The IMS retrofit SHOULD BE a $1-1500k investment (the other costs should include a new clutch and flywheel, which is a worthwhile repair or replacement on a well used Porsche). It's not a $3k throw-away.

I don't personally believe in doing it on cars like mine (worth $11-14k, 12 years old, etc.)- I might if I needed to get my clutch & flywheel replaced. Some portion of the cars, lets say 3-10%, have this failure. The failure is catastrophic and, besides the water pump, about the only way the car is going to fail after it gets to 50k mles.

If I were shopping for a 97-2004 Boxster (S or not), I would attach a $750-1000 premium to a car that had had it's IMS bearing replaced. Maybe $1500 if the clutch and flywheel were done at the same time and it was relatively recent (i.e. within 3 years/20,000 miles).

That's my own opinion. I don't believe in getting it done for my own car, but a car that had had it done would be a nice thing to have.

I don't really think it matters what your Boxster is worth. Unless the wheels are literraly falling off then most likely you are planning to keep it long term. If keeping an older Boxster is your plan then you are going to end up spending a fair amount to keep it running as a Porsche was intended to be. This is true of all Porsches from rare to common. Point is there's no point in owning one of these cars if its all busted up from outstanding repairs. If you are going to make that committment then there's no logical reason to put off the IMS upgrade. Sure you can wait until the clutch needs replacing but I think this is a dumb move. At most you'll save a few hundred bucks getting a few extra years on that clutch while gambling that if it goes against you it will cost you thousands. Good luck selling a Boxster with no engine.

btw, my dual row IMS was in PERFECT condition when it was extracted.
Until they come up with CAT scans for car engines you can either stress out about possibly being one of the unlucky ones or you can get the upgrade.
No brainer.

I’m am looking for a 2000-04 Boxster in Southern California. Since I am in no hurry, I’m holding out for one with the LN IMS replacement. I’ve seen some in NorCal, but none down here yet. I’m willing to pay $1-2K more with the IMS upgrade, figuring that if they did the upgrade, they also understand the car, and took good care of it. I’ll give it a year before I look at buying a non-upgraded car and having it done after I get it. . Like I said, I’m in no hurry, and can wait for the right car.

Why did I spend the money to replace the bearing in a car barely worth that much. Because I can. And when this Porsche Corolla finally blows up, I will go pay cash for something worth the money, a Corvette ZR-1. And I will let this Porsche piece of crap rust in the backyard. Why, because I can.

You tell 'em! :rolleyes:

your comparing a 100k + zr1 vette to a 10k or so boxster, give me a break. there are some local ads for boxsters in my area . one has 175,000 miles and one has 155,000 . i highly doubt they have any upgrades.

I agree with Dragonwind, this is just TROLLing. If you had 100K cash to drop on a ZR1, why would you be crying about a few grand?

This is close to the dumbest statement I have ever heard.

In relative numbers, there are probably few 986s out there that are upgraded.

In the coming years, there will certainly be many more cars with the IMSR on the market.

As this upgrade proves itself, I firmly believe that retrofitted cars will easily fetch $1k more than cars that don't have the upgrade.


Time will tell but I'm taking the route of action rather than apathy.

The problem is these engines have a couple of other failure modes, upgrading the IMS only fixes one of them.

The failure rate is approx 2%-3%. No one is going to pay $1,000 premium when they can buy hundreds of other cars for less and have a 97% sucess rate.

Unlikely. If you're willing to pay a $2,000 premium then buy one tomorrow and have the upgrade done. No reason to wait.

That is my concern. IIRC, one expert mentions 10 or more modes of failure.
That is why I have ordered the IMSG, even though I may yet get the IMS upgrade.

I'm not sure where you get your 2-3% numbers. Certainly the only company that has a sample large enough to be valid is Porsche, and they will never let us see the numbers.

As the owner of a Porsche service facility, I can tell you that my experience is a failure rate MUCH higher than 3%. Double-digits for sure. But, my sample is relatively small, so I won't waste your time by quoting numbers.

You said "no one will pay more.....". As you can see in a post that almost immediately follows that statement, we have a person in CA who is looking to do exactly that.

There's no point in arguing about it. Let's wait and see.

What data did you use to come up with that 2-3% number?

Would your car
 

now sell faster, easier, better priced? Guess we won't know till you try and sell it. I can tell you the maintenance history and attitude of the seller influenced the buyer of the last Boxster I sold. I had to fight off buyers and I didn't live convenient to a major market.

Everyone has to make their individual choices on how much risk they are willing to take in life and how much they are willing to pay to mitigate the risk.

I turned down an extended warranty when I bought my last Boxster, and didn't do the IMS. Not because I wasn't convinced the LN part is better or the inner-seal-less design isn't better but because I was willing to bet on the odds. You didn't and maybe you spent money you didn't need to or the existing part could have failed next week. We'll never know.

Buying insurance is like that. Sometimes you win (or your survivor does) and sometimes you just sleep better at night.

This is about 6 months after the fact but my dealership, which sells and services most of the Porsches in the region has never seen an IMS failure. With your double-digit experience, are you sharing serial number, build sequence or model year/mileage data with Raby or other people making repairs or keeping data? Additionally since you are a Porsche repair facility, you comprehensive data might be what is needed to "urge" Porsche to cover these issues.

so the question that has not been asked yet is why did you overpay by about 1k to do the retrofit? All the local shops I called here in the Seattle area were about 2k for the IMS retrofit including parts........Im doing it with my tax return so I dont have to dip into savings lol

I performed the retrofit on mine myself since I was pulling the transmission out anyway. I sold the car this past fall, an informed buyer (luckily I had one) will likely understand and pay more for the car as a result. An uniformed buyer (one who bases their decision solely on price) will likely deserve and learn quickly the consequences of getting a "Cheap Porsche".

When I pulled the original IMS bearing out and it to appeared to be in good shape, I simply shook my head and smiled thinking "Well, at least that's something that won't be dwelling in my thoughts anymore". If you're already going in for a clutch change or otherwise, change it out. Until then, keep changing the oil and filter every 3k to 5k miles, JMHO.

And yes, I know a couple of guys who've unfortunately experienced IMS Bearing failures on M96 motors. Read of several more here and on other sites, spoke to techs at independent Porsche shops, it is a known problem.

I also was curious about the IMS bearing issue, so, I went to my local Porsche dealer and had a little quick talk with a couple of P-techs. Letting them know I was in the market for a nice pre-owned Boxster and have heard about the IMS issue. I was told that in their combined years of servicing and repairing Posche's that they have had only one car with an engine failure. I was told that Porsche's love being driven, not sitting...Don't Worry, Be Happy!