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YOUR RESEARCHLooking at a 2001 996 with a Blown Head Gasket
Leading reported evidence
Use (or ~$7k + core)
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Yes, a used MkI ('99-'01) motor is still like $10k used (or ~$7k + core).
Leading evidence: 'Use (or ~$7k + core)' (no explicit attributable resolution; this is a reported action or suggestion). Across 1 matching discussions, The most frequently discussed action is 'Check autotrader' (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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Good used 928 32V engines are only around $1500-$2500.
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Performed · outcome unconfirmed · Original poster
I am assuming the same price tag as a 3.4l used engine, but cheaper to maintain and more powahhhhh!
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Suggestion
Who would buy a 180k mile roller for $6.7k Check autotrader.
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Suggestion · Original poster
If the owner has interest in my offer, then the next step would be me checking the coolant to see if it mixed with the oil, if it is, that to me is bad news.
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Suggestion
According to my training materials the only head gasket that FSI has seen fail was actually from one of their engines after an owner failed to use a vacuum filling tool to refill the engine after some cooling system maintenance, resulting in an air pocket.
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Suggestion
Guys are leaving the cars broken while they save money for the repairs, then they have to spend 4-5K more to replace all the items that were killed by intermix.
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Suggestion
[edit] plus with shop prices to rebuild these engines, assuming it's going back to stock, I'd rather take a shot at it myself and bring it to someone if I run into trouble than having a shop do it for me.
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I currently own a 88 944 Turbo that I just did a maintenance overhaul to., ie cam tower reseal, all belts (cam, balance belt, alt, p/s), all 16 rad hoses and clamps, water pump, vacuum lines, ISV hoses, all sway bar bushing replace, rebuild power steering unit, new rollers/tensioners/front engine oil seals, oil pump gear drive, injectors rebuilt, and now being driven on nice weekends and work days.
And with that said, a 2001 996 carrera 4 convertible w/184k miles pops up for sale with a blown head gasket. My question is, its cheap---> $5k, is it worth it with a blown engine?
I don't have the option sticker available, but it has full leather, manual, triple black, no nav, aftemarket rims(victor equipment), alpine aftermarket stereo, non-sport seats, and the black hard top.
I will assume no service records, so is this a walk away 996? I am comfortable doing work on the car, I just don't need a major headache beyond swapping engine's.
Thanks guys for the advice and words of wisdom.
A roller with that high mileage I would say ~2-3k. Most likely it's not the head gasket but a cracked head or worse though. The head gaskets (MLS) are known to be totally robust for these cars.
Generally speaking M96 engines don't blow head "gaskets" (they actually don't have head gaskets per se' just a permatex like material or "liquid gasket") - more likely they develop cracks in the head(s)... If they're not too badly damaged, they can be fixed, but without in depth knowledge of the particular motor in question it's a crap shoot...good luck
I am comfortable with replacing the engine and all, but I have read older threads where ppl spend 10k for a motor, is that true anymore?
Should I not even entertain an offer to the current owner?
Yes, a used MkI ('99-'01) motor is still like $10k used (or ~$7k + core). So the answer depends on how much you plan to spend in case the current engine is beyond repair.
So, how far down the rabbit hole do I want to go? Obviously a partial teardown would point me in the right direction, ie cracked casting, cylinder scoring, toasted bearings...etc etc.
Now I know why $2-3k for the roller, its a major crap shoot, but at least if the engine is too far gone, then I can part it and get my $$$ back.
Hopefully
It's worth $5K. You might get lucky (like I did) and the engine is fixable but better to prepare for the worse (engine replacement). A good used engine is $7-up, then what if the transmission is gone or needs to be fixed?
Sounds like you are a handy guy, go have a good look at it, see if you can at least test the transmission. Replacing just the bearings and rings is $2K in part alone (I'm doing that to mine right now). If you have the money to finance this then go for it but to get this car back on the road will cost from a few thousand to many many thousands.
There are no cam cover gaskets in these cars either. Just sealant used on the cam covers. And if you talk to Jake Raby I think he will tell you that he has never seen a blown head gasket on a M97/97 engine. If a seller or mechanic is saying a blown head gasket they are covering something up or don't really know what they are talking about.
Is there coolant in the oil or vice versa?
Thanks, I can give the owner my offer and see if he is willing to negotiate, or even better accept the offer. Hopefully he has service records, and as we all know, there is no such thing as a cheap porsche.
Here's to trying.
If the owner has interest in my offer, then the next step would be me checking the coolant to see if it mixed with the oil, if it is, that to me is bad news. Scored piston walls, bearings, basically the engine is a boat anchor.
His mechanic said it was a blown HG, but I call BS, he knows what he has on his hands, a bad 3.4L. We will see, i'll speak with the owner tomorrow.
I agree with you Paul, my curiosity is getting the better part of me right now. A 996 c4 ragtop, that would be a nice addition for under 10k if bought right. If the engine is too far gone, then I'll part it and have the wife hate me since she is really ready for a convertible for beach and quick grocery runs.
Temping, but i know from previous 928's, it could be the biggest money pit ever.
With that mileage the cylinders are out of round requiring sleeves & new pistons (bigger
). I assume it's losing coolant somewhere, so cracked cylinder or head.
I wouldn't call total BS yet without knowing more back story, but I bet they had a talk about the cost to fix the engine and after the talk no one really wanted to look into the issue. They just know it doesn't work, will cost a lot to fix, and are happy with that.
Owner not budging $5700, he laughed when I told em $3k. He doesn't want to spend $10k on replacing the engine, so it sits in his garage until he drops the price or someone forks over $5700.
Too bad.
I like my 944T, easy to fix, parts everywhere cheap due to the high production #'s they made.
