IMS issue - What Years? - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Jake Raby · 05-16-2011, 04:47 AM

All years and models are impacted by the IMS bearing issues. No particular year is better or worse based on the data I have collected when dealing with failure calls.

thstone · 05-16-2011, 10:32 AM

Yes, today is a perfectly good day to buy a Boxster and not worry about an IMS issue. Tomorrow is just as good. And the day after that.

IMS failures do occur but the percentage is low and the issue is, IMHO, blown out of proportion to the actual probability of having a failure.

Change your oil frequently, drive your car like it was meant to driven, and sleep easy.

DEye · 05-16-2011, 10:22 PM

Your little Pep talk did a little to chase away those Dark and Scary IMS Clouds and I may sleep better tonight - but that littlle Devil :dance: will still be there in the back of my mind...

Dave S. · 05-17-2011, 07:53 AM

Changing your oil frequently is always a good idea, but I'm always surprised when people say that in regards to the IMS bearing since it is a sealed bearing.

harryrcb · 05-18-2011, 04:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave S.

Changing your oil frequently is always a good idea, but I'm always surprised when people say that in regards to the IMS bearing since it is a sealed bearing.

Dave, that's because oil still finds it's way into the intermediate shaft and to the bearing which then washes the grease out of the "sealed" bearing most likely due to heat expansion. Unfortunately the oil does not get replaced in that tube too often unless perhaps you drive the car like you stole it, then newer oil gets to it eventually. I have replace several bearings that have been tracked regularly (almost monthly) and driven hard even on the street with 3-5k oil changes and in one case the bearing had 98k with the bearings in perfect condition however none of them had grease in them. On the other hand I just replaced one where the car was babied and the oil changed only around 10k , the bearing failed at 33k. my opinion is that because the oil was not changed often and the car not driven hard at all the newer oil did not get a chance to "splash" up into the bearing shaft and oil broke down along with the bearing.

Jake Raby · 05-18-2011, 06:15 AM

A tremendous amount of the IMS failure is dependent upon luck..

The key is failure prevention. I have devised a method that will make failure prevention much easier in the future. It will sell for 1/10 the cost of an IMS retrofit procedure.

jaykay · 05-18-2011, 07:12 AM

With the retro fit in place, are we able to ease up on the loud pedal to save wear on other parts or are there other sensitive components?

harryrcb · 05-18-2011, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

A tremendous amount of the IMS failure is dependent upon luck..

The key is failure prevention. I have devised a method that will make failure prevention much easier in the future. It will sell for 1/10 the cost of an IMS retrofit procedure.

What device Jake? Is it on your web site? If it works the price (1/10th of retrofit) would certainly be enought insentive for everyone to jump on it.