see one of these fail. While I have not yet seen one of the aftermarket bearings, I have to assume that this is a pretty good idea as preventative maintenance, especially if you have a car with the smaller single row bearing. The latest, larger single row bearing cannot be removed without splitting the cases of the engine, since the bearing is actually larger than the hole that you would pull it out through. Replacing this bearing is not a complex job, and could be completed by any competent tech, with barely any additional labor while doing a clutch.

Second, clutches. Whoever says that these cars are due for a clutch by 30K is sorely mistaken. It all depends on the type of use the car gets and how its driven. We've seen plenty of client cars make it to 100k on the original clutch, and we've also seen some go bad by 30k. Whenever doing a clutch, you need to replace the flywheel, so the notion of changing the clutch before it damages the flywheel is a moot point, as you're supposed to replace it anyway. If it's not slipping, keep driving it.

Third, oil. While the factory endorses Mobil 1, there are better oils out there. Mobil 1 is not the product that it once was. At my dealership, we still fill with Mobil 1, but I don't run it in my personal cars.

Fourth, lifters. Whoever says that these cars all need lifters replaced by 60K must be smoking something really good! If this were true, any M96 powered car over 60K would be considerably down on power. I have seen several client's cars dyno'd with varying mileage, and some of the highest mileage cars have put down the most power! Also, keep in mind that if a car had failing lifters, it would be throwing codes. We have put lifters in ONE car, and did so after it started experiencing drivability problems and throwing codes at 110K. Also, I'd like to point out that were there any truth to this, all of the "evil dealers" would be pushing this service as it would bring in considerable revenue on the service side.

Fifth, head cracks. Some of these heads do crack. It is mostly limited to 3.2/ 3.4 heads, but we have also seen a few cracked heads on 2.5 and 2.7 engines. While they could probably be fixed, with potentially questionable reliability, by a head shop, at the dealer, we replace them with new.

Sixth, cylinder wall failures. This has largely become a problem of the past. Most experienced on 2.5 and 3.4 engines, we haven't seen a "D Chunk" failure in quite a while.

Overall, the M96 is a pretty good engine, with a few shortcomings. The IMS being probably the biggest. I see that the aftermarket has made upgraded IMS tensioner blades and oil pump drives, and I guess if you're building a motor the couple hundred dollars this adds could be considered peace of mind, though we haven't seen any of those parts fail at our dealership.

In terms of rebuilding these engines, while not as simple as a small block Chevy, they are nothing more complex than any other German car engine. Yes, you need some special tools and the service manual with some added notes, but its a job that any competent engine builder can perform.

Remember, any modern engine will experience very little wear if taken care of properly. Modern metallurgy, production techniques and tolerances, and modern lubricants have gone a long way toward making engines last well beyond 100K. The M96 is no exception. There is no reason why these engines should not last 200K. The highest mileage engine I have torn down had 120K on the clock, and the cylinder bores showed zero wear, main bearings had virtually undetectable wear, with the rod bearings showing mild wear. The largest area of wear in most new car engines are the heads. The 120K heads were in need of new exhaust valves and a valve job.

To everybody, don't sit home and freak out about your cars, go out and enjoy them the way they were designed!

Thanks for posting and giving your personal feedback Brian. I hope you come back as I'm sure people will have questions for you.

Good post! You have summarized the issues and non-issues fairly and made me a little more comfortable with my car. I have a 2004 2.7, which had an engine failure at 10K, before I bought it. Hopefully the larger bearing was installed at that time.

I've owned over a dozen cars in my 25 years of driving (some really nice, some junkers) - my 02 boxster s is the only one that has had 3 engines in under 80,000 miles.

The M96 is a shamefully poor design in terms of reliability - Porsche should have let Subaru build these engines for them.

One thing that I don't understand is why Porsche changed from a double row to a single row IMS bearing? Seems like they shoud've left well enough alone. The old addage "if it ain't broke don't fix it" comes to mind.

Great post! Thanks for providing your insights based on your experience with these engines.

They probably saved $3.00 per engine on the manufacturing side....wonder what the net of that move is after warranty claims.

