Cylinder sleeves

[MNBoxster]

Hi,

The issue was not a lack of blocks. It was a production run of reject blocks, something like 3600 in total ('99 MY production was 22,063 units, so maybe 16.5% of all '99's were affected). Demand for the car was so high that Porsche chose to sleeve the substandard blocks to prevent interupting supply of '99 model year cars only, and they were distributed worldwide, not specifically to the US Market.

Most failed early in their life/mileage and had their engines replaced with standard non-sleeved engines.

The odds of coming across one today which has not been addressed is probably 1/10th the odds of having RMS failure. It simply isn't an issue which should concern you.

Excellence may have done a recent article, but they either found one of the few remaining cars (beating the odds as I said), or in a need to come up with a few column-inches resurrected the past. The Press and Hearsay have blown this all out of proportion.

I own a '99 and if buying another, I wouldn't even consider this issue at all...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[Brucelee]

I think Jim's facts are accurate.

[DVST8]

Originally Posted by Brucelee

I think Jim's facts are accurate.

So what about the 98 that I'm looking at that that 'says' it had an engine replaced due to a sleeve failure? Sounds like this should have never been the case; anomaly?

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by DVST8

So what about the 98 that I'm looking at that that 'says' it had an engine replaced due to a sleeve failure? Sounds like this should have never been the case; anomaly?

Hi,

I think you're confusing twp separate issues. There were issues with sleeved engines in the '99 model year as described here, but the '98s were unaffected.

Some '97s and '98s suffered engine failures from issues with the Cylinder Lining (Locasil), not Liners. You can't have a raw alloy cylinder because it's too soft to withstand any apreciable wear. The cylinder must be lined with a much harder substance such as a ceramic.

Check out this thread - http://www.986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=37846#post37846 and maybe it'll shed a little more light. Again, if the engine has already been replaced (especially if it has racked up a few miles since), it's a non-issue. Hope this helps...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[Brucelee]

BTW-That sleeve issue is something that Porsche should be duly ashamed of.

The Nykosill issue impacted BMW as well.

[DVST8]

Thanks guys. This really cleared things up for me.

[MikenOH]

Where did you get the 3600 figure for the number of sleeved blocks?

I ask since the window on these blocks is usually noted as 10-98 through 2-99. If they were building roughly 1900 cars/month and the problem with the supplier ran 4-5 months, the number would seem to be a lot higher. Or were they building cars with both good quality blocks and sleeved blocks at the same time?