Over 90,000 Miles? What Do You Attribute to The Success of an Original IMS
 

I am curious perhaps as many others, if you have an original IMS Bearing and over 90,000 Miles on the original IMS Bearing what do you attribute to maintaining the original IMS Bearing? Or is it Luck?

Mostly luck. You can eat right and exercise but you’re not immune from serious illness. If you keep up with oil changes and drive your Boxster like it’s meant to be driven the risk of IMS failure may be reduced but it still is a matter of chance.

All luck..............

Having a dual row IMS. ;)

I gently caress the dashboard for a moment and close my eyes before turning the ignition key. *This only works if you have the full leather interior.*

+1 for pure luck and I’m not kidding.

Luck is the bottom line, but there are several actions one can take to improve their odds for a longer life.

1) Preserve the integrity of the bearing seals for as long as possible to keep the bearing grease from washing out. This means frequent oil changes; ensuring the car gets up to operating temperature for 20+ minutes when driving; and not letting the car sit for long periods with the IMS seals submerged in acid contaminated oil. Here, clean oil is one's best friend when rolling the IMS dice.

2) Alternatively, open the car up and remove in outer IMS seal to allow oil to lubricate the bearing.

My 01S followed strategy one above up to 120K miles when I changed out the single row bearing for the IMS Solution. The original one looked pristine until I removed the outer seal and noticed the grease was gone. I consider myself lucky and I am convinced my plan allowed the daily driver to reach 120K without an engine destroying failure.

If I keep my 986 for the long term (and there’s no reason to think at this point I won’t) I’ll have my LNE single row classic removed and update to the LN IMS Solution the next time the transmission is pulled or maybe sooner just for the satisfaction of putting this subject to bed.

Manufacturing tolerances on the good side, good oil habits, luck.

Over 90,000 Miles? What Do You Attribute to The Success of an Original IMS
 

Karma? Actually, at just over 111,000 miles, and the fact that there is no
consistent data on which vehicles definitely have dual or single row bearings
I'd say, luck of the draw.

Thing is, from 2000 through 2004, some H6 (m96/m97) engines
had dual row bearings with the redesigned intermediate shaft and some had single
row bearings. There is no way to know which your particular engine actually has
without pulling the transmission and IMS bearing. Even then, you have no way
of knowing which intermediate shaft design your engine has.

In that same period, Boxster, Cayman and 911's all had the same possible failure.

Complicating things further, there were 3 different versions of the intermediate
shaft. All 3 could and did, use either type of bearing. The sad thing
is, a few companies are making a lot of money, selling "redesigned" bearings.

This would be great except, they only warrant the bearing against failure for 2
years or 24,000 miles. The stock bearing generally lasts at least that long. Usually
much longer.

96/97 through 2000 had an average failure in the 1 to 2% rate. Late 2000 to 2004
saw that failure rate increase to 8% or so. Seriously, how many 911's have you heard
of with this failure? Same engine, same bearings, same intermediate shaft designs.

Model year 2001 saw only 2093 failures out of 26,165 units built/sold worldwide. Only 211 in the USA. You have better odds of contracting some fatal disease or being hit
by a bus.

Sorry, but that is way off the mark. All 97-99 are dual row IMS bearings; 2000-2001 is a transitional period when it could go either way, and the ONLY way to know it to visually inspect the IMS flange, which will 100% confirm which style is in the engine. From 2002-2004, ALL engines were single rows; and 2005 is another transitional year where visual inspection is required to see if it is a single row or the third design, non serviceable IMS. From 2006 to 2008, they are all non serviceable type, as were all replacement engines after 2005.

As for failure rates between Boxsters and 911's, the failure rates were identical; around 10% or so for the single rows, and around 2% for the dual rows. Estimates for the third design are more sketchy as most failures were covered under warranty. Best guess from those outside warranty is 1-2%

Just got an email from LN. It had a link where Jake Raby talks about extending IMB lifetimes. Really interesting stuff...

https://www.pca.org/news/2018-01-05/pca-spotlight-extending-life-your-original-ims-bearing-0

A good meta analysis of how to extend the original IMS bearing posited from an expert in the field of maintenance

I attribute it to you being part of the 92% of lucky M96 owners?

I attribute it to listening to lots of Iron Maiden. S'all.

As the video clip states, change the oil regularly, keep the RPMs up, don't lug it down.
One thing I have started doing is before I change my oil, I'll us a fuel treatment, drive a tank a gas on long drives then change the oil. My understanding, those fuel treatments help to contaminating the oil as they clean.
Checking magnetic plug and filter gives you a glimpse at wear. Dropping the sump also gives you an good view into wear debris. Thing is if you see something awful, it's probably to late to just change out the bearing.

I don’t think it all comes to luck though.. it certainly plays a role but up to a point. For example if you don’t warm up your car properly, it’s extremely bad.. Next thing is oil changes per 5-7k miles and proper driving !

Yeah, luck plays a roll, but I’m not sure that’s all of it. I think those that have failed were duds and the ones that haven’t were built better. Plus there is always the “Monday car” the 986 just had a few more.

I am surprised no one mentioned the alignment issue. It has been discussed at length previously.