IMS bearing Failure

Hello, I just want to share today's story with my 07 base Cayman and its IMS bearing failure. I bought this car @ around 60k about 2.5 years ago and now it's at 88k. Never tracked while I owned it and the last oil change was around 86k and didn't show any signs at the time. About a week ago, I started hearing this knocking noise near the engine so I took it to my awesome, trusted local mechanic. Before taking the car, I talked to him over the phone over where the noise could possibly come from and I mentioned IMS bearing problem as noted here . He said it's very unlikely but it could happen. (I don't want to start another thread discussion on how often this happens or the probability of this happening.) So today the mechanic diagnosed it for the water pump and the flywheel but apparently nothing showed. We checked the oil and there it is, fine particles and flakes of metal in the oil and between the filter gaps. At first, I thought I could make it work but more and more I read about it, it looks like I need to do engine rebuild to replace the IMS. Right now I'm not at a position to spend $15k+ on a car, so I think I may be done with my 07 Cayman. One thing to note is that the car still runs fine. I think it's because I discovered it early(I don't play music that much when I drive). So yea, I just wanted to share this with everyone. Let me know if you have any questions.

Also, how do you overcome the denial stage of loss & grief?

I'm sorry to hear that - have you explored purchasing a motor from wrecked Porsches?

I haven't thought through all my options yet. Edit: I have a general idea, but given the estimated prices and the labor, I probably won't do that...

Please do not call your issue an IMS bearing failure(yet). There are many, many, many sources of metal part that can cause wear particles within an engine. Generally, if the IMS bearing does fail, it will be the plastic seal that starts to fail, which will leave PLASTIC bits in the filter. Sadly, the engine will need disassembly to determine the cause of the metal flakes in the filter. Best of luck.

With that many miles, I'd be surprised to hear that it's actually an IMS failure. Best of luck with it regardless.

It might sound hollow, but I'm sorry to hear about your troubles, sad indeed. Every time I hear of this it makes me really angry with Stuttgart!

+1 to the OP. I hope things work out for the best, although unlikely based on what has been posted. Every time I read these accounts it makes me want to go lease a new TT. Certainly not as exciting as a Cayman , but four seasons capability and 4 years of warranty coverage is appealing. Plus, having a P-Car that's not robust enough to take to the track is a real bummer.

I'd pull an ignition overrev report from the computer. It's probably rod knock / rod bearing dying.

Devil's advocate time.. so you tow your car to a scrap yard, or spend $20k and beef up the engine so you have a brand new car. Think it through, it's hard to find a car like this for $20k.. And an Audi TT is not a Porsche , I know cuz my girlfriend has one.

Agreed. And many things can cause ticking or knocking noises.

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The ironic thing about Audi is I have a good friend who had a 1.8T A4 with a catastrophic engine failure due to a known defect with the oil cooler. No manufacturer is immune from engine failures, but the number of incidents we see just on these forums is cause for concern for those of us running the 987.1 cars.

Apples and oranges. This site is hardly representative of the Porsche world. I'll bet we have a much higher percentage of drivers who track their cars, who track them hard, and who mod their cars to increase performance than a random sampling of P owners. I would also bet the failure rate for most marques driven in a similar manner would be much higher. Dan Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You might be right, but I have looked at similar forums for Vettes and 370Zs and do not see very many engine failures listed. And anecdotally, there have been several reports of engine failures in this forum in the last six months or so that have NOT involved mods or tracking. Perhaps they were driven hard, but that isn't much of an excuse considering the usual advice in here to "drive it like you stole it." Of course, in the face of a fairly frequent failure rate, any decent company would move to assure its customers of the superior engineering in their engines by offering a 10 year warranty on them. And do so in an even-handed manner instead of offering "goodwill" based on how much money you spent and whether the manager had sex the night before. After all, if the failure rate was really low or due to abuse, Porsche wouldn't even have any significant risk of paying anything out. But nooooo, by refusing to offer a warranty, Porsche often gets to profit twice on the same car by selling a lot of new engines. Sweeeet! And why not, because so many owners have such blind faith that they can actually get away with it. My beef is not with the car so much as the company. And the company absolutely forgot about me for the first four years of ownership -- not so much as a survey came my way until they suddenly remembered me when the new Boxster and Cayman came out. Wow, their amnesia is over with! LOL. I got a much better ownership experience from my cheapie Ford Focus. My Porsche is beautiful and drives well, and probably the vast majority of cars are okay -- but for sure it is not sufficiently special that I ever again would put up with Porsche's arrogant, money-grubbing business practices.

