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YOUR RESEARCHShould I drive it?
Leading reported evidence
Run gamut between panicked
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I ran the gamut between panicked, to concerned, to having a reasonable course of action.
Leading evidence: 'Run gamut between panicked' (no explicit attributable resolution; this is a reported action or suggestion). Across 1 matching discussions, the most frequently mentioned possible cause is 'ims' (1 discussions; 0 report identifying it and 1 suggest it). The most frequently discussed action is 'Clean 996' (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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Yes I used the pick to remove the seal & the race was so loose it came out with the seal.
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Suspected cause
Winter oil change revealed oil leak, first thought was RMS was later discovered it was the IMS.
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Suggestion
With 88,k miles but no signs of IMS bearing wear I wanted to inspect my bearing.
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Suggestion
Its also up to the owner to take whatever action they see fit, we don't pressure anyone into a preventive as most pressure themselves into an untimely repair because the preventive wasn't carried out.
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Suggestion
I have said till I am blue in the face, either cover yourself with a warranty or finacial ableness, drive it as if it will never happen or replace a "perfect" part for a couple thousand $$ at a shop or <$1k at home in "hopes" of ever having to deal with it.....
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80 eligible posts · 0 unverified posts · 1 discussions match the subject in their title or opening post.
Rennlist: 1 discussions
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I just purchased a really clean 996. It has 81k mi on it. Ive put about 2k on it. It runs very well with out weird vibrations or oil leaks. I have been told about the IMS retofit and that it is pretty much mandatory as there are no warning signs before it goes out. I plan to do it, but now I am afraid to drive it. What do you think? Is it a really common problem or is it posted because most people post when there is a problem?
Thanks
$1800. to upgrade now or $14,000.+ to replace it & engine if it fails while you own it. That's pretty much the bottom line, & the choice is yours. Preventative maintenance is always cheaper than subsequent repairs.
Bring it on over I'll do it for that if it 's a manual 2wd, just be sure to bring any parts other than the IMS bearing with you. If So. CA is not close for you call LNengineering for a prefered installer in your area.
SMACK !
Drive It MORE!!
To the OP, dont worry, just get it done when you can, I lost a lot of sleep over mine and in the end 3 years later the original one is still working just fine with 130k miles!!
but do get it done
The internet has a way of exagerating the IMS issue, but no one reall knows what the failure rate is. Some here at Rennlist have done it and feel it is money well spent, others (myself included) have not done it, and still have a blast driving our 996s regularly. If it bothers you so much then you have 3 options; upgrade your IMS, ignore the IMS, or sell your Porsche and get an air-cooled one...they don't have any problems or issues...
Keep in mind that you will hear the problems more than success stories on our cars. The realty is that if you can afford the upgrade, do it. When I purchased my 99 I had a chance to get the warranty history and looks like the IMS issues, etc were ALL taken care of back in 2000. I also had it checked and NO leaks, noises whatsoever, clutch was replaced 4 years ago by dealer so I am sure they also looked at any other issues of concern... You get the point...
DOH SNAP !!!
Stave!!
Air-cooled cars not having IMS is NOT a reason to swap (well OK it's one reason)
Being a troll is the real reason to go air cooled
This thread reminds me of another one
https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...m-worried.html
Fricken cry babies buying P-cars!!!
I totally understand where your coming from, I was scared to drive my 99 after I learned about the IMS issue. But talking to two dealers and a indy shop it is not as big a problem as you might think. You should do it as soon as possible, but drive the car. I was told there are lot of things that can go wrong with the car besides the IMS that can cost 4-5K and have nothing to do with replacing an engine.
Pcars are expensive to maintain! Welcome to the club.
I was also told that the 996 are usually very reliable.
The only thing I driven that I like better was a 2008 carrera S.
I did this EXACT same thing a year ago to the month. I did the retro fit. I had to for my own sanity.. Now if I have to spend the 14K on another engine at least i know I tried.
Consider this- Of all the people on this forum that have been scared into replacing their IMS bearing, not one that I am aware of has found that the bearing that they removed was bad or in the process of failing, that includes me.
