Engine Defect

My friend has a 2006 CS also and he just discovered water in the oil. After a week at Newport Beach Porsche, they agreed to replace the engine! Under warranty. They found one crated in Corona. He had 13K on the car. Anyone heard any other serious problems like this?

How did he discover the water? Where was the intrusion? Unless I change my own oil, how would one check?

My question exactly.

On a similar note, I was looking through TSB's yesterday and one came out in May 2007 that reports that 112 US/Puerto Rican vehicles (987,997s) have a faulty cylinder head on banks 1-3. They "may lack an oil supply bore for the chain tensioner on the cylinder head...due to a production flaw." As a result the chain can jump out of place in certain operating states and cause engine damage. I don't know if its been mentioned here before, but even though it's a very isolated cause it seems rather serious. Your car will pop up in a workshop campaign search if it falls into the VIN range. You can check yourself by getting under the car and looking at the number stamp on the bottom of the cylinder stamp. If it has an R at the beginning you are fine. If no R, and the number is between 02500 and 02800, then you are in the range of faulty cars. - Suneet

Forgive my ignorance, but where is the cylinder stamp, what is a cylinder stamp? Any held locating it would be of great help. Thanks in advance

I wonder if someone accidentally added water/coolant to the oil fill inlet instead of the coolant fill tube - we have a member who made the mistake in reverse (added oil to coolant). I think that is one of the shortcomings in the design of the car - they should have put the words "Oil" and "Coolant" on the caps and fill tubes in addition to those icons.

To clarify... it's a series of numbers 'stamped' on the bottom the cylinder bank. The TSB doesn't say exactly where, just that if yo u look up under the cylinders with no need to remove any panels you will see a number embossed in. - Suneet

good job posting important stuff like this!

Good question about how he figured out there was water in the oil. He was complaining about always being low on water, while mine never needed to be touched...maybe the dealer found it. I would guess the water would show up as bubbles in the oil but without a dipstick how would you know? I'll see him at work tomorrow and get more details.

IIRC water shows up white in oil.

If you suspect you may have this problem due to coolant usage, and lacking a dipstick, you can either drain a small amount of oil at the drain plug or maybe removing the filter housing is a good way to get alook at a sample of oil. Of course an early oil change is no bad thing. The oil will have the appearance of mustard in severe cases but look for drops of water which should drain out with the first quart because they will have sunk to the bottom and not mix with the oil. I just looked under my car and could find no stamped numbers on the cylinder castings. Any further guidance as to exactly where to look appreciated.

Ok, here's some more information...at about 2,500 miles the low water light came on. Dealer check turns up nothing and again every few thousand miles the same continues. No external signs of leakage but water was going somewhere. Finally, the dealer did a pressure test on the water system after draining the oil. After the test...bingo... water in the engine when they removed the oil drain plug. They were first going to take the engine apart and fix it but he convinced them a new one was the right thing to do.

Thanks for the info. After taking to the dealer for the first sign of trouble at 2,500 mi, and then with over 10K miles of an engine running on a mix of oil and water, a new engine is the ONLY right thing to do...

Very possible. Sounds like they conducted the appropriate tests to rule out all other causes. Definitely an internal leak. Agreed....!

So I guess after running the piss out of my car for 18 months (not to imply abuse, just vigorous use), with regular dealer checks in between, I don't think I have to worry about this. My car uses **NO** Oil, and **NO** water... I have had the indicator asking me to add windshield washer fluid. I think this sounds like an isolated case, covered under warranty as expected, good for you, Porsche.

me too. car uses no oil and no water. 240+kmh runs often ... pleasantly surprised.