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YOUR RESEARCHMe, the Machbx 911 C4, Judge Alex and the IMSB
Reported or suspected cause
clutch had been bad
Reported cause
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Reported cause · Original poster
My problem was the clutch had been bad for so long the flywheel was toast.
Leading evidence: 'clutch had been bad' (1 discussions report identifying this cause; no attributable repair resolution). Across 1 matching discussions, the most frequently mentioned possible cause is 'clutch had been bad' (1 discussions; 1 report identifying it and 0 suggest it). The most frequently discussed action is 'Check him out pretty soon' (1 discussions). For that action, 0 discussions report a resolution and 0 report an unsuccessful attempt. No action has an explicit, attributable resolution report under the current rules. These are forum reports and suggestions, not a confirmed diagnosis.
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Reported cause · Original poster
And he turned out to be a nice soft speaking genius who was kind enuff to put up w my question (a was like a kid w a rock star!).
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Reported cause
This issue is related to the design of the engine more than it is to a simple failure of a part.
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Performed · outcome unconfirmed
FYI: the IMS failed on my 2004 car at 27K miles and the engine was replaced by Porsche.
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Performed · outcome unconfirmed · Original poster
I told the judge this guy is the Ted Bundy of used cars.
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Suggestion
I believe that the media now refer to global warming to "climate change" because the average temperature of the earth is actually trending cooler rather than warmer...
Replace ...have any of you warmist types realized yet
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Suggestion
With regards climate change...have any of you warmist types realized yet that global GHG emissions are increasing despite all of the hype and awareness you spew, and that emissions will continue to increase in the absence of a very significant technology shift.
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Suggestion
I've heard anything from no one knows for sure if the IMSB is the root cause or collateral damage from some other internal failure, one mechanic with 17 years at a Porsche dealership has never seen a failed IMSB at the shop but suspects that it is moisture related, from owners who do not drive the car regularly and who frequently do short runs, another says it is from strectching oil change intervals, and another said he replaced 1 on it's way out and had replaced 2 engines where in both cases the cars were well maintained and driven 12k to 15k miles per year.
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Suggestion
Not to hijack the thread, but I see people weighing in on the fact that the failure rate of the IMSB is low and therefore the need to replace the bearing is exaggerated.
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Suggestion
The real question is, on my 04 C2 with 72k miles on the clock and an OEM clutch pack and AOS sitting in the box, will I replace the IMSB while we are in there?
Counts describe captured discussions, not unique people or a diagnosis. Author identities are not reliably stored. Exact duplicate evidence is counted once across matching discussions; one discussion counts at most once per action/state. Multiple repairs reported together remain a combination. Suggestions and failed attempts do not establish a fix. Matches cover whole discussions and can include related faults, model variants and incomplete threads.
69 eligible posts · 0 unverified posts · 1 discussions match the subject in their title or opening post.
Rennlist: 1 discussions
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Bc of my cute little 911 - I got to be on Judge Alex - and got to talk to a real, expert Porsche tech who was my expert witness from LA. After the show - I wanted to ask just one question - "What did he think about the IMSB issue w the 996 & 986?" He said is a known issue. Replace it. So we can a all quit wondering now. {you're welcome}
Exactly, who the hell is he/she??? So the OP gets taken, ends up on some stupid reality show and I should listen to advice from some "Porsche Expert" on some goofy show?? Pulleaase!!
Nope - they found me bc I have a claim in small claims court. Of course, silly me - I just thought someone might like to know what Porsche NA says about the IMSB. But I really don't care what YOU do with you own
Bunch of bitchy little girls
Always whining that PNA won't say anything about the IMSB... Well, I had no trouble talking about it in depth - but that was on my own time. So
This entire thread is confusing. If I understand correctly - machbx sued PCNA over the intermediate shaft bearing issue and ended up on a "television court" program? Is that correct? And from the sound of it, you won based on testimony from a Porsche expert witness? What did you win?
Or was this while thing sarcastic? I'm confused...
I was asked to settle my court case w a car salesman on a court tv show. Bc it was regarding my dual stage flywheel they asked an engineer from PNA to explain the "part" to the judge and how it failed. I did win. (not for being stupid, tho was, stupid).