I have read most posts on IMS on this forum and all that I have read pretty much say the same thing- there was nothing wrong with the bearing that I pulled out of my Porsche, but now I have piece on mind.
This is not a good forum for the newbie Porsche 996 buyer. Nearly constant IMS drum beat, some from posters that have never posted before and when asked questions about their car that they say blew up, they go silent, or dissapear.
Don't get me wrong, it is a great forum, just not for the newbie. Wait till you have read a few milder ghost stories on other forums like 6speed, then Rennlist's sense of humor will be easier for you to digest
In all reality, IMS might or might not happen I wonder how many 996's were totally in an accident vs. IMS. Or the owner contracting Beaver Fever or die from an elephant attack.
Relax..........
Beaver fever is no joke.. I actually got it... kidney infection from swimming in a lake near a beaver dam.. the bacteria went up my ... well... it was hell, I'll leave it at that..... so tally 1 996 owner for beaver fever...
that is true... everybody get the flange!
there is a guy on the want to buy section with a 993 that had an ims failure and is looking for a bottom end to rebuild...
No Ball Bearings on one end, Just IMS in robust (as long as there is oil pressure) shell bearings. So air-cooled has IMS with NO failure prone sealed ball bearings.
I had the intension of providing details with close up (some are no longer on there) of the two and comparing them in hope of easing some of the fear in thinking it was some sort of special part, by showing it has been around for years and years and works - with the exception of the updated bearing which could be replaced.... oh well....glad some publicity has been brought to it, maybe someone will see it.
With 88,k miles but no signs of IMS bearing wear I wanted to inspect my bearing. It was failing & I estimate it would have come apart in less than 4,k miles
I've spoken to several dealer mechanics, several independents and dozens of individual owners. I'm on my third 996 at close to 100k miles, and did not touch the bearing during a clutch change last week, that sums up how I feel about this issue.
Conversely, a good friend of mine has an 08 Subaru WRX STI which broke a piston and spun a rod bearing at ~39k miles. The owner previously had a 996, which gave him absolutely no trouble through his ownership... Not surprisingly, problems with solutions that make some people money will get more air time. The IMS bearing wasn't that talked about before the kit manufacturer ran ads saying things like "tick tick boom" or posting dozens of pictures of internal engine carnage either. Do a search here if you'd like, and set the date to before the retrofit was available.
But of course, some do fail, and if the retrofit will make you sleep ~$1600 better, it makes sense to do it. I'm in south east, and if you need somebody to do the labor, I'd be more than happy to perform it for under $500 btw.
Cheers.
Take the old engine out and install 3 of the 1 liter gsx-r100 engines. Then you will have 3 liters with around 500hp at the rear wheel at around 14,000 rpms. That or suffer through another dull drive
. Could just buy a turbo.
That depends on whether you consider a failed seal to be the IMS bearing "in the process of failing." Several of us have put the retrofit bearing in and found that the original seal had failed.
Maybe you guys are correct- I missed a post that the bearing was going to fail in 4.5 km & a seal that leaked.
Maybe we should continue to post IMS topics daily and stab at failure rates that range from 1%-??% and scare potential buyers off and newbies from driving their newly acquired cars.
And maybe we can drive the value of our 996's down below $10,000 by ballyhooing all that might go wrong with a 996.
Then if anything else goes wrong that is new, be sure and post it, and maybe Click, Click, Boom, Boom can write an article about it with pictures and see if he can get a national Porsche magazine, that he advertises in, to publish it.
Makes sense.
Actually, if your intermediate shaft bearing seal has failed, it's worth doing something about. I don't get that exercised about rear main seal leaks, but this one deserves attention if you happen to catch it.
