Oil leak in intake and throttle body

So seems like there is some serious issues with my 987.2 2010 Porsche Cayman . A little history of the car. The car was purchased in Feb. 2014 as a CPO with about 27k miles at time of purchase. CPO warranty ended in April 2016. This is a PDK transmission . I'm the second owner. I do not track this car. It is my daily driver for commute to work and drive it about 3 times a week. I did not do a PPI on it at the time of purchase, thinking CPO would've given me a peace of mind...sigh. In Feb. 2016, I decided to have a few stuff fixed before CPO ended as noted in this thread . One of them were related to AOS...at that time my car is at 55k miles {Ever since I purchased the CPO car, I noticed exhaust fumes (intoxicating smell) and observed white/gray smoke, even after the car has warmed up. I suggested to the shop foreman that I believe it could be the AOS starting to fail (after reading the forums). - Upon inspection and noted in my invoice the technician "performed vehicle inspection as per factory guide. Found oil leak coming from intake distributor and air filter housing. Performed short test fail and found oil separator failure or has an internal leak. Recommend replace oil separator and vent line with air filter both contaminated with oil. [Technician] removed intake distributor to clean inside and found oil. Performed short test pass everything test drive vehicle to verify not smog coming out."} After that initial AOS repair, couple weeks later in March 2016, I went to have my tires and TPMS changed at the same dealership. At the same, time the tech performed a complimentary multi-point inspection. The tech hand wrote on the inspection form that there was excess oil on the intake/AOS area. At that time, we rescheduled another appointment. During the time with me having the car back and driving it around while waiting for next scheduled appointment a week later, I saw my first oil drip in my garage. I documented it and then subsequently dropped it off at the dealer to re-inspect the problem. At this appointment, they decided to change out the AOS a second time, because it was defective (or so we all thought). This all happened within a 3-4 weeks time period. Now my CPO warranty ended in April 2016. Flash forward to November/December 2016. I began noticing significant oil drips on my garage floor (I placed a clean cardboard to catch the oil drips). I'm also hearing a nonrhythmic rattling/ticking/knocking noise only at idle (from a cold start to when it warms up). I believe the noise is from the right rear side of the car. After warming up for awhile, I do not hear the strange noise. My car is now at 61k miles. I dropped it off to the dealer and they began to communicate with PCNA as they are finding oil in the same area as the previous repairs...that is at the AOS area (intake, throttle body etc). The SA indicated PCNA advised to replace it with ANOTHER AOS thinking I had a bad batch back then and to keep the car and test drive it for about 100 miles etc. They test drove it (and kept the car for two full weeks) and did not see any oil leaking out to the ground etc. However, they wanted to test it some more by checking inside the throttle body and unfortunately, they found oil in the throttle body. Now, dealer is waiting for communication from PCNA on what to do next. Clearly, this problem existed since February/March 2016 as the new AOS replacement did not solve the oil leak problem. Further, because of the oil leak seems to be internal, it takes awhile for it to leak towards the outside to the ground for it to be visible to me (the SA agreed). Now they are waiting for PCNA for further advise. What is wrong with my car?

The only way I can think of for oil to get in the intake is through the AOS . As the AOS has been replaced a few times, this suggests that there may be excessive blowby that's overwhelming it. This would point to rings, which might also explain the noise you're hearing on one bank. May want to have the techs do a compression test, or borescope the cylinders to look for possible scoring. I am far from an expert on the Cayman engine, however, so this is just a guess.

That's what I'm afraid of as I'm having similar symptoms as noted on this thread. However, I won't know the true problem until next week after the dealer speaks to Porsche.

First of all, I hope your issue gets resolved as inexpensively as possible. Other than extracting BS symptoms, I would not get too worked up about this thread. Here is the Reader's Digest version: ~someone asks what the symptoms are of bore scoring. ~someone else (who doesn't own one) broad brushes every 9x7 Boxster, Cayman, and 911 will suffer BS. ~a mechanic jumps in with pics. ~the hysteria race is on - everyone beware! ~someone else is absolutely convinced they have BS. Their dealer thinks its coil packs. We never hear the final verdict. Wouldn't he respond back if it was BS? ~so other than the pics provided by the mechanic, no one in that 5 pages of thread had a confirmed case of BS. Typical hysteria thread. Does BS exist? Yes, just like IMSB is an issue. But 95% of the threads on these topics deal with hear-say and third hand facts vs direct experience. Bingo. Let the experts figure it out. At this point it's futile to get all worked up about an issue that might not be the problem. Has the dealer scoped the #6 cylinder? That should be an easy way to confirm or eliminate the BS issue. And I don't recall reading about oil drips associated with BS. My Boxster began dripping oil last spring. I was convinced it was the RMS so I took it in a bit early for a clutch job. They said the RMS was OK but I had them change it anyway. They said the AOS was leaking. I did the change myself and found the 8 yr old O-ring at the bottom had grown brittle. These are complicated engines and numerous issues can have similar symptoms. Best of luck and keep us updated with the solution.

