996 crankshaft main bearing failure - Page 2 - Porsche General - PistonHeads UK

Lance welcome to Pistonheads, shame it's not on a happier note. Has anyone heard of this problem with 996's, had or heard of the problem with previous generation 911s? DAZ

I have heard it happen on one or two 993s. Quite a rare occurence, mainly because the 911 engine is dry sumped so no oil starvation problems. That said, the 996 did have a few teething problems when it was launched, but everything was swiftly fixed under warranty so reliability never became a sticking point. The strongest bottom ends on the 996s will be the GT3, GT2 and turbo bottom ends, as these were derived from the old 964/GT1 bottom end IIRC. I would be surprised if one of these let go, less so if a normal Carrera shell bearing/crank/rod went out of the exhaust. Still, it should all be fixed under warranty in your case...

not heard of it on the 996 personaly(but maybe 9m has) but the early Boxster units did suffer from this & I know of a couple that needed new engines at reasonably low miles but out of warranty.

Ninemeister mentioned that the 996 carrera's use cheaper japanese components in the engine. Looks like you've found one of them, unfortunately.

Whatever components Porsche use in the engine of any of it's models should be upto the job in hand. Where they buy these bits from shouldn't really matter. Lance, is this problem going to be solved under warranty or on a "goodwill" basis? DAZ

I remember reading about some earlier facelift 3.6 carrera's going pop. Think it was to do with timing chains or something. I wonder if the first batch of older 911's ever had teething problems like this, or if they were rock solid out of the box. Or is this a carrera v turbo scenario, not an old v new one.

I've heard of a number of early 996tt needing new engines from an OPC mechanic (not from my OPC incidentally). Something to do with the cars not having a seal/gasket where a normal car would due to the engine being derived from the GT1 block or something. I've not heard many problems with the engines of C2 and C4, although I think a colleague of 456mgt has had engine problems with a new C4S, which necessitated the car being off of the road for a long period. DAZ

Daz, there was a early batch of C4s's that had faulty gearboxes I believe, but most of them went stateside. Rich

Evo magazine had a new engine dropped into their spanking new GT2 after 1k miles, due to bearing failure. Maybe it's just down to bad luck.

First time here , but sorry to hear these tails of woe on new model Porsche cars . This really shouldn't be happening and much as I dislike the Cayenne and have never warmed to the 'blanded out' 996 body shape , the GT3 is simply amazing for the money and other great cars are in the pipeline plus with a return to racing in 2005 long time admirers of Porsche cars have something to look forward to . Still dissapointed to read of such quality issues with Porsche though .

Welcome to PH THEBones it isnt all bad news in here mate

welcome to PH - whatever you do, dont go into the Tuscan forums

Welcome to PH THEbones... Steve

Oh go on, it'll cheer you up considerably.

No Roadrunner, I did not say they used Jap components, I said that Porsche adopted Japanese design and assembly techniques so that the could build the things cheaper and at the same time f*** the independents with box the need to buy box loads of special engine build tooling. Have you had a clutch fault? The common issue is an out of balance flywheel wobbling away the main bearings, since Porsche decided to extend the flywheel away from the main bearings on the 986/996 engine and thus and additional forces knock hell out of the mains.

And there was me thinking the conrods were out of a 1.2 Micra.... You tell him, 9M

With 20K on the odo its not going to be the clutch thats gone south is it? Sounds manufacturing to me.

oops-y-daisy

Could you feel vibration through the car? That's vibration lads, not vibrator.

Just thought I would let you know chaps know that Porsche has agreed to fix the main bearing under warrantee.

Excellent news. As it should be. Perhaps one of our specialists northern UK car manufacturers can take a lesson from Porsche's book. DAZ

now now agreed though

But would Porsche fix it after 2 or three failures? That's where the specialist UK Manufacturer from the North of England falls over. Hence Tuscans over 2 years old being worth about the same as a roll of toilet paper.

My comment was made having read somewhere of a PHer whose tuscan had an engine rebuilt under warranty with only six months warranty to go. The engine goes pop after seven months and alledgedly TVR's attitude was one of tough sh1te. I don't like seeing any fellow car enthusiast getting shafted in this way. DAZ

Now now indeed. My little bit of Blackpool rock was four and a half years old when it dropped a valve wrecking it's AJPV8. The factory rebuilt it FOC because I had an extended warranty. It was also given a new gearbox FOC.

Has anybody experienced or heard of a crank shaft bearing failure of a 996? My car is a C2. It is 3 years old with 20,000 miles. Needless to say, always loved and cared for!