As for the rest of your rant, I sympathize. I honestly don't know why people get in such knots about either a low-probability failure or a relatively inexpensive bit of preventative maintenance. It's not the first Porsche or the first car to benefit from it, and these aren't new cars anymore.
awe, isnt that the point of a forum... to discuss issues/potential issues/fixes/problems/solutions/findings/success and failure?
to share the info both good and bad so people have a tool to make decisions
After reading a clutch job on a Ferrari costs $25k I decided not to get one.... and if you have a Porsche that has the potential of a costly repair wouldnt it be good to know
What gets me is the amount of fear created from a great marketing job which is supplemented by drop in posts here and now. For the guys that have done the retrofit I applaud them because they have done their due diligence in research and decided it was best for them to get it done. For the guys that write the posts, mind you most are using this as their 1st few posts about 'should I drive it?' I can't help but think of this....
I dont plan on replacing my IMS.
To the OP....drive it and enjoy it.
Just becareful of the IMS, RMS, AOS and cracking cylinder walls.
Moral of the story....you cant prevent all types of failures, drive it relax and enjoy...make sure you wind it out atleast once everytime you drive it.
perhaps we (I) will swear off any IMS posts from here fwd...just dont reply
though I get so mad sometimes at both sides I have to say something (have to is such a strong word)
the extreme "It will never happen" and "this is all hog wash" to fear mongroling and OMG all 996 are going to explode tomorrow at high noon...
I have said till I am blue in the face, either cover yourself with a warranty or finacial ableness, drive it as if it will never happen or replace a "perfect" part for a couple thousand $$ at a shop or <$1k at home in "hopes" of ever having to deal with it.....
I lived with mine and read all the threads... finially decided to do it and sold the car the day before I planned to replace it.. the car has ~130k miles on the original everything and runs fine - still if I owned it I would replace it when the clutch comes out just to have it done - no fear, no hype, just replace it and move on.
sometimes I feel like part of the problem so I try VERY HARD not to be... I hope I am not - if you think I am just PM me
I will tell ya where to stick it
(kidding)
I'm thinking that the hype was definitely not to the extent it was prior to the retrofit availability.
I'm still on the fence about doing mine last spring. Did it save the engine? I don't know. Will it hurt it? No.
Does the part fail? Yes, but to what extent. It's an easy fix so it's "six to one half dozen to another".
Personally I feel that the vendor should not be the one who is constantly the one that bumped the fear factor, while at the same time trying to be "one of the group". Ethically, I thought there was a conflict of interest. Pumping a product from your company to the ill informed through car forums is a little snake oily. "Buy my product or expect your car to fail like this..... [img]some failed bearing[img]".
My opinion.
Here is a New Years resolution. I will not reply to IMS threads....unless I feel like a kid that can't help himself from putting a hand print in fresh cement.
Ed-You are far from being the problem buddy.
Sorry for the poor focus. this is a quarter surrounded by the IMS bearing race next to the bearing seal. Trying to show how undersize this bearing is for the job. When I tried to remove the seal with the pick tool to enhance lubrication & inspection I caught the race & everything including the ball bearings spilled out easily.
I have stayed off this forum for months due to the perpetual "newbies" that come out of nowhere and start an IMS thread that then goes on for up to 2 weeks.
Maybe the search feature no longer works, but it seems the same posters get baited into keeping this topic on this board constantly.
I came back on this board to find info on double din's to put it my Porsche and talked myself out of it after reading a few posts. Imagine the effects of someone shopping for a Boxter, 996, or 997.
Other boards do not keep this ball in the air constantly like we do here. I never plan on selling my car and I have a LN bearing in it, so it does not really effect me, but I think some may be hurting themselves.
The good news is I will go away again
are you saying the part that holds the ball in place popped out?
So from what I have seen that is due to ball degradation causing too much slop in the mating parts and the ***** beating the retainer to death and eventually resulting in a failure of the ring where then the ***** fall out and you know the rest...
I assume you replaced the bearing?
