Opinions on an IMS failure..

Hello, I've sort of held of posting about this until I had thought about the questions I wanted to ask. So I suffered an IMS failure, which I just caught in the nick of time without anything in the smashing into something it shouldn't. There's some debris in the filter but not as much as one might think(somehow?). I am assuming there's more deposited in deep and dark areas of the M96s oiling system, the bearing was utterly shafted and I think 50 more miles and it would have collapsed. What's the general consensus on what to do at this point? Kind Regards, DarthFaker.

Cough up and book it in at Hartech, or list on autotrader for a few thousand.

...sorry to hear this... Same thing happened to me; bearing shaft snapped destroying the shaft. The biggest issue is the swarf which will be deposited all through the engine... Consequently my independent changed many parts; all of the oil pumps, tandem pumps , camshaft actuators, solinoids etc, etc.... I also had new liners,pistons and rings and the heads over hauled. The final bill was close to £14 k ! Once the case has been split you will have an idea of the damage caused and from this create a plan. Good luck...

Either: Fit a new bearing in situ and cross your fingers or Get a rebuild, being pleased you can reuse crank shaft, pistons etc and get the newer bigger IMS bearing at the same time It's a question of risk appetite and how long you want to keep the car IMHO.

Sorry to hear this Just out of interest, is the bearing shaft letting go different to normal bearing failure? :dont know:

...sorry typo! The stud on the ims snapped which destroyed the bearing which in turn damages the shaft ... the swarf is the real killer...gets deposited everywhere as a consequence of the oil pumps which keep pumping during the bearing failure... Ignore the advice to install a new bearing :dont know:

Ok - cheers Is that stud part of the actual IMS bearing assembly? When you said shaft, I thought I hadn't heard of the actual shaft letting go.. does this happen What year / car is yrs ?

Hi I'm a 993 owner so from the comfort of my armchair I can say that I would phone Hartech and see what my options are with them. If it were my car I would drop the engine myself, dismantle it, send off the block etc for machining (at Hartech for me) replace what needs replacing then put it all back together myself etc. Berni

...the stud is part of the ims bearing assembly and early ones are so under engineered that they can snap off leading to an expensive mess ! You have essentially two choices...rebuild or sell as is ? Just be prepared to dig deep as you can expect to need to replace parts as part of the rebuild that weren't necessarily impacted by the failure... Good luck.

Assuming it is just the bearing and not the shaft as previous poster experienced, I'd do some investigation first before taking drastic measures. Since you already checked the filter, next step is to drop the sump and have a look in there. Next pop off the swirl pots on the oil return. The bottom of these twist off (1/4 turn lock). Have a look in the bottom of the pots. These are fed straight from the heads, so will often show up any swarf that has passed through the heads. You can then pull off the oil pump and scavenge pumps on each head and have a look in there for glitter. If you find glitter or swarf in any of these, your back to drastic measures. I had an IMS bearing failure that I caught in the very early stages. Personally I got lucky on mine, and I put it largely to using a zero bypass spin on filter (with adaptor). I had zero debris in any of these locations, only small amount in filter. Don't panic. Think methodically and logically, but start preparing.

The best way to clear all the swarf out is to strip the engine completely but it depends how much you want to spend as this is a lot of money considering the engine hasn't failed as such, but this will give you a chance to inspect everything and renew things that could fail in the future, chains and guides etc. I would rebuild my own engine so its not too much of a problem but if it needs to go away it'll cost a fair bit. The other option is to fit an IMSB in situ, remove the sump and clean that up plus fit a magnetic sump plug, change the oil (using some cheap oil) and filter, run the engine and repeat that again to flush the engine. This is risky for obvious reasons but I would think doing a few oil and filter changes would give you a good idea if you have cleared it all out eventually. I have heard stories of engines having metal swarf in them from new but never going around the engine and only spotted because the engine has been apart.

Darthfaker, what symptoms did you have of failure? Was it caught on a routine oil change? I take it you've got the box off the car now, what does the IMS feel like - notchy? If the bearing hasn't collapsed how much debris do you think it could realistically give up?

It was caught during an oil change, the engine and box are out at the moment. Still being investigated. I'll post a video of the condition of the bearing later down the line, at the moment there's a liability dispute on going so Im reluctant to release too many details atm.

Was this the original bearing or a replacement? I guess it all boils down to whether you want to rebuild the engine or not. Given the discussions in the insurance thread about writing off cars for a minor bump to the rear then realistically any normal 996 needing a full rebuild is a write-off without even factoring the cost of any upgrades you might do whilst it is apart. As I see it these are your options: Option 1: sell for parts Option 2: do actions as JTT advises, replace IMS and run without problems (cost £2k?) Option 3: do actions as JTT advises, replace IMS and it blows up; sell for parts Option 4: do actions as JTT advises, replace IMS and it blows up, complete engine replacement at c. £15k? Option 5: complete engine rebuild of existing now at c. £12k. I would have thought if there is at least a reasonable chance of option 2 happening it would be the best course of action.

Option 6 - put car back together, drive into nearest tree at 30mph avoiding cat that came out of nowhere, claim for total loss on insurance .