The thing I thought I would share is that this man has been an engineer for Porshe for 20 year - other german cars b4 that. When I was waiting for our cars to take us to airport, I finally got a chance to ask him about the whole ISMB debacle. Unrelated to why we were there. We talked about for a few minutes. I had heard here, and other forums, that PNA won't disclose they numbers of bad bearings and claim any stats on the IM
So long story shorter. They know it's a problem. It was a bad design to have a sealed bearing there. The designed it out as soon as it was feasible. It could not, many times, do what it was spec'd to do. If you have an original IMSB in your M96 you should replace it. The fix so to speak is the 997 engine
Is it really this difficult to speak/explain in one post....in clear English what the whole post is about!!!!
This is painful, like pulling teeth!
Pete
How am I supossed to know what the hell you were talking about when you didn't bother to take the time to expain anything whatsoever in your initial post.
Thanks machbx! Seems clear enough to me. Not sure why others don't get it?
So, are taking your $3500 payment and putting it back in the car with a replacement bearing....:-)
Yes, seemed clear enough from start. Go on TV legal show, Porsche expert testifies re another issue, you get him to the side later and he weighs in on "the issue". Thanks, interesting story.
I understand it now. I simply have never heard of Judge Alex. I didn't know that was a television program, and once I realized that, I thought that machbx was involved in litigation specifically relating to the IMSB. I also thought it might be a fabricated story for ****s and giggles, but I see now that it wasn't!
As mentioned above, the early 997s use the M96 engine, and the IMSB wasn't really removed until 2009. One of the issues, however, is that there really isn't a "fix" for this issue. I agree that it's a good idea to replace the bearing, particularly with a newer ceramic design like the one from LN Engineering. However, those bearings can fail (and have) too. It's not an absolute fix. This issue is related to the design of the engine more than it is to a simple failure of a part. Will the new ceramic bearing design give you 100,000 more miles? 200,000? Hard to say...
As you can tell I was mostly excited to get a Porsche Engineer to my self! And he turned out to be a nice soft speaking genius who was kind enuff to put up w my question (a was like a kid w a rock star!). He said replace that bearing. To be diligent in my care of the 996 and learn to service her my self so that I will know the minute something is out of round. I told him how I turn to radio off to listen to the engine all the time and got a big laugh. Said he still does that after all these years. And he was right about 1 more thing. I'm hooked for life
Well, I wont be caning my car around the Nurburgring anytime so I'm gonna fit the new bearing, new clutch while I'm at it (actually the other way around.....car is in for clutch issues) and then forget all about this little problem!
Wasn't there a recent post from another Porsche Emplyoee that said "Don't worry about the IMSB"? I will dig it up in a bit (currently having lunch after an amazing drive). I think it was in the "will replacing my IMS help my car value"' Much more importantly here...hey Matchbox, when and where does this air cause some of us might want to check you out!
lol - as soon as I find out I will tell you - it may be a bit the producer said. I have always heard abt 8 different opines all the time - so - I wanted to know what Porsche engineering thought. I knew doubtless they had heard of the problem. And I waited until he was free to pick his brain. I don't track and and I love this car - I just wanted to know for certain, what should I do if I want to keep it for 100k miles or a 100 miles.
Has anybody seen a picture of Jake Raby so we compare with the guy on the Judge Alex show ? I heard Jake does a passible Bavarian accent and likes to wear lederhosen.
Ummmm... I used to work in the auto industry. Current employees as well as past employees are typically held by non disclosure agreements and are prevented from providing testimony as witnesses without official court subpoena - and representation from the manufacturers lawyers. If your "expert witness" testified on a tv justice show I am pretty sure he was maybe a mechanic or tech that worked at a dealer - not an employee of porsche nOrth America. Anyway congrats on the settlement with your used car dealer
My thanks also machbx for what I thought was a very clear thread. Not to hijack the thread, but I see people weighing in on the fact that the failure rate of the IMSB is low and therefore the need to replace the bearing is exaggerated. Risky thinking. Any risk expert will tell you, risk avoidance must be based upon not just how often something occurs, but also the consequences when it does occur. In other words, low rate of occurrence and low consequences, not a big deal. With the IMSB however, it may have a low rate of occurrence, but the consequences are high - catastrophic failure of motor and a very big price tag to replace. Preventative action is generally warranted. A more extreme example of this is sometimes found in the aviation industry when one or two failures occurs, resulting in airline crashes. In that case the failure rate may be low but the consequences are high, and as a result the FAA grounds the entire fleet of that model aircraft. The only worse risk combination is high rate of occurrence along with high consequences.
