Another engine saved! - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Dragonwind · 10-13-2009, 05:05 PM

I'm happy to say that I just received word today that my 1999 Boxster is all set on the IMS bearing upgrade. When I asked how the old one looked he told me it was just starting to go and probably had another 7-10k left on it.

Next I need to get some dings out, the wheels refinished, and the front bumper touched up. After that perhaps lifters (unless I get the C4 as a daily driver). I had the work done at Musante Motorsports in CT in case anyone was interested.
:dance:

Chris

Jake Raby · 10-13-2009, 05:42 PM

Great!! I have extracted two bearings in two days.. One had failure imminent, the other was near flawless. One came from an '02 S that was driven to my facility from New Jersey, the customer decided to deliver it himself. I drove that car home tonight- FLAWLESS! I'll re-dyno it and compare baselines before and after and send him back home..

Would you mind sending me the extracted bearing? I am logging all this info from as many as possible.

jotoole · 10-14-2009, 01:05 AM

I have an artic silver my 2000 Boxster 2.7 with just over 80,000 miles. Bought it 18 months ago at 70,000 mi. PPI by a trusted indi (but he's not a Porsche specialist) turned up nothing unusual, he replaced rms due to seepage per latest tech bulletin along with the recommended 70k service items, including new clutch, fuel filter, drive belt, etc...

Exterior and interior excellent shape except for plastic rear window showing it's age. Everything works, no tricks. Love the car. It gets many compliments from unexpected sources. Elderly folks, kids, teenagers. A pleasant surprise.

Question is: How do Boxsters fare in the LONG run. A previous car, a 1976 242 Volvo went over 200,000 mi (that's where odometer gave out) no issues, just regular maintenance. Same with my current 4 cylinder 1993 Camry w/135,000 mi. Literally drives and rides like new.

The Boxster's build quality seems on par with the Volvo's - solid.

Boxster seems like such a great, fun car, not to mention classic looks, I'm surprised I don't see a whole lot of posts referring to high mileage Boxsters.

So my question: is this car worth the IMS upgrade in the long run? Or more to the point: Percentage-wise, do Boxsters tend to be long lived, at least 150k?

Other posts about 100k+ Boxters don't seem very encouraging.

Thanks for any feedback!

jotoole

Dragonwind · 10-14-2009, 03:15 AM

Greetings Jotoole,
That is sort of a loaded question. Only now are most people's Boxsters hitting the high milage area. I drive mine as much as possible year round other than in snow (yet). The Achilles' Heel of the car is the IMS bearing and unfortunately you just had all things done that are in the area where it is located. I was in the same boat as I just had the clutch done last year but the extraction method for the double row didn't exist then anyways.

As for the car being worth the IMS upgrade? I would say absolutely yes! Sure depreciation has made it very cheap right now but I wouldn't be surprised to see if just the mention of the IMS retrofit would increase the value. Financially it is cheap insurance against a blown motor. Sure there are other potential areas but I think none are more prominent than the IMS.

The other side is emotional. Do you enjoy the car a lot? Does it put a big smile on your face? For me it is me go to car and will be more so now that I am adding a garage.

Chris

Dragonwind · 10-14-2009, 03:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

Would you mind sending me the extracted bearing? I am logging all this info from as many as possible.

I emailed Chris at the shop but I suspect they tossed it already. Sorry I should have asked before hand.
Chris

EDIT: Received a reply from Chris and he is doing the same thing.

Jake Raby · 10-14-2009, 04:46 AM

Did he cut the bearing open to see the condition of the races and rollers?? Thats what I have been doing; trying to establish trend data as fast as possible.

jotoole,
If the cars weren't worth the repairs/updates my company and LN Engineering would not have taken the time to develop all of these processes and components.

These cars are very much worthy of the repairs.

Dragonwind · 10-15-2009, 03:12 AM

For anyone that is interested in cost here is what I had done.

IMS Kit
RMS
Oil & Filter Change (Motul)

After labor and tax: 2311.05.

If I had skipped the RMS it would have been closer to 2k but I wanted whatever could be done done while the tranny was off.