Brian:

Thanks for taking the time to unselfishly share your experience and your sobering perspective on these engines.

Hype and hoopla seem to be the norm on the net these days, leading to near hysteria in some cases.

Your post reflecting your 20 years of hands on experience with Porsches on a daily basis is invaluable.

The fact that you fairly evaluate the benefits of the IMS retrofits available speaks volumes about your uncommon lack of $$ driven bias.

Thank you. :cheers:

Regards, Maurice.

I don't think I ever read a post saying the IMS failures are a HOAX. I have read the rate if IMS failures might be exaggerated. And I never read anyone claim the aftermarket bearings are proven more or less reliable than the factories.

The "join date" is at the top right hand corner of all posts.

Regards, Maurice.

While the LN bearing hasn't been proven better than the factory part by a true measure of "field experience" yet, even if it was only marginally better, the fact that you're replacing the original bearing, with X many years across Y many miles of wear on it, with a new part, is still a lot better than doing nothing.

To the OP, what's your take on lightwight flywheels?

"While the LN bearing hasn't been proven better than the factory part by a true measure of "field experience" yet, even if it was only marginally better, the fact that you're replacing the original bearing, with X many years across Y many miles of wear on it, with a new part, is still a lot better than doing nothing. "

Why would I be replacing the IMS bearing? Is it in the maintenance manual as preventative care?

Thanks. Interesting post. A few questions: So MY 2000-2004 have the smaller single row brg?
I assume it's replacement of the earlier single-row brg that is "not a complex job".
Why?
What do you use? Is Castrol Syntec ok in your opinion?

It's not in the maintenance book as preventative care, but perhaps it should be. Seems like lately almost all the engine failures are from the IMS bearing failing. It's just not a good design on Porsche's behalf.

I'd imagine he gets paid by the hour, or salary, with no commission based bonus, so I don't think he cares where we spend our money :)

It's always interesting how receptive people are to news they want to hear.

I'm not saying the OP isn't well meaning, or that he's necessarily incorrect. But rather than dispel any rumors I think he's only added more fodder.

Not that he isn't skilled, but we're talking about 1 tech from 1 dealership, and at least some of what he's said contradicts info and data coming from Flat 6 and LN Eng. and also from a source which long predates F6 and LNE and established info and fixes on some of the nagging issues of the M96 motor back in the late '90's - Autofarm in the UK.

If the Type M96 plague hasn't struck you, you're probably more likely to side with Brian PT.

But, if you're the proud owner of an alloy boat anchor manufactured in Stuttgart, you're likely to remain somewhat more skeptical.

:cheers:

^^^ Trust LB to burst my bubble. ;)

Brian,

can you briefly describe what sort of training a Porsche mechanic receives say right out of tech school and what sort of on the job training/clinics you receive each year?

I concur with these statements..
Using the procedures that LN Engineering and I have developed and continued to enhance many DIY owners have done the IMSR successfully. In fact the only instance we've had was when a 30 year Veteran decided to do the job his way without listening to our directives. Imagine that.

So if some have gone bad by 30k that backs up the statements we've made that at that point wear can be significant, correct? I never made blanket statements about wear limits and service life- I don't do that.

Why do you need to replace the flywheel?

BUT what IF you want to do an IMSR and have the parts accessible to facilitate the procedures and you are at 1/2 life already on the disc and pressure plate, but the flywheel specs out good. Do you bolt it back together half worn out of spend the money and save the labor that would be due imminently?? I know what I'd do and what I've done.

I couldn't concur more..

Thats me. Don't slap me in the face and don't insinuate that my statements aren't true or have been exaggerated. I don't challenge your integrity, don't challenge mine.

And a significant chunk are. Its also not just power, but most every car that we see with low fuel economy also has failed lifters. I recently had a car show up here with 22 of 24 lifters bad, after our work the MPG jumped up 5 MPG, but the power didn't change more than 1HP and 1.5% average torque.

I dyno EVERY car that rolls into our facility, most of them I do for free to grow our data base. I have seen some high mileage engines make huge power as well, one of which had all 24 lifters bad when I disassembled it to be used as a base for a 3.8 big bore!