You go right ahead and hijack! ~~~;}. It's such a Mindbender for us owners. I work in Risk as well but on the IT side. And you can mitigate risk. But w this damn IMSB thing. I'm just gonna suck it up. Now mind you my sucking it up is to install a guardian and watch her like a hawk. Ergot do my own fluid changes. But when it time for 60 k service. I'm going all in and just do the LN. I live for this ride. I don't want a different one. Ok I did see a beauty 2012 in Riveria blue that stopped my heart. But. I want this 996 to run 4 ever
But I also worked for GM and I worked for Dialmer - and what you said didn't apply - and I also couldn't talk abt my Eclipse I had bc of Mitsubishi nt allowing it. He was the real deal - you can check him out pretty soon when it 's air time comes up
I think this is one of those issues where if we don't want to believe it's a problem, then we find a myriad of reason why we shouldn't do anything. The opposite also applies of course but in this case, IMHO, there's enough real smoke to go ahead. As another poster said, it's a matter of risk and consequences. Moderate or low risk perhaps but very high consequences.
Like Global Warming, without absolute proof we can talk ourselves into a complete standstill, until it's too late.
It's a gamble. If you're a gambler you weigh the odds of losing, but in this case you can stack the deck in your favor by slipping an ace, or perhaps just a king, up your sleeve.
I believe that the media now refer to global warming to "climate change" because the average temperature of the earth is actually trending cooler rather than warmer...
The scientific community always called it global climate change because some regions would get hotter and others cooler....but all regions will see extreme weather in either direction
It all depends on which facts you read!
This issue in particular bothers me because it has become a political issue and it's difficult to find legitimate facts that support either argument.
What I'm hearing is that Matchbox bought her 996 from a dealer or private party and the car had some existing flaws that cost her $3500 to fix. She made a claim in her local court system against the seller for non-disclosure of the car's condition. The TV show got wind of this, and offered to put her on the show. An expert witness for the prosecution was an expert Porsche Tech. Her issue in the suit was NOT the IMS bearing. After the show, she asked him his personal opinion of the IMS issue. You all read his answer. I totally agree with his statement. If an $800 investment can pretty much insure the avoidance of a mega $$$ engine catastrophe, I'm way in on that. I did mine along with my clutch about 5000 miles ago. I thoroughly enjoy my car, I don't have to wonder if I'm going to be one of the unlucky ones whose motor goes Boom because of this bearing taking a dump. Thanks, Matchbox for the post. BTW, my original bearing that was removed looked kind of OK, but I'm glad I don't have to think about it anymore.
That's the way I interpret it too.
The problem is that with any IMSB discussion, you'll get lots and lots of opinions. These will support both sides of the "argument". I agree with the thought that you should replace your bearing, and that the new ceramic designs are better than the OE bearing. That being said, it's no guarantee that you won't have a catastrophic engine failure. The new bearings fail too. I don't lose sleep over it, but I know lots of people do.
mchbx:
So I guess you didn't ask whether the M97 motors (IMSB not serviceable from the outside) were any better than the M96 motors eh? That matters a lot to some of us, but not at all to the majority.
Also - can you tell the story again about your avatar. Great photo.
***
With regards climate change...have any of you warmist types realized yet that global GHG emissions are increasing despite all of the hype and awareness you spew, and that emissions will continue to increase in the absence of a very significant technology shift.
As the lower classes in developing countries - China and India in particular - get powered up, install floor covering in their homes, get hot and cold running water and flush toilets and finally get all of those basic things that we first worlders take for granted, emissions will continue to increase. This will happen whether or not you recycle your kitchen waste or switch to paper bags instead of plastic bags.
Without a significant technology shift - to technology that doesn't yet exist - emissions
will
continue to increase and the planet will warm. No amount of dicking around here and there will change that, and no amount of bleeting and blaming and "raising awareness" will change that.
Deal with it. Sorry guys. I'm not a denier, but I know enough to realize that warmists think they can make difference, but they simply can't.
I'm with you on that Jasper. How long can we pee in the pool before the pool gets pissy? Anyone who thinks the world is the same now as it was before the industrial revolution is just not paying attention. Hey, I love the thrust of those six cylinders burning fossil fuel. But me getting a Prius won't turn this around. The technology that replaces internal combustion gasoline engines had better be fun enough for all of ut to want to buy it. Until someone can convince the oil companies to iinvest in the R&D necessary to develop the next stage in the evolution of technology, it"s probably not going to happen. The car companies can barely keep their doors open in this recessionary economy, let alone spend on developing a new form of locomotion.
Didn't mean to go so far off topic but so be it...