Chris

Bobiam · 10-15-2009, 05:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

Did he cut the bearing open to see the condition of the races and rollers?? Thats what I have been doing; trying to establish trend data as fast as possible.

jotoole,
If the cars weren't worth the repairs/updates my company and LN Engineering would not have taken the time to develop all of these processes and components.

These cars are very much worthy of the repairs.

Jake...What is the cost of IMS bearing replacement? I've purchased an extended warranty to protect me, but there is nothing protecting the car!!

10-15-2009, 07:05 AM

IMS failures are the most confusing and exasperating issue for new Boxster owners. I recently purchased a 1999 with 74K mi. The Carfax history indicated it had been a lease car for several years and all maintenance had been done in accordance with the lease and records I could track down from dealers indicated nothing major had been done to the car, yet there was a year period where there was no record of maintenance. I had purchased the car (my first Porsche) on impulse breaking all the rules with no PPI. Since there is no dealer close by I found a highly recommended local independent repair shop and took my car to them. After the mechanic went over my car and told me all the things that could go wrong with it including the dreaded IMS failure and the RMS I started to think I had made a huge error in judgement. While paying for the 60K tuneup (no record of it being done) and new rotors I had a chance to talk with the owner, who is a long time Porsche driver, and he told me that if the IMS is going to fail typically it would have happened by now. I know that is not an absolute but it was comforting compared to what I had heard. I decided to drive the car and enjoy it, have started AXing it and tracked it last weekend at Infineon. I've met a lot of Boxster owners at these events who are running 100K+ miles Boxsters with no IMS failures, one is even approaching 200K mi. Maybe I'm naive about it but it seems the harder I drive this car the better it responds and I'm going to continue to race it as well as drive to the market for milk and bread in it and not worry about IMS or RMS. As a final to my story I showed my mechanic the Raby cure for IMS failure and he told me if you install it you have a bullet proof motor and can completley forget about IMS.

MikenOH · 10-15-2009, 11:07 AM

should be a 4 digit number on the driver side door sticker (near the door bottom).
original or replacement motor?

10-16-2009, 06:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikenOH

should be a 4 digit number on the driver side door sticker (near the door bottom).
original or replacement motor?

MikenOH will the number tell me if it is an original or replacement? If not I have no way of knowing. The original dealer that leased the car is no longer in business and the other dealers that I could track down, that serviced the car, don't show anything major happening to the car. As you know CarFax does not list independent mechanics or what they did they just list a service being done. I'll check the number later today and post.
Update- 06/98 in Finland.

MikenOH · 10-16-2009, 11:42 AM

IIRC, the only way you can tell if it's a replacement motor is that there is something on the serial number to ID it as such. Other on the board may know what that is.

I only mention it since there was a range of engines on the '99' model ( I used to have one) that were produced with "pushed in" cylinder sleeves, because of a casting problem with the supplier of the blocks at that time.

Essentially, because of a shortage of good blocks, they had to take rejects and machine them to take a regular cylinder liner that was pressed in instead of the cast process that was being used. A number of engines with the pressed in liners failed because the liners started to move around after a while, causing an engine failure.

The cars affected were produced somewhere in a 10/98--3/99 time frame. If you have a June car, the odds are probably good it wasn't affected and has the original motor.

jmatta · 10-16-2009, 01:38 PM

If I remember, the engines with the slipped sleeve problems failed quite early in the car's life...at 74k miles, it surely would have failed a long time ago (Jake can tell the tale better than I can repeat it).

The IMS update is well worth the money...I'm saving up for mine as it sleeps over the winter. I'd like to find someone local to the Chicago market to do the work next spring; I wish my Indy P-car tuner was interested.

10-16-2009, 04:59 PM

7400 or 74000 it doesn't matter to me, I bought my Porsche to drive not to sit it in a garage and obsess about IMS, RMS or PMS. My Box sits outside in a covered parking spot and when it rains it gets wet and I drive it in the rain, to the market, to the track and on back country twisty roads. The only special treatment it will get this winter is a beefier suspension and a better intake and exhaust system so it's track ready come spring. If you buy a high performance car and drive it the way it was built to drive things will wear out and break. If the engine blows maybe I'll make it into a spec car for the track and look around for someone's garage queen to buy at a good price and thank them for keeping the mileage down and in pristine condition until I came along.