Nope.. Just like they don't throw codes when the IMS drive sprocket for bank 4-6 slips on the IMS tube by as much as 5-7 degrees retarding the cam timing! The ECu doesn't measure valve lift or events, the last sample point it has is the cam sensor which is upstream of the lifters. The ECU can't tell that the valve events have changed due to lifter degradation, a cam position sensor won't tell that. If a code was ever thrown it would be due to the inefficiency and uneven combustion sampled by the O2 sensors if anything.

The engine we saw that had 22 of 24 lifters bad had no CEL illuminated.

If you tore into more engines and etc you'd see just how many have bad lifters.

No, because that work is too "heavy" for the majority of dealers to carry out.. The last Dealer tech that I had here came from Brumos Porsche.. His first day here he did a lifter job, but didn't know how to do it because in the 5 years he worked there he had NEVER done it!

I concur with the heads that you mentioned cracking the most... I will say that we have created repairs and upgrades for the crack prone areas that can save a head.

De to the variance I have measured with OE combustion chamber volumes to that of the new castings I'd never swap just one new head onto an existing engine. I have seen a variance of 1.5-3.5ccs differential in the castings and thats enough to create combustion imbalance thats significant between the opposing banks of cylinders.

The crack repair is extensive and isn't just welding up the crack. Thats why the head is stronger in the repaired area than it was previously. The first heads we repaired were purposely overheated and we tried to force a failure during the initial testing, those heads are still in service.

I still get a call every now and then with this mode of failure, BUT they are limited to the '99 cars.

Actually you have probably seen an IMS tensioner paddle failure, but it was masked as an IMS bearing failure. The reason for this is the symptoms are exactly the same, damage is the same, the only difference is the chain of events. The IMS issue is so wide spread that lots of Dealerships are blaming any failure of significance on the IMS and some engines aren't being interrogated to verify this..

I recently had an 03 Boxster S that was shipped to us from 2,300 miles away for an engine install. It had been diagnosed improperly as an IMS bearing failure, but the IMS bearing was fine and the chain tensioner paddle was in 3 pieces.

The other MOF thats often misdiagnosed is the bank 4-6 drive sprocket on the IMS slipping and wiping out the entire 4-6 bank of valves due to altered valve timing. I permanently install the IMS drive sprockets with a proprietary process with every engine I build due to how many of these issues I have seen. Some have not wiped out the engines, but this slippage is the reason why most every engine we tear down has retarded cam timing on the 4-6 bank compared to 1-3.

The service manual can get you in trouble fast, especially with cam timing. I built my first one without a manual and without a single Porsche tool. This engine is all about procedure and sequence.

Then why do so few M96s make it to that point?? I agree that there are exceptions, but I rarely get calls from anyone with more than 85K

Actually there are at least 19 reasons why some will not.. Thats how many modes of failure have been documented.

At what axis did you measure the bores? How many positions within the bore did you take your measurements? I'd be willing to bet that by that mileage the #2 and #5 cylinders had experienced taper beyond limits as well as ovality, especially at the mid-bore position.

I concur. I have actually had used bearings PC2 coated and then reused them in test engines with excellent results. I did this when I first started working with these engines, before bearings could be bought easily. As long as the engine has not seen starvation issues it certainly has a god chance of having perfect bearings internally, probably to 200K.

Any head with 120K needs a valve job.. Exhaust valves always get replaced..

Thats what we've been telling people for several years now.

I have made it a primary objective to understand these engines at a level that others have not. We had foresight with these engines and started working with them internally when people told us that we were dumb and were wasting our time because of how cheap a replacement engine was... Needless to say the foresight has been effective.

The things I have stated on my site and on this forum are based on the experience of myself and my team as well as the experience of shops that work with us as our affiliates across the country that see the same things we do.

Before most dealerships had the authorization to tear into the M96 to make repairs we'd already broken and reconstructed most every major component within the engine and we did it all without any assistance from the factory or PCNA.

Respect my experience, knowledge and statements and I'll do the same for you. If you have a problem or disagree with a statement I've made its much better to just come out and say it and direct the heat toward me- trust me, I can take it.