Like any older porsche, wiring and eletrical gremlins can get the best of people, but like you mentioned, engines are cheap on 928's.
I'll wait and see if owner changes his mind in 2-3months, the car has been sitting for 1.5 years already, what's another 2-3 months of a car rotting away by sitting, literally.
1.5yr not good if there's intermix of coolant and engine oil. Budget about $2k to replace the coolant tank and all the coolant hoses on the car....about 29 of them.
With 185k on the clock, who knows what elese is non-functioning, broken. I am sure if the car had the stock rims, stereo and had about 85K less on it perhaps, but people are leary @ the high high mileage.
Not me
Good to know, thanks for the info. I haven't verified the milk frappe oil/coolant mix, but if he's not willing to negotiate, I won't waste his/my time.
11k dealer trade-in in "good" condition with that mileage, minus the replacement engine cost $3k car.
Obviously the car isn't in "good" condition, it needs lotsa $$$ thrown at it to get it running, then fix any other gotcha's....IMS bearing probably not retrofitted either, that's what $1.5/$2K, wyit do the leaky RMS and clutch, price just climbs.
Bingo.
Even 3 months of intermixed coolant will kill these items, and we see it all the time. Guys are leaving the cars broken while they save money for the repairs, then they have to spend 4-5K more to replace all the items that were killed by intermix. It'll even kill the heater core.
When intermix occurs, flush the system immediately. If we get a car here for a reconstruction, we flush the system before we put the car in storage as it waits in our line. If not, the hoses WILL be dead when we pull it out of storage.
Oh, these engines don't blow head gaskets. the gaskets are stronger than the block or the heads. Its an 01, so it has a cracked head- I'll betcha.
Thanks Jake,
I think you nailed it with a cracked head. I believe the owner knows the cost of fixing and the severity of the damage, put it away since he doesn't want to/have the means to fix it, and now is trying to sell a convertible 911 right around the corner from summertime when people fancy the idea of a convertible.
Smart guy, I'll give him that for trying to sell it now with summer in the air.
Thanks again.
Reminds me of Renegade Hybrid engine swap for boxster S and 944's. Clean install.
I am assuming the same price tag as a 3.4l used engine, but cheaper to maintain and more powahhhhh!
Owner just increased the price to $6700!!!!!!!! This guy is a quack job.
He's in denial. Who would buy a 180k mile roller for $6.7k Check autotrader. A 2001 c4 cab is $19k and that car has only 110k miles. Who knows what else is wrong with the car. The transmission could be bad. Who knows. The buyer takes a significant risk buying a roller.
The uninformed and uneducated guy that doesn't browse forums or internet much and thinks he can fix it cheap since he's rebuilt and worked on a lot of push rod Chevy motors in the past...
968 imho are a good looking car, but I do love my 951. I just saw a 62k 996 on ebay with a cracked block. I don't know how you guys own these, it seems an inevitable time bomb with either the IMS or the block cracking.
You guys have nerves of steel.
Depends what's wrong with it. An engine to some extent is an engine and a person who has experence building engines shouldn't have too big of a deal getting one of these up and running. Not saying it would be cheap, but that a person could do it themselves with success.
I have walked away from this deal mentally, just not worth the risk. But the LS3 conversion, that to me is the a long-term fix, both financially and mentally for owners planning to hold onto their cars, or having to do a $10k engine swap.
Not just that but you also have long time mechanics coming on here for technical help and tips even though they may have worked on 100's of other motors. Although it may be just another "engine", there are a couple gotcha places where you need to seek out specific answers/techniques on this motor along with the correct tools.
Nothing wrong with asking for help or assistance. The point is that you have some Porsche specific mechanics that misdiagnose symptoms on these motors all the time and they've been working on these motors for awhile now. Imagine the Chevy guy buying one of these up thinking it's just a abc problem when in fact it turns out to be a xyz issue. At that point, it can go from a $2k fix to over $5k fix for example. Just because you are a general mechanic doesn't mean you can catch or properly diagnose these motors on the first try.
This would be motor out and stripped down. Everything at that point would be easy to measure. Anything within specs would be kept, anything outside of specs would be replaced.
That wouldn't be too hard with some resources and a shop space to work out of.
Not saying that someone could up and build a track monster, do cute work with the heads, and really do something custom, just that it would be pretty easy to build a motor to stock - not saying cheap, just not hard.
[edit] plus with shop prices to rebuild these engines, assuming it's going back to stock, I'd rather take a shot at it myself and bring it to someone if I run into trouble than having a shop do it for me. At $100 an hour or more I can do a lot of learning.
I think some people on here would beg to differ. Have you rebuilt one of these motors? Everyone's gonna have their own definition of "hard". Perhaps we can get some of the members that have done this to chime in( IM000, Schnell Gab, ByproDriver, etc.).
Mine block is still apart but when I first pulled the heads 3 years ago, the gottcha moment for me was the timing of the camshafts between the two banks. Having said that, you need to know how to work on engines pretty good to take it apart. In general, up the the point of only pulling the heads, it's not that much different than most variable timing DOHC engines but after that it starts to get really "interesting".
The head gaskets are stronger than the block or heads when it comes to the M9X engine. These are multi- layer steel gaskets that simply do not fail. According to my training materials the only head gasket that FSI has seen fail was actually from one of their engines after an owner failed to use a vacuum filling tool to refill the engine after some cooling system maintenance, resulting in an air pocket. It seems that the rest of that story is quite ironic in 2023, even though it happened about 5-6 years ago.
Everything anyone needs to know on the topic of head gaskets/ intermix is covered in this Renncast with Jake Raby
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p4NHv2izv6g
This is a source reference. Confirm exact model applicability in the original material.