Measuring vacuum of the crankcase will tell you whether the AOS has ripped. I'm going from memory, but as I recall around 4-6" (water) is OK, but it will go up to 10-12" when leaking/ripped due to air intake vacuum sucking on the crankcase. AOS leak might also show up as an air intake vacuum anomaly.

Spoke to the service manager, tests results up to this point show the data are within normal limits as interpreted by PCNA. PCNA is now telling them to drop and take apart the engine from the car. PCNA wants them to inspect the cylinders and pistons and take measurements. Since they have to take out the motor, the dealer said they're also going to do a compression test to see what the results will be. They also said there was no over rev or anything to give them a red light that the car was driven harshly. (I was worried as I'm the second owner and don't know how the first owner took care of the car). So far everyone is confused as the cause of the problem up to this point as all data appears normal.

So because the problem appeared before your CPO expiration is the warranty going to cover it? This is not going to be cheap.

Correct. Spoke to Service Manager in person today and he confirmed it. He was aware of my issues earlier this year prior to CPO expiration. Initially, had excessive intermittent smoke and visible oil leak. AOS was changed out twice. On the invoice for the 2nd AOS . I noticed the tech indicated that "per PCNA replace AOS again" or something like that. When I spoke to the service manager today, he confirmed that it takes awhile for me to experience/see visible oil leakage to the ground, depending on how much I drive it etc. That's why this time, the asked if they can keep the car so they can test drive it for about 500+ miles to see if the 3rd AOS will fix the problem. It did not. So they require further instructions from PCNA. The dealer is documenting everything and only doing work per PCNA engineers instructions because they want to say "hey PCNA, we followed your instructions and it didn't correct the customer's issues...what next ?"

Good for you! Interesting what are they going to find out. Good luck!

So it turns out that it wasn't guaranteed that Porsche would cover the cost of my problem initially, except Dealer would try to convince Porsche (hence the anxiety for a month of the potential outcome). However, today I was finally updated that I do need a new engine (not a rebuild). While going through the proper channels (which took awhile), the dealer also notified me that Porsche also approved to give me a re-manufactured engine (shipped from Germany) covered under warranty (i.e. no cost). Whew! I have to believe the detailed documentation help supported my problem to relate back to prior the end of my CPO. I still do not know the cause of the problem and what part failed.

After 2.5 months at the dealership, I finally got the car back, running perfect with the replacement engine. All I could gather with the old engine was that all the tests didn't reveal anything abnormal. So they had to remove the engine and open it up. It was found that I had excessive taper in 4 cylinders after measuring them. But other than that, everything else was normal; oil condition, pistons, and other parts of the engine were observed to be ok with not much carbon deposit. Only problem was excessive bore taper and excessive oil in the intake.

Great news! Congratulations and thank you for the update! Excessive taper on 4 cylinders at such a low mileage is quite unusual. I understand you did not track or race the car. What about the previous owner? Did they elaborate on the reason?

I'm the second owner and use the car as a daily driver...when I commute to work only 2 days out of the week =/. I'm unsure how the previous owner used the car, but after purchasing the car, I've noticed some signs of neglect as it was a lease return. I didn't do a PPI and put a lot of faith on the Porsches' CPO program. However, I'm assuming, the tests that were done were to try to see if the car was abused, especially in a track environment, if so, I would think they would've used it against me in covering for the replacement engine. The only explanation I can get from the tech of what can cause the tapering problem is that it could be a variety of factors, manufacture defect, environment, and temperature etc. They did not see any data from the tests where anyone has driven the car "hard" that is no redline etc. I am still scratching my head on how the problem is possible if the car wasn't abused...