What constitutes a bad engine mount?
 

How do you know if its going bad? Thanks for your responses! Jon

overly sloppy shifting and clunking noise when releasing clutch. for me. replaced with 987 model for free through dealer. kinda like a worn out universal joint or rear diff type problem. all is silky smooth now.

I haven't seen one last more thjan 40K yet.. If the car has more than 30K more than likely it is bad and will have the symptoms listed earlier in the thread.

I have 18500 on the clock now. When I update ims bearing should I update this too?

What product should I purchase when I do? I plan on keeping my car for a long time and want to do it right.

The engine mount is opposite the end of the engine that houses the IMS bearing..

No need to do both of them at once unless you want to...

Drive that car.

Significant fore/aft movement of the shifter when it's in gear depending on whether you're accelerating or not is in my opinion an indicator of a bad mount.

Accelerate to 50 or 60, leaving the car in third gear, foot off the clutch. With your hand resting on the shifter, depress the accelerator (a good amount - say 80%), then roll back off the gas. Repeat a few times.

On my (bad) OEM mount, the shifter would move fore and aft a significant amount, but I initially chalked it up as a Boxster idiosyncrasy.

Since replacing with the Pedro mount, there is absolutely no perceptible movement.

Really wish I had more time too drive it. The world of architecture keeps me busy. Add family on top of that and its really hard. Wife wants me to get a 911 to "share" more family time with my two daughters... I will eventually but want to keep the 986 as i just love the design.

+1.

Seriously, drive that car!
An '01 with 18k miles on it?
Get in it and drive.

BC.

Also an increasingly obvious resonant vibe as you decelerate through 3000 rpm-that's what mine exhibited, and was completely torn when yanked at 45K.

Sloppy shifting, check.
Clunking noise, check.

Since I will be changing out my spark plugs in the up and coming week I am now going to be conducting an engine mount swap as well. I understand there are two mounts in the rear and one in the front. Would I swap out all three?

I only did the front mount and that took care of the sloppy shifting/clunking. Its my understanding that the tranny mounts are gel and less likely to need replacing. The front one made all the difference for me.

Excellent. Two less than I expected to buy, thank you.

"I have 18500 on the clock now"

Don't feel bad...my 02 just broke 17k miles and is likely done for the year, as fun time driving is nearly over in northern Illinois.

The only time I drive the Box is for pleasure and when I will be certain to drive long/hard enough to get it good and hot...no short trips for me. I may just change the engine mount to get some additional feedback...I'm used to solid mounts all around in my 911, though not practical for the street.

There's always next year!

Another data point:
I replaced my engine mount today at 32k miles (went with the 987 mount). When I first removed the old one, I thought it still looked good, but when I put the bolt back into it and flexed it a bit, I could see large cracks.

The installation process was longer and more difficult than I expected. Had to go out and buy a deep 15mm socket. Can't see a way to do the job without one of those.

Results: the clutch chatter when backing into the garage has gone away completely! I also had intermittant clutch chatter when going forward as well. That seems to be gone too.

In both of the close-up photos, I'm flexing the mount with the bolt so you can see the cracks (you can only see the bolt in one of the photos, but it's being used from the other side in the other photo)