IMO that was close to failing - if you try and remove the retainer on any new bearing for any application... it aint easy
Curious to hear your story as to how/why you were in there
My opinion is that we were all "ill informed" thanks to Porsche & are now well informed thanks to Jake Raby & I consider his approach is a "I've got bad news but there is good news too"
I think the most common post on forums is "What is the best "mod" for my M96 engine" & people invariably discover very little satisfaction for lots of money spent yet not invested. I hearby nominate the LNengineering IMS bearing for most satisfying M96 upgrade! Porsche created this weakpoint & should have recalled the IMS bearing & provided a suitable fix. Considering all that Jake Raby has invested in Flat6innovations I would not be surprised if he has yet to make a net profit, but I hope he does have sufficent incentive to continue his "Risk & Developement". Knowledge is Power!
Sorry that you feel that way.
If I'm one of those "baited" regular posters you're referring to, it's only because I keep trying to sell some kind of reasonable perspective on this, rather than buying into one of the equally stupid and emotional extremes of "it's a myth" and "tick tick boom." To coin a phrase, all that's required for hysteria to prevail is that sane men say nothing.
My post was in response to the critisism aimed at Jake Raby(it was not my intention to single out the OP of the quote I replied too) in order to acknowledge his invaluable contribution to all M96 owners & potential owners including but not limited to his part in the LNengineering IMS bearing upgrade development.
Yes I used the pick to remove the seal & the race was so loose it came out with the seal. The bearings were degraded as a result of poor lubrication partly caused by a small crack in 1 head I was alerted to from a oil analysis reporting a high sodium level indicating coolant intrusion which explained my coolant level slowly droping & no leakage. I think the bearing was failing but since it was a dual row design still adequate.
And the GOOD news:
Just out of curiosity, why should Porsche recall the bearing? What is the factor that determines a recall and where is this failure at in terms of failures per X cars?
I think you are overlooking the fact (or assuming and therefore stating it's the best mod) that we do not know how many failures there are. Now I'm not saying that it's not something to do (like I always point out, I have done the retrofit). But if it's such a critical item why are people waiting to do it only during clutch replacement? If it was an imminent failure, why aren't people doing right away? Cost? Most likely. So people who replace the bearing are evaluating the risk of failure to the cost of labor of doing it right away. The gamble is that it won't fail in the mean time. Now why aren't people evaluating the cost to replace the bearing vs. not replacing at all? Because you have a vendor(Edit: A User) on here pumping a product that can save your engine.
Now I like the product, and have no issue with the companies but we need to find a comprimise here with what the IMS is really all about. Are we really going to say that these failures have only recently (last two years) been happening? My car is 11-12 years old, if this issue is as it's portrayed, there should be a huge percentage of 996's that have had engine replacements due to this. Personally, I don't think that that statement is true.
My biggest point is that we have a vendor acting as a member without any disclosure clearly stating their interest in the subject when they post.
It's deceptive.
Just to chime in, I hoped I didn't have to and researched the possibility was low that the IMS would leaked. I got a 2003 with the improved IMS from Porsche, service records showed RMS was recently replaced, But...
Winter oil change revealed oil leak, first thought was RMS was later discovered it was the IMS. Did the LN upgrade and currently in winter rest.
To the OP, I would drive it if no indication but as everybody says, do regular maintenance and be aware of signs of warning.
First off, don't be afraid to drive the car unless it has some sort of mechanical noise that is unexplained. Any engine can fail at any time, be it a Ferrari, Porsche or Kia. Those who work with engines everyday experience this and understand it much better than anyone else.
If you have a mechanical noise or an unexplained release of nasty black oil (darker than whats on the dipstick of your engine) or the engine starts to consume coolant, then you have a reason to worry and your actions can save you thousands of dollars.
Now, someone brought up the fact that I post to these boards and thats a conflict of interest. The fact is that first I am a Porsche Enthusiast, I've owned a Porsche since the age of 12 and I currently own 3 of them and I've owned well over 50 of pretty much every era except the 924/44 series.
The assumptions that people have gained here about my reasoning for posting couldn't be more off base. I like to share information and know that the only way these engines will be understood is by some means of sharing what we learn. Doing this HELPS people AVOID issues before they happen. If issues have already occurred, it helps the owner understand what their choices are in terms of repair and avoiding reoccurrence.