I'd like to hear more of your experiences and I am glad to see you here on the forums, we don't see many techs here.

With that I'll say that its much better to agree to disagree than get into a huge pissing contest between opinions. Pissing contests don't benefit anyone on this forum andI'll warn you now that I am very difficult to argue with.. I gather way too much info, take way too many pictures and have way too many notes to sit on the sidelines without substantiating my information. I go to the ends of the earth to gather this data and retain it just for "challenges" that are sure to come up from time to time.

I have over 1 Tb of data in my corner :-)

Not at all!

And, I'm not trying to play Al Pacino in some Keanu Reeves movie either.

It's just that some guy, with a grand total of some 2 posts initiates a thread labled "Dispeling (sp) M96 engine rumors ", adds that he's a Porsche Tech and people (well 13 out of 14 anyway) are ready to follow him like he's the Pied Piper of 986ville!

I'm not saying he's wrong, but as he himself points out, he attempts to "dispel some of the rumors that seem to be running rampant".

At least to my mind, he was not successful.

IMS isn't the only issue here. What about RMS, faulty ignition switches, weak waterpumps, window regulators, seat belt latches, plastic rear windows, convertible top push rods, and on and on? The OP didn't address a single one of these.

Granted, IMS failures may well be the 'pancreatic cancer' of these cars, especially the mid-gen cars (that's not exactly a revelation). But what comfort is that to those who suffer merely from the 'prostate' or 'melanomic' varieties?

:cheers:

I think the biggest one for me, and despite the respect I have for Jake, is the lifters issue. At first he claimed it was robbing power, now in another post he mentions it is fuel economy and no car dyno'ed gave more than 1hp gain. My mechanic who has rebuilt many a M96 motor hasn't seen these problems. And if it were MPG then why does my 99 still get the same MPG that it was rated for 10 years ago with 89k on the OD (and I keep her in the high revs)?

Chris

Like I said, there are no blanket statements that can be made with these engines and their issues. Some cars that have lifter issues make much more power after they are remedied.. Others lose MPG but never really lose power, and some engines make more power from the factory than others.

It has a lot to do with how many lifters are bad and if they are on the intake or exhaust valves.

What I said was:
Note that is ONE instance with one car. Some engines that we do this work to do pick up power, I have seen as much as 6HP and 11 lb/ft of torque but the biggest difference is the torque and HP plots and their smoothness. In a lot of instances the average power output is increased across the board, not just at peak output and the dip at the variocam changeover point is greatly reduced with the lifter upgrade.

If you have decent gas mileage and decent power don't worry about the lifters... They'll never fail and leave you on the side of the road.

Ok, the lifters might be one of those "while you are in there job," but again, sometimes it's needed. It's a known fact that the wear pads for the variocam on the pre-vane cell adjuster engines are typically worn out by 60-80k miles. So, while you are in there, it's easy enough to pull the lifters and check them while replacing the wear pads and chains. If you end up needing some new lifters, why not replace them all? Or third option, rebuild the set of lifters rather than replacing them- a cheaper third option.

I'll continue to add to the list - chain tensioners. They have been revised and updated, and again, some at even low mileage have excess clatter at startup that may be a lifter or lifters or the chain tensioners. Retail, they are not even that expensive. We reused a set of low mileage tensioners on my 2.9 and even with an accusump pre-oiling the engine, I can hear them. So this winter, they are getting swapped out for new ones. Lifters were new since all of them were bad on the low mileage donor.

This isn't a problem isolated to the M96. Our W8 Passat with 55,000 miles has it's engine out for failed chain tensioners, thankfully under powertrain warranty since it's an 8-10k repair!. Makes the M96 look downright inexpensive to repair!

Unfortunately, frequent oil changes alone aren't a cure for lifters and tensioners. Hell, my W8 had it's oil changes every 5,000 miles (10L fill, half the factory drain interval) with Motul every fill and the tensioners still failed.

We just have to learn to deal with what we are given and work within those constraints.