Sorry to hear about your engine failure, but I think you are jumping to conclusions in attributing the problem to the IMSB. Knocking noises are generally not caused by a failed IMSB. The IMSB in the first gen motors can fail with no warning, or occasionally with a sound like marbles rattling in a can for a few seconds or minutes. I haven't heard about a verifyible 2nd gen IMSB failure. A knocking or tapping noise Is much more consistent with a bad rod/crank bearing or something in the valve train, both of which can also shed metal. To really attribute the failure to an IMSB failure, you need to at least take off the IMSB flange and manually check the condition of the IMSB.

Here is what mine sounded like: http://youtu.be/3XKsAq-fhoI You are correct that to properly diagnose that as being a possible cause of the metallic particles in the oil the flange/seal must come out. To the OP: I can sympathize with you. It is a sickening feeling to realize you're going to have to pull the engine for a rebuild. Now that mine is done it doesn't seem so bad. I was fortunate to have a capable individual in my family do the rebuild. Wishing you all the best in this matter.

OP here. Just to reiterate, the engine has NOT failed yet. It still runs, but I believe that it's best not to run it. Also, the noise in the youtube video above is exactly the sound it was making.

Sorry for your troubles and best of luck finding a solution. As others have posted it's outrageous that one of the industry's premier auto manufacturers would turn it's back on the customer. Porsche is living in denial of a flawed design to avoid doing the right thing. In this instance they are no better than Chrysler installing millions of failure prone prone transmissions into their vehicles during the 80's. This should be old news, covered under goodwill and a best effort at closing the loop on some really bad engineering. I often think about moving on and ridding myself of this potential disaster, maybe it's time.

Pics of mine:

The whole bearing:

Another assumed IMS failure without proper investigation-this gentlemen, is what the internet does ! Before claiming anything get it checked, don't make and broadcast assumptions that perpetuate the fear and paranoia already so prevalent on this forum. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looks like a clear case of of an IMSB failure to me. The balls are definitely spalled and there is metal glitter all around. It would be nice to see a close up of the inner and outer races. I assume this is a first gen IMSB, not the later, larger single row bearing that is not replaceable without opening up the motor?

This was out of a 2006 Cayman S , so it was the third iteration bearing that necessitated engine removal to split the cases.

While I agree that we don't yet have enough information to confirm whether this is IMS or some other malady, let's at least show a little decency to the OP for the situation here. Whether it's IMS or something else, the OP is going to have to write a significant check just for diagnosis, and potentially much more after that.

The OP's car is a US spec 2007, so it has the 3rd gen bearing. I wish the op had titled his thread "My 987 M97 engine broke", as it would not be the presumptuous assessment of the noise made by his technician. Boiler Inspector's pictures of HIS bearing failure apparently confused some here. Here is a pic of MY perfect IMS bearing at 39,000 miles:

To lighten the mood a little:

Just to clarify, I was not being argumentative or irascible on my post above. Just stating my personal opinion without vitriol. Probably would've come across better if I had used more smileys. Best wishes to OP.

Just throwing this out there. US spec car but built for Europe 2006 Boxster S with the M96 motor , local independent noticed small amount of oil leaking last time I took it in and that it may be indication of early IMS failure (?). Of course no way to tell until **** gets pulled apart to see what motor/bearing spec I truly have. Still going to call Porsche to let them hear my piece before I make final determination of what to do next . I didn't buy a near $60K car for me to spend another $X amount just to fix something without my own doing.

Sounds like an oil leak. I highly doubt it has anything to do with the IMS bearing. Is your independent technician the same as the OP's? (wink) Good luck with a fix.

It would be cool to get an update on this, even if the OP decided to sell the car or do an LS1 swap....

How can one determine if it's RMS or IMS without complete dismantle of engine? And it's an M9626

You can tell if you remove the flywheel and can visually see if its leaking from the top RMS seal or the bottom ims flange. Don't bother removing the bolts on the m97 engine though because like stated, that requires engine tear down. Bearing is bigger than the hole. Sure plenty here know this. Good luck on this unfortunate endeavor. This sucks.

I'd say dismantle the engine and check it out. My engine knocked at about 88k Kms. Found metal in the oil as well. After dismantling the engine I found this to be a bad rod bearing. Total repair cost me ~$2700 in parts and $900 in labor. My engine now has 98k Kms

Who is your mechanic?! Every mechanic I speak up about rebuilding my 2.7L Cayman engine quotes me over 30 hours of labor... My engine only has 45k miles and I have knocking and brass/bronze metal shavings in the oil and filter... Also, does the IMS has a greater tendency to fail on lease frequently driven vehicles? I am doing an engine swap and can source an M96 3.4L engine with less than 20k miles, but that is over fifteen years, so only 1,333 miles driven per year. And the other question I have is do I want the M96 engineer that can have the IMS fail (but be replaced) or the M97 engine that has the larger bearings, but if something happens, isn't replaceable?