Almost made it to 100k

[boxster7614]

My 2000 triptronic boxster almost made it to 100k right now I'm at 99,500 I started hearing a rattling sound the other day thought for sure dreaded IMS bearing because of all the hype about it ( I think we all live in fear) every time I hear a noise......oh no here we go. First thing i did was jackup the car.....I had a loose heat sheild rattling. fixed that.......still a rattling sounding like bearings failing. So I pulled the engine lid and pulled the belt off. started car and the noise stopped. a Sigh of relief because at that point I knew It was not the IMS bearing. Started spining pulleys........upper and lower idler pulley bearings were shot they would shake back and forth in my hand. So I ordered them from suncaost ($60 cheaper than the local stealer ship). put them on, put my belt back on, and started her up....... hoping to hear sweet silence. But no luck still had a bearing sound. So I pulled the belt back off and listened again and it was silent. I must be missing something.....I thought. So I spun all the pulleys and found that my powersteering pump is the culpret. So I just ordered one off ebay and looks like I will be diving into that when it gets here. So all you guys with higher milage boxsters you might want to check all your pulleys. Other repairs I've had to make were AOS (50k), 4 sway bar links and rear track arms because of rattles(75k). Alarm brain went bad at 46k Porsche made a good will warranty. Top was replaced under warranty (42k) cracked window and cracked again at 82k and was replaced with robbins glass top.

[scwerks]

good luck with the fix. i'm just curious if you changed out the transmission fluid and filter at 90k as recommended. if so, did you do it yourself and did you take it to a shop?

[mikefocke]

How many would it take to impress you that it is real? 4 in the same car? 10+ a week? Those are real figures. Does it mean every car will fail...not by a long shot. But absolute denial is no more the reality than the sky is falling.

You didn't hear about it for a while because Porsche was taking care of things via an engine swap to keep the lid on what was really happening. Then all you heard about were failures because no one was pulling the engines apart and analyzing them and then talking. And because the price or repair or replacement was now so amazingly high relative to the value of the car in the used car market that people spoke up about it. (My Chrysler long block replacement cost $1800 parts and labor)

Then some folks did and they got accused of being promoters and profiteers...by the same few people. I prefer to think that, without them, we'd be less knowledgeable and have less options. Thanks Charles, Ed, Jake.

Endless reports and threads online, sure. People have a problem or hear of it and don't use the search capability so it shows up as a new and repetitive thread.

(no financial connection to any repair procedure or business or car manufacturer)

[Jake Raby]

"You signed it"????

Who the hell are you? Illustrate a little bit of intestinal fortitude and reveal yourself.

So how long can we expect to see smart assed comments from you?

When you will believe that the issue exists is when you find yourself on the side of the road.. Just like Cancer, its something that happens to other people until YOU get the diagnosis.

If you have an issue with me then take that issue up with me.

FWIW- The vast majority of our business doesn't come from preventives, it comes from engines that have already failed.. Those people understand the reality of this failure. One of them recently experienced a full blown engine failure while he was on our wait list to have a preventive procedure carried out. He is a member here, ask him about it.

[Perfectlap]

There have been three IMS failures on this message board since I joined a few years back. That's troubling because we have a small membership here.

I waited for my clutch to kick the bucket before upgrading the IMS but if I had to do it again I wouldn't have waited that long. Better to replace the clutch and IMS in one shot and take a loss on the prematurely replaced old clutch. In the end you still get a new clutch to put down the power and have removed a great deal of the uncertainty. If your car has more than 60K miles I think holding onto a clutch in its last 30% of life and thus postponing the IMS upgrade is not worth the gamble. For an experienced Porsche mechanic, this is not a complicated job.

[23109VC]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

There have been three IMS failures on this message board since I joined a few years back. That's troubling because we have a small membership here.

I waited for my clutch to kick the bucket before upgrading the IMS but if I had to do it again I wouldn't have waited that long. Better to replace the clutch and IMS in one shot and take a loss on the prematurely replaced old clutch. In the end you still get a new clutch to put down the power and have removed a great deal of the uncertainty. If your car has more than 60K miles I think holding onto a clutch in its last 30% of life and thus postponing the IMS upgrade is not worth the gamble. For an experienced Porsche mechanic, this is not a complicated job.

I have a 2000 base... it is close to turning 80k and I KNOW it's the OEM clutch... the motor was swapped out by Porsche at about 15-20k miles b/c the orifginal one had repeated RMS leaks... I'm guessing they resed the clutch when they did the engine swap..so my clutch is stock. it doesn't slip, but's it's close to being replaced.

to do the clutch job - parts/labor AND the IMS upgrade (parts/labor) what am I looking at $$ wise? I will take it to a porsche independent..not the stealer..

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by sppmo

"There have been three IMS failures on this message board since I joined a few years back. That's troubling because we have a small membership here. "

Wow - I would have guessed more by the posts. See what I mean by perception? I've been one here for over a month and thought the count was way higher. Thanks for that information.

I counted over 19,000 registered members. Members list (30 per page x 647 pages) 30x647= 19,410

But I'm sure people come and go.


FYI: jmho (just my humble opinion).

I doubt there are more than 40 regular posters on this board. Most only come on to ask a question or lurk. When I said 3 failures I was only including members who posted here regularly. For such a small group that seems WAY TOO HIGH.
I've found similar situation occuring on the Pelican and Rennlist 911 forums. Small comunities with a few too many of these catastrophic engine fails.
Obviously not scientific but I think the probabibility of the failure is one of those type of pitfalls that can happen at any time to any car and the mere fact that it rarely happens is more a matter of chance. I don't like leaving my car up to chance.

[fatmike]

Congratulations to the OP on almost making it to 100K. I hope your fixes go well and you make 6 digits. It's good to hear that is possible.


I'm pushing 44K miles now, and I will be quite happy if my car makes it anywhere near 100K.