Car trouble, various issues, UPDATE, engine rebuild required

Here we go again, the car is kicking up a stink, I always say they should be used and as it was sat from August from last year until June this year awaiting a gearbox rebuild, I expected a couple of problems. It was fine until I actually got a few miles in to the Autoroute when I noticed a little vibration coming through the car, felt a little like a wheel weight had gone AWOL and I thought nothing of it as it was hardly noticeable. I also found the front brakes had a bit of a grind to them even though I had checked them before I left, I had decided there was enough meat on them for the 2000 miles I'd be covering over the week. It was only noticeable at high speed braking and there was a little bit of a wobble through the steering wheel when on the brakes. I was due to go over the Vosges mountain in France but I decided to give them a miss with the brakes being substandard and stayed on the Autoroute. We stopped at Mulhouse for the Schlumpf Collection and as the missus opened the passenger door she couldn't get it open, the door glass didn't drop, she tried again and it went down, this happened a few times over the trip but no biggie, I'd sort that when I got home. We arrived at our final destination and as I was due to go over the Furka and Grimsel I would need to change the front brake pads, so I ordered a new set from Bern OPC and went there the next day to collect them, £200 (around £120 more than I would normally pay) out of pocket later I'd fitted the drivers side in about 15 minutes but the retaining pin on the passenger side took a little more persuasion and as I didn't have a my full garage of tools with me it took some persuasion with a hammer I bought from the local COOP and a phillips screwdriver from my tool roll but 1 hour later they were both done and ready to do some passes. That afternoon I took the car up the Grimsel and felt a little fuel starvation going up, I have had this issue at various times in the past few years but with all the new fuel and EVAP system I had fitted recently I didn't expect there to be an issue at altitude. It got worse as I went up Furka pass so I only went as far as the Belvedere Hotel/Rhone Glacier and after a stop up there for a while we made our way back the way we came, it really was a struggle to get back up the Grimsel but it made it. The issue is, it seems the fuel cuts out and then after a few seconds of coasting it kicks back into life, it really is a pain going up hill. The car was used at normal street level and didn't have an issue. At the end of the week we packed and made our way towards home with one final stop in France before the tunnel, I got to the Vosges mountain that I had missed on the way over due to brake pads, I needed fuel but couldn't find a station, I had enough fuel to get over the mountains so I just thought I'd fill up on the other side, immediately as soon as I started to climb I got the hesitation that normally only ever happened at around 2000m, the Vosges only goes up to around 1200m and its highest point, this was becoming a pain now and seemed to be getting worse. On the Autoroute again I was getting stalling then kicking back in to life again, I filled up and the issue seemed to go away until a few more hours in to the journey and it started again, the only option was to keep the tank brimmed once it got to around half a tank, this seemed to cure it, again something to look at when I got home, I did wonder if the pump had come loose in the tank?? We stopped at the services for a break and when I went around the back of the car, the N/S rear light was missing, the bolt and a bit of plastic from the light was still attached so it must have fell out at some point, I'd not noticed or heard it happen, it was 41 degrees and with the heat from the engine I assumed the plastic had fatigued and broken the plastic, it may have already cracked and the crazy heat had done the rest. I wired an indicator bulb into the original plug and taped it into the aperture, so at least I had some indication, although no brake light and side light but as I was driving in daylight that didn't matter too much. After our final stop in France we crossed back into the UK and in really heavy, stop/start traffic coming up to the Dartford tunnel, the car made an awful noise, there was a thud followed by, what sounded like at the time, the underside plastics dragging on the floor but the engine also stalled at the same time which made be think this wasn't the plastics and something more serious had happened, I was in lane 4 with no hard shoulder so I put my hazards on and had to roll across all 4 lanes, as you can imagine with it being the South East no one wanted to let me into their lane, I eventually managed to coast to the slip road of 1a but the car ground to a halt before getting all the way off. I put the triangle out further up the slip road and we got our hi viz tabbards on and called the breakdown company. Luckily if it is engine related I was only doing around 5mph at low revs just nudging forward as the car in front moved. A motorway traffic officer arrived about 100m away up the road and closed all 4 lanes to traffic and hooked a tow rope on and towed me all the way off the motorway to the tanker holding area. When the recovery truck arrived around 2 hours later he said we weren't allowed in the cab with him due to C19 and a taxi would be arranged to take us home, we took the cab the 150 miles home and £530 cost of the cab, luckily the breakdown company covered that cost. This happened on Saturday but I only got the car back late on Wednesday afternoon, I have had a look underneath the car and nothing is out of place, I checked driveshafts, brakes, etc to make sure they were all in place, obviously the plastics were all intact. I turned the engine by hand and after 4 revolutions nothing was binding, I then turned the rear wheels one at a time, in gear and in neutral and that all seemed fine. I can't hear anything binding but I daren't turn the engine over on the starter in case something internally has broken and I make it worse? Just thinking what my next move is, I may remove the gearbox as it could be a flywheel or clutch issue or something else in the bellhousing, the gearbox was fitted a couple of months ago after being rebuilt so it could be something in there but I keep coming back to ask myself why the engine stalled if it is transmission problems?

