IMS Tensioner Paddle failing?

Hello all! I'm a newbie here, and in much need of opinions, suggestions, and/or advice. I have a 2001 Porsche 911 Carrera. It is a tiptronic and has 101,200 miles on it. I've owned it for just over a year. I recently discovered an oil leak and it was coming from the rear main seal area. Took it to the local independent Porsche shop who have an amazing reputation, to have them fix the rear main seal, replace the IMS bearing, etc. They first call me to let me know the oil looked good and there was nothing in the oil filter. Great news. But a little later they call to tell me they found bits of plastic in the sump pump. They said they have seen this before, its the IMS Tensioner Paddle and although its only a $20 part they can't do the IMS retrofit and that my engine is done. Its only a matter of time before it fails. They reinstalled the sump pump, put a new filter on and filled it with oil and said there is nothing they can do that will be worth it compared to the price of the car, and I should sell it immediately. Well, morally and ethically I can't sell my car knowing this and let it end up being someone else's issue that they didn't sign up for. So that isn't an option. So I started researching and I only found a three threads containing pictures with people finding plastic in their sump pumps. All three are a little different and mine is different to all three (I think). Here are the threads: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-forum/845488-what-i-found-in-my-oil-pan-yesterday.html https://rennlist.com/forums/996-forum/722321-please-help-identify-bits-found-in-oil-filter.html I don't know if its ok to post threads from other websites, so if not then I apologize. Let me know and I will remove it. http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/996/224085-plastic-debris-oil-sump.html: The last thread has pictures half way down, but had larger pictures near the bottom of the thread. Here is a picture of what was found in my car: I know I might be grasping at straws here, but what do you guys think? Could the shop be wrong? Also, when I first got the car i had an oil leak from a cracked spark plug tube. The tube was actually broken and a piece dropped inside. Could it have made its way to the sump pump? Just looking for thoughts, and advice. Is the car done? It runs as it always has except for the rear main seal leak. Thanks in advance to all comments. I appreciate you all taking the time to help me out. Mark. Bits of plastic found in my sump pump.

They could be correct. They could be wrong and those bits are from your timing chain guide rails which are serviceable but very labor intensive. Well....the IMS paddle is techncally serviceable but you need to split the engine case. Which is even more labour intensive. Either way, you are looking at thousands to get it done at the dealer.

Others who are far more knowledgeable then myself will chime in to give you some good advice. From following threads over the last few years the paddle tensioners do wear and can be replaced. Sounds like the shop is looking at this from a purely economical standpoint, but the reality is that many of us will spend more than the value of the car to keep it running if necessary. I, like you, really take exception to the advice to button it up and pass the problem on to someone else. Looking forward to hearing the great advice you will get from experts that are on this forum.

I had the similar thing happen to My 2000 996 Tip motor after 100K. Found all these pieces of plastic in the Oil Pan after dropping it due to a small oil leak, oil change and AOS failure. Dropped and dissected the motor to find the root cause of Brown and Black material. Found the Brown material to be 4 very worn down engine original VareoCam tension chain pads. As you can see New (left) versus old (right). Inspected all the other chain rails, two had some notable wear so I will be replacing all and also inspected the IMS chain paddle and black chain rail that partners with the paddle. Also inspected the black splash baffle and like you I can only assume as to where the black plastic came from since all the black plastic components in the motor are intact.

It could be pieces from the spark plug tube, but you said only a "piece" fell in. The problem is how do you know for sure? See spark plug tubes here #27: http://www.autoatlanta.com/porsche-p...section=103-00 Okay then. You can't be sure if it is pieces from the spark plug tube, chain tensioner rails or IMS paddle. It's a tough place to be, and the only sure way to tell is to drop the engine and get in there. Basically at this point you are talking a total rebuild. Or, take a $15K gamble and run it. Drop sump plate in 1K miles and see if there is more debris. BTW, did they do any diagnostics on cam deviations and so on? If it is the IMS tensioner paddle, seems like there would be some weird deviations out of spec. Or then again, maybe not...just wear. In the end, the pieces were there and they came from somewhere. So it is down to either tear it apart and find out what is wrong, repair, or run it until something breaks. Also might consider not running it, engine exchange w/good core, and getting back on the road. I hope Ahsai weighs in on the internals and what might be wrong.

Those peices are brown it looks like (theres som black ones too) which leads me to beleive its the timing chain guide rails. I had the same problem. Pretty sure my car has had all of Rennlists listed problems. lol

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Hi Joe, I hope Jake will chime in soon. In this case, it seems the shapes of the pieces may give us more clues. There are 4 to 5 relatively large and flat pieces.

This isn't just any material.. It is specifically from the IMS Tensioner paddle wear pad. This is the 3rd part that's installed to the engine, so its just about as deep inside the engine as possible. I can tell this by the size, shape, thickness, and color of this material. Thee photos are very familiar to me.