I think Fred is right on here. I love the Box but this engine and RMS issue has persisted for many years. Ditto, I have never had an engine go bad on me in my 40+ years of driving.

I had a 327 Corvette that I beat as hard as I could, all the time, everytime.

Hey, I was 17. The car had cheap oil in it and perhaps, didn't have enough at times.

Never missed a beat.

I think they call it robust?

My current Lexus is coming up on 140K miles. Just drove it 2000 miles from SD to Des Moines IA. Never missed a beat, didn't burn a drop of oil. The car is 13 yrs old.

Porsche can do better on the engine, no doubt in my mind.

I think most of us can agree, that if you want long term reliability in a car, go Japanese, specifically, Honda or Toyota. Unfortunately, as reliable as those cars are, they're just not that exciting to me.

Thanks Jake and fair enough. I'll deal with them in a few years when it is valve job time. Maybe by then I'll drop in one of yours.
Chris

Just like Jake said, you can't make a blanket statement about everything. Honda and Toyota is known for reliability and so is VW to a lesser degree.

Long ago I had a Toyota Supra that gave me a lot of headaches requiring many long nights repairing. During the same time period I drove my boss's Toyota pickup truck that I drove hard and actually tried to destroy but it proved to be stronger than my attempts to kill it. I also own two Mk4 VWs, a 2000 Jetta and a 2004 GTI, both of which I bought new. Similar cars based on the same platform. I've had nothing but problems with the Jetta (powertrain, electrical, brakes, everything had issues) and the rod just went at 140k blowing the engine. My GTI has been trouble free (knock on wood) requiring only routine maintenance. I've also had a 928S and three 914s that were relatively trouble free and a pleasure to own. I haven't had the Box long enough to make any statement about reliability.

VW has a decent reliability rating but if I only owned the Jetta I'd curse VW for building a lemon like the Jetta but the GTI has given me a great ownership experience. Similarly, some Boxster owners have a relatively trouble free ownership experience while some unfortunate few have multiple engine failures and gremlin possessed cars. In general Porsche has a good reliability reputation (consumer repoerts gives the Boxster a much better than average rating) despite some design flaws. The same can be said for Honda, Toyota and VW.

I can't take it anymore, I'm losing sleep worrying about this and I just bought the car. anybody want to buy an '04 base w/ 14k miles on it?

it's probably on it's last legs... i'll give you $500 for it. :)

So few?
 

"Then why do so few M96s make it to that point?? I agree that there are exceptions, but I rarely get calls from anyone with more than 85K"

Maybe the reason you don't hear from high mileage owners with problems is because your prices are so high that they are just swapping in engines from wrecks as the only economically reasonable alternative to junking the car without investigating you beyond a quick internet price search. When the car is worth $10k running perfectly as many 986s are, it is hard to pay up to double that for an engine. It isn't like these will be collectibles and the emotional attachment of the owner may not be as high as we saw with 914s and 911s. Plus lots of 986 owners have a very different economic profile from the 914/911 owners. (Not disputing the worth of your work or the value received for the money you charge...just that it is high relative to the value of the car's value and so the sample you get is very selective. If my engine blows, I'll ship you my car but it wouldn't make economic sense as I could replace the car for 50-75% of the replacement engine cost. I'll do it for emotional reasons and because I can and not everyone is in that position.)

And I don't understand your wording that "so few M96s make it to that point". You don't hear from 85k+ Boxster owners who aren't having trouble so how can you compare failures to success numbers and say "so few"?

<tangent>
Heh, don't even get me started on Japanese (Lexus, specifically) vs. German consumer-level product engineering and quality. I love my Boxster, but let's get real - German cars are known for doing a lot of things very well, but these days, quality is not one of their strong points. Lexus wins that race by a country mile. (I type this as I'm looking for another IS300... best car I've ever owned.)
</tangent>

Anywho, this is an interesting discussion. I'm looking forward to reading more.

Keep in mind, that with anything of this nature, the people who don't have problems with their cars don't come on these forums to ******************** about it. Therefore, the many Boxster and 996 owners that have actually accumulated significant miles on their cars are out driving them and not commiserating with other owners who have had problems. I would actually say that my Boxster has been one of the most reliable cars I've owned to date. I do realize, however, that many other owners have not had the experience I have, and if I were in that other camp, I'd be just as upset as the others who are.

