Engine failure - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Perfectlap · 08-12-2011, 08:02 AM

The PCNA service manager asking if the car was serviced at a Porsche dealer seems ironic.

1-They were recommending oil change intervals that made the problem worse.
2-They were using oil (M1) that at some point changed for the worse.
3-They probably never inspected the oil filter for the cracked pepper size seal fragments.
4-They never advised their Boxster/996 owners that they should be putting a minimum number of miles on their cars per month to maintain proper IMS bearing lubrication.
5-They never informed the Boxster/996 owners that there was an issue whose cause had not been fully determined so they should take steps to address 1 - 4 above in accordance with the 'precautionary principle'.

What I'm saying is that you'd probably have been BETTER off with an indy Porsche specialist, or a well-informed and unconflicted specialist, leading up to the IMS failure.
Or stated another way, you were WORSE off going to the dealer for service.
Actually you may not have had the failure to begin with if you opted for the specialist over the dealer.

Overdrive · 08-12-2011, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

4-They never advised their Boxster/996 owners that they should be putting a minimum number of miles on their cars per month to maintain proper IMS bearing lubrication.

Since you mentioned this it got me wondering if anyone has determined a minimum monthly/annual mileage for the car's well-being? I haven't seen anything on here or elsewhere with a figure. Got one?

Perfectlap · 08-12-2011, 01:56 PM

That might be tough to figure out since most people own another car so the Boxster never really has a predictable pattern. One guy might drive the car 10K a year but usually on long trips with weeks at a time of the car sitting dry. Another guy might have very low mileage but makes frequent local trips. I'm pretty sure you'd want the car with low miles that was put through the gears with more frequency. Yet conventional wisdom would make the buyer skeptical about buying a low mileage car.
Using total miles to pinponit the highest likelyhood of a IMS failure can be misleading.
The data logger would have to ask the driver some questions about how frequently the car was drive, for example how often gas fill ups were needed. Logic being a guy who only gassed up the car once a month is a red flag.

Maybe its not so much mileage but time. As in the dealer should tell the owner "be sure to put at least 60 minutes on the car every week and no you can't do the whole month's time at at once, that defeats the purpose".

Either way that's definitely a question for the Flat6 Innovations guys.

jacabean · 08-12-2011, 04:50 PM

i honestly think it's all a crap shoot. a well maintained , driven car seems to be the way to go . the porsche gods control the whole ims thing .

Paul · 08-12-2011, 06:42 PM

Once again let me remind you that the IMS is only one of the problems as witnessed by the failure of my motor.

Brucelee has the best answer, don't drive one of these without a factory warranty.

I'm thinking I will not buy a another new Porsche until Porsche offers a 10 year 100,000 mile drivetrain warranty as an option or better yet as the standard warranty. I recently tried to buy a new 2011S but I could not even negotiate a CPO 6 year 100,000 mile warranty.

Maybe Porsche could offer owners of cars that had the engine blow due to nothing more than the design, the ability to buy a new Porsche of their choice with a 10 year, 100,000 warranty? If they have solved the issues, it should cost them nothing.