Yesterday after I'd inspected the underside of the car I wanted to just check the fuel tank internals were all in place, I pulled everything out and inspected. The pump was mounted correctly so that wasn't the starvation problem and I also checked the screen filter at the base of the pump and that was reasonably clean with only a couple of bits on it so I cleaned them off anyway, definitely not enough to block flow. So either the pump is slowly giving up the ghost but that shouldn't make any difference to the level of fuel in the tank or the pressure regulator is not working as it should. I tested the fuel pressure at the the engine recently when I was trying to get it through it's MOT on emissions, that was slightly lower than it should be but I also couldn't fully seal the tester on the fuel rail so would assume it was correct or near enough? The strange thing is with the starvation, I can make it happen after coasting off the throttle, add a little throttle, it will stall/starve, (even though I'm still rolling) and I can count down 5 second exactly, every time and I know there will be power there again when I go back on the throttle, before 5 seconds there will be nothing, this may happen a couple of times every few miles. Very strange but what ever it is it had go worse the further I had driven. I don't think my noise issue and the fueling are connected problems? Also to add one other issue I missed above, my PSM/ABS light came on the dash twice on the trip which cleared once I'd stopped the car and turned the car on again, I guess that could be related to the MAF. I only have two fault codes, P0444 and P1109 but I think these were from when I was disconnecting the purge valve to see if that cured the hesitation up the mountains. Quite a lot to take in with all the issues above :x

I'm glad the car is finally home and you can get about sorting it out. As ever, kudos to you for using your 911 as the Porsche Gods intended. I'd never attempt the trips that you make in anything older than my car. Looking forward to hearing details/seeing pics of the upside of your trip. :thumbs:

It took some doing, getting it back, ADAC had originally said I pay for the taxi and I can claim 50 euro back if I send them the receipt, my plan was just to hire a car on a one way contract but the AA then called me to say they are arranging a taxi. When I was in the taxi around 30 miles form home ADAC called and left a voicemail saying they can't pay that much for a taxi ride, I thought tough, I'm almost home and it was already paid for. That's when ADAC started to get shirty, they first said they could only recover the car to the nearest garage no more than 10 miles from the breakdown site, it was already in the recovery companies yard at Tilbury at this time. They then said they may be able to take it as far as 300 Euro would take it and I would have to collect from there. I got the AA and ADAC to bang their heads together and eventually 4 days later the car arrived for free but on the back of an AA truck, I assume to save the cost of contracting it out to the recovery company. They had told me the 996 may even beat me home on the day it broke as it originally set off 45 minutes before I did in the taxi but something changed their mind and it became a fight to get it home. It has only ever not made it home under its own steam twice in the 90k miles I have done in it previous to this and I feel I can tackle most things at the side of the road if there are minor problems but I do have confidence in the car knowing what it has done before but I also have to think that it is almost 20 years old now. I'm just gutted that the two trips abroad this year, one just before lockdown and one after that both cars didn't make it home without transportation, although this one did almost make it home, the 944 didn't even make it there. I will write up a thread with the positives from the trip at some point when I'm not rolling around under the car?

You poor sod, its so disheartening when stuff really goes wrong. Like others have said, at least its home now, try and recover yourself before you start on the car...

With your current luck Chris, when your ship comes in you'll be at the airport.

And if it did come in it would probably be full of ammonium nitrate

Well at least the flight home would be quick.