Personally, while I think Porsche could have done some things different with respect to these engines, issues with plastic rear windows, window regulators, convertible mechanisms, etc are just part of the game with owning a car like this, and not related to engine problems.

You said it Mike.

It is all about sample size, but more importantly, a non-biased sample.

My 2000 S is approaching 80k miles and I have (thankfully) not encountered any of these issues yet. This does not make me an authority on these cars because 1 out of the many millions in the world has not gone bad by 80k.

It is my belief that the best thing anyone can do is to heed the warnings of those in the know, but at the same time use just a modicum of common sense to understand how and why the experts hold such opinions to be true. Nothing can beat backing up one's statements with hard facts and figures, after all, a measurement is not an opinion.

Mike, Lots of the people who contact us have high mileage cars.. A chunk of these have already had a replacement engine, but another good chunk hasn't and they still run fine.

BUT many have just bought the cars with high mileage and gotten them at very good prices because they have high mileage. The majority of what we create is applied to dual purpose DE and street cars that spend more time on the track than the street.. More and more high mileage (less valuable) Boxsters are being made into dedicated tack cars and these people not only want reliability but they also want and need more power.

To them the factory can't give them what they want and therefore the prices we charge for a more thoroughbred engine are much more acceptable. Boxster track cars that are prepped well bring more money than street cars with low mileage and that also lessens the pain from spending money on a blueprinted engine thats built for the application.

I will say that cars that make it past 85K generally won't see any of the standard failures that are most common.. The majority of the failure calls we get range in mileage from 30-65K with an occasional call from a 70K+ owner.

We have begun asking callers if we can record their conversations with us for comparison and posting later, so within 18 months or so we'll have recorded data that we've logged from notes as well as MP3 files from phone chats that can be posted... You'll see that its the same story over and over almost to the word.

You have to remember that only a small portion of Boxster owners are internet junkies.. We have a lot that contact us who have no idea what the prices we charge are or even what an IMS bearing failure is. They are referred to us by our ad in Excellence or by word of mouth as being "The guys that can do the repairs" so they call us absolutely unknowing.. In fact I refer more people to our site than already know about it and send messages of inquiry to us. Heck some people have a failure then go to the dealership and receive a diagnosis only to hear about some broken shaft in the engine and that triggers a google search and then they find out about us.

We are now approaching the time that heavily driven cars are having engines begin to wear out rather than fail.. These made it past the most vulnerable points and continued on to the point where they are consuming oil and making rattling sounds. The amount of these is much higher now than it was a year ago and we are learning from these core engines when they are dissected.

And now what we charge is very close to the factory replacement engines from Porsche, much closer than it was this time last year.. Our prices have stayed the same and even dropped as volumes have increased, while the factory engines continue to see elevated costs periodically.

The people who are purchasing the 986 to be recreated as a track vehicle are generally a little different than the 986 owner who drives the car daily.. Some have a Turbo in their stable or another 911 and they desire the 986 due to it's superior handling. Its also considered a somewhat disposable car if they were to slide off the track, crash and burn.. Then they rip off the suspension, engine and tranny and throw those into another high mileage tub that they might have purchased for as little as 3500 bucks... Then they do it all over again.

You don't see many of this personality type on the forums...

It all really boils down to luck.. So drive the damn car and just don't worry about it. If it breaks you do have options.(It could be worse if those options didn't exist.)

"I will say that cars that make it past 85K generally won't see any of the standard failures that are most common.. The majority of the failure calls we get range in mileage from 30-65K with an occasional call from a 70K+ owner."


Thank you Jake :D , thats what I like to hear, I know you never know, but I will take any sort of encouraging news about our engines I can get.... 90K on the clock and still rolling.


Ed

:dance: :dance: :dance:

Thanks Jake, Mike, et al.

