Signs of Potential Engine Failure? - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Hello. my apologies for not posting with detailed tech vocabulary. Here goes. Car started sputtering at low rpm after couple trips back and forth to work (20 miles each way). On one pm heading to grocery store, drove out of neighborhood and it stopped running. pulled over. restarted. turned around back to house. stopped running again. restarted got back to house but engine started making this noise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNt5Boxf5Tc and dripped oil from street, driveway and onto garage floor Oil drip appears to drip from passenger side cylinder head but photo shows equal amount at both sides. Appreciate feedback. Thank you 1998 Boxster. Triptonic 160,000 Miles Third Owner IMS not replaced

Could the issue have anything to do with oil circ system and oil primary or secondary pump?

So first To post a sound video and expect a diagnosis of your problem is just not a realistic expectation. Second you need to spend some time looking and attempting to diagnose the problem yourself. You are closest to the car and have access to it. No one on a forum has access to the car. If there where trouble codes or other information then possibly there could be help forthcoming from a forum. But your not showing any of that type of information. So get a good strong flash light and view every possible area of the engine and transmission area that you can and see if you can pinpoint where the oil is coming from. If you have to clean all the oil off then start the car and see if you can pinpoint where the oil is coming from. Then that is what you need to do. If you have limited mechanical ability find someone who has the knowledge to diagnose the issue for you.

Oil should not be dripping from the engine. The engine should not be stalling out. Those are signs that something is wrong. A potential engine failure. Many things can be wrong, but many can be fixed relatively inexpensively if they are taken care of when they are first observed. Continuing to drive the car around and counting how many times it stalls one each 20 mile trip without having a good idea what the problem is may lead to a much more expensive condition. Stop driving the car unless you need to take that risk. The picture and video do not show enough information for anyone to do a good diagnosis. I bet that 'Blue62' can advise you of a proper order of things to check for initial troubleshooting, but if you are not comfortable working on engine parts, it needs to go to a shop.

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Spot On..... The first step in a diagnosis is always a visual inspection. I always grab my brightest flashlight (with an adjustable beam) and a beer or mixed drink (some times two) and just look. I don't even touch anything I don't have to. Just look until the drinks are gone. Surprising how many issues are solved by a good visual inspection. When you find something like oil or coolant leaking you have to trace it back to it's highest point. So a visual to try and pinpoint where his oil is coming from is his starting point. Towing or hauling it to a shop would be his best bet. Then they have the hoist and knowledge of what they are looking for and what they re looking at.

An easy way to find a difficult-to-find oil leak is to use a smoke machine. You can get an Autoline pro smoke machine cheap and they work really well. Pull the dipstick and the smoke machine nozzle fits perfectly. You'll have to seal your intake so smoke doesn't go back out the intake and foul your MAF and air filter. I just pulled the intake tube off the throttle body stuck a sheet of bubble wrap between the throttle body and intake tube and it held in place well. Sometimes a visual inspection can be difficult if you have oil everywhere. With smoke, it's easy to find the general area of the smoke and you can use a spray bottle of soapy water to narrow down the exact leak location. Since your main leak is on the passenger side, it may be as simple as an improperly installed AOS or cracked plastic hose, which would be a vacuum leak and make your car run like crap at idle. Good luck!