That said, if my intent was different I'd not be hosting classes to teach others about these engines and what we know about them at a much more advanced level. I'd simply let them fail, ensure no one learned the tricks and gather up all the business. Thats simply not true.
Now, if anyone thinks that we benefit from the "fear factor" I'll share a little fact. I have cars on site currently from seven states. All of these cars arrived here with mode of engine failure with the exception of one which came for an IMSR as a preventive procedure.
Be glad that you have gathered the information that you have from these boards and the posts from me and others like me. The majority of those who have to seek out what we do have no idea that these issues exist, until they experience them and then they seem shocked that this could happen to a Porsche.
If everyone who owned one of these cars was on this forum and read what happened we'd see a lot less failures. If 30,60 and 90K mile services were more invasive we'd also see a lot less failures, but too many shops follow the Porsche directives that were written when the cars were new and those aren't reality.
Some people can't handle reality and feel they need to blame someone or something for it. I am the messenger and its the reader's choice whether or not they want to believe whats being said. Its also up to the owner to take whatever action they see fit, we don't pressure anyone into a preventive as most pressure themselves into an untimely repair because the preventive wasn't carried out.
So, some people would rather have issues noted and addressed while others would rather just drive the car and hope that nothing occurs. I am going to catch flack no matter what, I caught just as much when we were still in our R&D stages of this as I do now and at that time I didn't even have a product to sell or service to render (by choice!). Fact is 10% of people can't be pleased and another 10% will complain about everything, the remaining 80 are loyal, grateful and appreciate our efforts and appreciate the direct way that we state the issues.
The way I see it, at least the most problematic areas have been addressed and have a preventive for those who do believe in the problems and want to be proactive. Until 20 months ago there was no "IMS bearing Retrofit" that was commercially available. The tools, procedures and components did not exist. LN Engineering and I took on that challenge and have continued to perpetuate development on the procedures and tools to make this a mainstream DIY procedure. Until this summer no one really knew what was causing cracked heads, until we released the information about busted water pump impellers.
These are just a couple of things that I am proud to have been a part of and if you choose to criticize me for sharing the facts that I see directly without a sugar coating, thats up to you.
I would like to thank you for posting and sharing your knowledge on here Jake. When someone is having a real issue with there car, there are lots of guesses, but when people are stumped, more often than not, I see calls for you to post. I myself have learned lots from this forum, and your posts.
I'm glad I read Jake Ray's above post. Last Friday I put my Porsche into the shop for the IMS preventive replacement, new clutch, AOS replacement and I just called my indy and told them to r and r the water pump too. I believe they were going to pull the engine anyway. Flush the radiators etc too. Pretty much gave them a blank check. I will post pictures of the replaced parts when I get it back.
I'm the one brining it up and I'm not knocking your contributions to the knowledge on these engines. I tried to purchase the retrofit from you but ended up buying from LN since you said you were busy.
Regardless of your contributions, as a business you should disclose your interest in the IMS issue. That's all.
Jake (and others):
I have had my 996 for all of 3 months now. I did some research and reading of many of these posts by Jake and others on the IMS/RMS failures in the two weeks between when I bought the car and took delivery. I ran the gamut between panicked, to concerned, to having a reasonable course of action. I am grateful to Jake for his taking the time to give us the benefit of his experience. Then, it's up to you as a consumer, to decide what - if anything - you are going to do. But that's the case with any car, and these things are more critical and more expensive with highly engineered sports cars.
For me, I will sit quietly, change my oil every 5K miles, and wait till I need a new clutch. Then I'll decide whether I need to do the IMS replacement or not. In the meantime, any newbie needs to understand that turning to an "expert" forum like this, and asking a 4 word question is like opening the floodgates. You're probably NOT going to get an answer you want to hear, you will NOT be satisfied, you will NOT be re-assured, you will become convinced that buying one of these cars will spell financial doom for you.
I will drive the hell out of my car, smile with every mile, push it to redline at least once a day, take it to a knowledgeable shop for regular maintenance, and dispel the nightmares with dreams of heel and toeing through the daily commute.
larry