These are good opinions / perspectives to weigh as we rack up the miles. My 01-S is getting ready to go under the knife during the holidays. I track the car 6+ time per year and have noticed the clutch is starting to go. So, I have decided to replace a lot of parts during the holiday break. But first....I am going to use up the last of the clutch teaching two teenage boys how to drive a stick.

I plan to replace IMS, RMS, Clutch (Spec 2), Fly wheel (but I am really debating LWFW vs Dual Mass), half shaft boots, wheel bearings, mounts, ETC. And will start buying the parts in a week or so....my Christmas present to myself and the Box-S.

Thanks once again to Jake and Charles Navarro for taking the time (and $$$) to develop the parts that keep our cars on the road (or in my case...the track).

If Porsche believed that any of their powerplants was supposed to last forever, they'd offer a lifetime powertrain warranty, like the one I've got on my Jeep Patriot. Porsche does not intend for their vehicles to last forever - they intend for them to be performance machines.

The harder you use a piece of equipment, the sooner it will wear out. Indy car motors are designed to go 1200 miles between rebuilds, not because they are crappy motors, but because of how they are used.

Are there weak points in the Boxster engine design? Yes, I think Jake has proved that. Will replacing those guarantee you still won't blow a motor? Nope. They may buy peace of mind, but there is no guarantee. If you have the money and the inclination, absolutely go the Flat6 route. I personally will drive the hell out of my 986 until something breaks, and then I will decide if I want to go with a flat6 upgrade or dump the car as a roller and move on to something else - maybe a Cayman PDK, if my car lasts long enough for prices to come down.

If you can't live with the FACT that any machine will break (even really expensive ones), that the Boxster may be more prone than other machines to break, and that driving it hard will increase the odds that it will break, sell it.

If you can't afford to replace a motor but want a Porsche, buy CPO, don't ever track it or do anything else to jeapordize your warranty coverage, and keep it until the warranty is up and then sell it to someone else. (Note: Please don't be one of the tools I overhear at the track discussing how to best defraud the dealer if they blow a motor at the races. Man, that pisses me off.)

If you don't fall into either of the two preceding categories, go climb into your Boxster, crank the key with your left hand (ain't that a hoot?), feel that flat 6 rumble to life behind your kidneys, and go find yourself a twisty road. Driving a Boxster is like that beautiful girl you dated when you were 16. Who knows how long this is going to last? Enjoy every minute while you can.

Jake and Charles -

Have you run across any 987 IMS problems? If so, approx how many compared to 986?

I've watched the "my engine just blew up" posts and none of them are from owners of 987s. I asked in one post if anyone with a 987 had experienced an IMS failure and no one replied. The OP stated a design change was implemented in the 987 and I'm wondering if it appears Porsche did it better.

What have you found?

Actually, there's a 2005 near the end of the "Short Lived Engine Survey" thread, which had 67 posts. It wasn't obvious how many catastrophic failures there were since the the thread wandered around a bit. I do recall another thread - can't quickly locate it - where there was a running count...guessing it was in the 30 failures range when it petered out.

Somewhat related to this overall reliability issue, there's also an RMS poll that shows about 30% of respondants experiencing RMS leaks.

But...there are over 19 THOUSAND registered members of this forum, and - as has been pointed out seveal times - the registered users of this forum are likely atypical of all boxster owners. So...dozens of complaints from thousands of owners doesn't seem worth obsessing over. Just IMHO.

As John Maynard Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead."

I am new to the forum and owner of 2003 Boxster. I was fully aware of the IMS shaft failure issue when I purchased the car used. I am also an engineer and in my line of work, statistics mean a lot. In many discussions on this topic, I have seen many sad stories as I am sure I would have shared if I had experienced the same problem but what is missing in these stories are the condition of the car, service history, and statistics regarding this problem. I realize we all hold a very high expectation for these cars given their pedigree and the company claims however, they are much better in terms of design compared to other cars in their class. No one has really shared the statistics of this problem and conditions under which this problem occurs. I am sure if you browsed the internet, you would find similar or comparable stories of failures in other high marquee cars such as BMW and Mercedes. Ferrrari's are notorious for failures but people buy and drive them because of what they are not because of how many times they have to fix them. :)