Ya i dont think anyone on this forum would be arguing in favour of bicycle transportation only...despite what some certain city mayors may think. But jasper youve totally hit the nail on the head wrt progress ...with the developing world, well, developing, some in the developed world (read us of a) will use that as their excuse as to why they dont have to cut emmissions. Well at thenational level anyway...at the state/provincial/city level progress is being made and not by everyone driving prius'. Building tech is a huge factor and that is being addressed.
We can make a difference, each of us acting separately eventually means all of us working together. It's really that simple.
I'd love to have a discussion with you guys on this topic, but this isn't the forum for it. All I will say is that 98% of the climatologists believe that we, humans, are a major cause of the planet warming, and the warming is real.
That's all I will say on this subject. Like the IMS bearing, deniers will believe what they want in spite of facts to the contrary.
Wow - All I was saying is that Judge Alex is almost as popular as Judge Judy - it was for those who were not familiar with the show. This in no way was a comment about an expert witness nor about PNA.
Every Porsche mechanic I have spoken with admits to knowing about it. Some have never personally dealt with a bad IMSB, others have experienced a few.
I've heard anything from no one knows for sure if the IMSB is the root cause or collateral damage from some other internal failure, one mechanic with 17 years at a Porsche dealership has never seen a failed IMSB at the shop but suspects that it is moisture related, from owners who do not drive the car regularly and who frequently do short runs, another says it is from strectching oil change intervals, and another said he replaced 1 on it's way out and had replaced 2 engines where in both cases the cars were well maintained and driven 12k to 15k miles per year.
So who really knows why, all we know is that it does happen.
And I happen to enjoy Judge Judy so if that makes me a bitchy little girl I am okay with that.
Seriously, as others have asked, do you have any idea when the show will air? Are you allowed to give more details about the hearing and why Judge Alex ruled in your favor?
The real question is, on my 04 C2 with 72k miles on the clock and an OEM clutch pack and AOS sitting in the box, will I replace the IMSB while we are in there? I'd be a fool not to, right?
Should I stay or should I go now?
Sorry I'm a bitchy little girl 2 sometimes. Im not trying to be vague. I really don't know when it will air. It was fun tho, an adventure. I asked the producers to call or text me when it will appear. I won bc the car had been wrecked before and the Schister dealer said it had not. But I believed what he said hook line and sinker. I didnt get a PPI and if I had got one, it wouldn't have found the flywheel problem I think. Anyway the repair cost I put into her was awarded to me. I filed a case in small claims court and that was turning out to be a hassle. The owner was ducking getting served and even then I would have to collect on my own. So the dealer didn't have to pay. The show pays me. But I don't care I have the money back
My problem was the clutch had been bad for so long the flywheel was toast. It had 35k on the clock at that time. But I took the opportunity to ask the engineer that the show brought in to ask abt the IMSB. He told to replace it for certain.
Morning machbx.......wow, 35k on a clutch really doesn't seem that much, unless the PO was an animal! Don't want to worry you but is there any way the odometer could be lying??
Pity the bas**** dealer didn't have to shell out the money!!
Are you at liberty to share with us all the name and location of the guy, so we can all avoid him and spread the word??
Odometer was/is correct - inside it's like new.
The 'Manager' is Jon Hawkins the dealership is JDF Auto in Saint Charles,MO
I told the judge this guy is the Ted Bundy of used cars. Except he is good lookin
I'm glad it worked out for you. I'd also like to see the show when it airs. Please post again when you find out the date of when it will air. That way those of us who are subscribed to this thread can watch. Thanks for posting all the info.
FYI: the IMS failed on my 2004 car at 27K miles and the engine was replaced by Porsche. I'd consider the LN bearing but it can't be done on the newer engines without splitting the whole engine.
Thanks again for posting!
Yes, I'm sure. At the time, it was kind of surreal and like a bad dream. I didn't want to believe it. I was on my way back from a great Porsche Club 3 day trip from NY back to MA.
I am QUITE sure the OEM IMS bearing has problems! Believe the hype because it's true. There is at least one lawsuit out there and will be interesting to see where that goes.
I forgot the *NOT* part - or smart - Don't lie to a tv judge or try to outsmart him. I can tell you what I have been able to piece together - I do know my way around an engine a little - so the RMS starts leaking bc it sits - or just bc as we know the RMS on a lot of M96 have failed. Then the leaking oil goes right on to the clutch plates for years and glazes it up - the flywheel is getting tons of abuse bc of the clutch slipping. Finally it just goes - but I kept it - yes I lugged that clutch assembly and dual mass flywheel w me and it was my witness
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