Some thoughts .. P0444 is evap code .. pm me an email addy if you want the test plan .. P1109 doesn't show up as a Porsche code but its in the oxygen sensor range of codes which would make sense with a fueling issue ... interested to know what your tester related it to ? Evap system .. in essence its only there to use the good burnable vapours from the fuel tank .. the car will run fine if it doesn't work .. short of the canister being full of fuel i'm struggling to see how this can cause an issue .. You could disconnect it , the car will log a code and will know its not working ... but then the p444 is already that code . You have an altitude issue which from memory has been ongoing .. The sensor for this is part of the dme .. on a tester and at sea level it will read approx 1024 Mb .. 1 bar basically .. i'm wondering about this . Im wondering about the dme map for this as well . Maf measures air volume into the engine .. a critical item for getting the correct fueling .. again unplugging this will mean the car runs on pre set default values .. it should make a difference if at altitude and this disconnected . .. you will have idling issues obviously . Fuel pressure .. again pretty critical ..but would altitude make a difference to the amount of fuel pressure generated .. nope .. but a poor amount of fuel which would technically cause a poor spray pattern coupled with an increase in altitude with say a incorrect altitude pressure sensor would . In short .. tester and can you see the pressure sensor value .. somehow you need to go up a hill and see if it alters . After that .. i'm thinking a reprogram of the DME .. Indys can in essence program it back to factory default .. at least i know with auto logic you can .. Piwis has the function so that should also be able to do it . This has had fueling issues for a while now .. dme reprogram and altitude pressure sensor need to be checked and ticked off i feel .. Ill mull it over some more ..

You are a glutton for punishment mate, but I have to admire your tenacity for roadtrips :thumb: I`m not sure if you have Durametric, but you are welcome to borrow my laptop and cable to delve deeper if needs be, I can drop it over to you given that work is pretty much at 20% and I`ll be in Leicester on Tuesday, so fairly close :grin:

I feel like a bit of an idiot now.. I'm about to buy a 996t (90k miles ish as well) and was hoping it would be good for a few roadtrips to France or maybe as far as Germany. Different engine but from the sounds of your ordeal it might not be as easy as it sounds. Has your car had any significant issues in the past or is this what to expect from a roadtrip in a 996?

Sounds like the breakdown at Dartford is related to the gearbox. Have you tried turning the wheels with it in the gear it happened?

May be the OP is unlucky or I'm lucky but I've done many trips to france/spain/germany/holland in mine with no issues.

Thanks deMort, for some reason this felt different to the usual issues and was happening when I was lowish (around 1/3 of a tank) on fuel, I don't think I have had it do this before. I pulled the EVAP valve just to see if anything happened and will be the reason for the fault code, I also loosened the fuel cap etc there was no rush of air either way so I knew the tank was fine. I did notice how hot the fuel vapour was from the tank though and I know it shouldn't happen in a closed fuel system but I almost feel like fuel is vapourising. I pushed the little trap door under the fuel cap to release the vapour and the metal of the flap was so hot it felt like I had burnt my finger? I'm sure the EVAP system is working fine since everything is new or tested good. I will get some better connections for the fuel rail and test my pressure again. Interesting about reprogramming the DME and altitude sensor, (unsure where that sensor is) although like I said this happened on the Autoroute also which is a first so I'm sort of discounting that it is just at altitude I wish I'd video'd the fueling problem as it may have helped with diagnosing, it was strange that it would come back to life after exactly counting down 5 seconds each time and it must have done it over 100 times until I brimmed the tank, I just had to manage my overtakes. Also if I kept the car revs high it wouldn't do it, but this was harder to manage as with the car being powerful I would have been doing silly speeds just to stop it from stalling and a reason it probably isn't the fuel pump dying, it could pump enough fuel when I really needed it it was just when I came up to the back of someone and had to coast that the thing died and I had to wait for 5 seconds before I could go again? It definitely got worse the further I drove and made it feel like something was failing. Could the fly by wire system be at fault, I assume this would throw a code though? I will come back to this fueling problem once I have sussed out what the clunk was and why it stalled, as that is the main problem potentially, I'm just trying to muster up the courage to turn the key in the ignition to see if there are any horrible noises.

This car has had it's issues but don't let that put you off buying a 911, I take this car on at least two road trips a year and have done for the last 9 1/2 years and covered probably around 45k miles on the continent and around the same in the UK. It's been to Spain a few times Portugal and all the way down to Dubrovnik in the last few years along with going around the Alps too many times to count. I gets driven hard and for long hours, in hard environments, all as god intended, it's on 131k miles now. Any car can breakdown, why not breakdown in a 911, I passed quite a few "other" cars broken down on the journey, it was a very hot week where we were and I think this made a difference to some of the issues I had.