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While the bits look sinister they are not proof the "IMS tensioner paddle" is toast. Those bits could been in there since the engine left the factory. Were it my car I would be inclined to drive the car some while keeping an ear (or two) tuned to the engine for any signs of trouble. Odd noises, rough running, anything out of the ordinary you shut off the engine first then ask questions. But absent any untoward noises/behavior from the engine, after some engine run time I'd drop the oil filter housing and carefully dump the contents into a *clean* drain pan. If you see an assortment of plastic bits -- hard plastic bits -- these are almost certainly coming from a chain guide. Whether the bits are coming from the VarioCam actuator rails, the IMS to intake cam chain guides, or the crank to IMS chain guide is hard to say. The color may help. Caramel colored bits is VarioCam actuator plastic and I think (based on pics I have of a 996 engine apart) the IMS to intake cam chain guides. Dark brown, almost black, is the crank to IMS chain guide. Regardless a fresh crop of plastic debris is not a good sign. No plastic bits -- other than may be a few small bits which can be just some residual trash -- is a good sign. Replace the filter element and the various o-rings and fill the housing with the proper oil and install and drive on. I'd still be on the lookout for any untoward engine activity for a while. You could of course check the filter housing oil and element as described above after another X number of miles, maybe several times until the next scheduled oil change, to verify no additional chain guide material of any color is showing up in the oil.

If the tensioner paddle wear pad wears enough to become thin, and fall off... Then the tensioner hyperextends and jams. When that happens the tensioner paddle snaps in half, and the engine loses valve timing. I see this one quite often these days.

Well, for me it seems we have a verdict! So to the OP, you are going to have to consider either (1) tear down engine and get it fixed - it is the IMS paddle cuz Jake says so, and BTW the original prognosis; (2) chance it and run it until it blows with valves blown through the pistons. Since I love my car and personally probably way to impractical regarding cost, I would jump into a rebuild/repair and end up with something awesome....even if it took a team of experts. Please don't go the low road and unload it on some unsuspecting person. You could trade the car in with devalued $ and let someone else take on the repair/rebuild if you don't have the time/inclination/$ to do it yourself. It is not the end of the world and can be repaired. IMHO do not put more engine hours on it. Unfortunate circumstances.

I wouldn't leave it the tensioner paddle only clips over the metal part as its interchangeable it's not like it's bonded on and a bit has come off it just clips over the edges and if part of this has gone it could be literally just holding on, and like Jake says once it goes the engine goes with it. The plastic shouldn't have done any damage not like an IMS or something where metal gets pulled through the engine, your lucky in a way , all the parts should be ok inside your engine as long as it's clean when put back together you could pretty much re use everything just new gaskets and seals etc Of course you can start down the , while I'm in there road but if you just wanted to get up and running again it might not be too bad to do yourself or by a trusted independent, even refreshing the bearings rings chains and rains etc shouldn't be too bad , you'll be In for the labour anyway if you don't do it yourself as you will have to get the cases off and get the bearing carrier out to sort the ims paddle, it's a lot of work but could be worse I think!! Don't just leave it though as when it goes it will do a lot of damage , the cams will go out of time and hit the Pistons bending the valves damaging the Pistons , damaging the heads , plus other things!! It's silly it's a small cheap part it's just hard to get to it that's the problem, good luck with it !!

Wow! I wasn't expecting so many great responses so fast. Thank you all, sincerely. What an awesome community! So basically I'm looking at rebuilding or buying a used or rebuilt engine. As far as me rebuilding, I will probably be in way over my head. Until this incident I've done all the work on this car myself including oil changes, spark plugs, coils, cold air intake, upgraded plenum and throttle body, changed out the exhaust, lowered the car, and Plasti Dip the wheels. However, before this I have never worked on any car in my life. Not even an oil change (do I lose my man card?). Now, I'm not scared but it's probably not the smartest decision to attempt this on my own, right? So it comes down to paying to have it rebuilt or buying a used or rebuilt engine. I don't have a clue of how long it would take or what it would cost to have it rebuilt. I've seen prices for used and rebuilt engines on the internet and ebay range from $3,999 from a dismantler up to $25,000. I have two daughters, a 5 year old and a new 4 month old, so I don't want to go too crazy spending extra money, but also don't want to deal with this again if possible. Unless there's a place that will do a trade for one of the kids.... I joke. Right now I like them more then the car. That might change during the teenage years. What is the most cost effective, and yet smart purchase approach? Getting used I will probably see the same issues. What is a good price for a rebuilt engine? What would you all do in my position? And since I'm new and this is my first post I won't fan the flames on the LSx swap debate. Thanks again guys. I appreciate you taking the time to helping me out. Here is a picture of the one you are helping to save:

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I can relate. Jake tore down my blown motor and found that it was a broken paddle, which was then sent through the side of the block by the chain.

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This happens more times than people think. This is often confused with an IMS Bearing failure, since it offers many of the same symptoms. If someone doesn't extract the bearing flange, and they diagnose only from cam timing, or lack of camshaft movement when the crank is rotated, it will fool most people. Corrosive wear from not changing oil often enough (calendar time, not miles!) is a huge contributor to this mode of failure. The other driving factor is a tired IMS tensioner which allows the IMS drive chain to slacken at start up. This slaps the wear pad and beats the **** out of it. People that have start up chain rattle and don;t address it will ultimately experience this failure, or a broken IMS drive chain.

So, can anyone give me an idea of how many man hours it takes for a shop to fix this issue? Actually to do a rebuild? Any advice from buying an engine from a dismantler? Ebay? Advice on buying used vs rebuilt? Thanks in advance.

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Rebuilt is generally a dirty term... That means bare minimum was done. If you are handy pull it apart yourself, thats better than trusting something thats marginal at best. Used engines are scary, most are not used from a dismantler, they've been marginally assembled from the "good" components from two or more failed engines. With your engine you know what you have, and thats a hell of a lot more than what you'll buy otherwise.

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Would a spring loaded tensioner instead of oil pressured tensioner prevent this start up beating of the plastic rails? Just curious, not that it can be done. Is that why they say 996 needs to be driven daily to prevent problems?

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Porsche has revised this tensioner 3 times.. Some units used a spring, didn't help.

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Yep, "rebuilt" has to be the most over-used word in the car world. Unless you know exactly what is meant by "rebuilt," the term essentially mean nothing. OP, I'd sure go with getting you motor "rebuilt" before I'd gamble on a used one.

A guy at the track today told me he bought an eBay motor (after blowing his) and blew it fairly quickly. So then he bought a crate engine through Porsche for his 2000. I didn't think they were still available are they?

I have to agree with Flat6 Innovations, that if you are some what mechanically inclined that it is best if you do the work yourself so you get to know the true state of your engine and you might do the work with better quality. There is plenty of assistance on RL and on the net. Here is what I found to be the culprit of the debris in my Oil Pan. Eaten up VareoCam and IMS chain pads after 100K miles. See the new shiny beige and orange ones on tensioner and the new black one installed on IMSB Chain pad. Unfortunately to do this one you will have to split the case in half . A better visual of the damage. Noz1974 said it best that he seriously thinks this would have to be added to the AOS, IMSB and multiple other serviceable wear items of the 996 motor.

Why in the world did Porsche make these parts out of degradable plastic? Surely there must be a better material to have made them from.

I think one of the big players could take a good look at this, they are all in competition on selling the other engine upgrades but no one has anything out there to solve this problem , I believe the newer pads are a better material but there must be something better surely??

Porsche as well as other manufacturers has been making engines with timing chains for a long time. What makes the M96 uniquely prone to this problem that other engines don't seem to be afflicted?

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VW and Audi engines see similar issues. What you are seeing is the effects on long service intervals and an oil that's designed to keep the engine cleaner, rather than better lubricated. Newer materials work much better and some of these have been revised 1/2 dozen times. The Mezger Turbo I am building now had worn chain rails too. It's not limited to the M96. DIY engine builds are about to get much simpler to perform.

Mayday It's the material it just seems too hard and brittle you can see where small chunks have broken off, they always look like this and yes anyone who hasn't done theirs with any sort of mileage on their engine will have the same I can bet, I bet Jake sees these a lot when he takes a tired engine apart!! I think something hard wearing but a bit softer so not to chip and break up maybe

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The photos in this thread are not representative of the latest chain rail, and wear pad materials. These newer units have a more blonde appearance, and are softer. They are better. We always replace all chain rails and wear pads, no matter what. I have been working on several coatings for these applications, but the issues with coatings are they require high temperature curing that compromises the chain rail at the onset. I have a few processes that I am still working on now for this, but the key will always remain frequent oil services that are based on calendar time, and not just mileage. that IS the issue.

How about a bonded Kevlar coating? Or this "superfabric" : http://superfabric.com/about/materia...on-resistance/ Edit: Well, Kevlar has good abrasion resistance, but I checked some specs... doesn't seem like it would work for this application. But, there are plenty of materials that look like they might work. Maybe even carbon fiber.

Carbon is way too abrasive to get anywhere near the internals of an engine. Any wear would result in certain death. I've been working on this off and on for a decade. To date I've failed horribly twice and other times I have seen no benefits. I use a lot of coatings in my engines and constantly stay aware of new things. We are also sought out by coating companies to test products for them. Adhesion remains the key detractor with coating any chain rail. I have had some issues where the wear surface of a rail lost it's bond with the rail. That was a genuine Porsche component and I still don't have any answers from the Mfr about why it failed. We put things on the edge and we learn their limits.

Will Device2 have to split his engine case again in a few years, or the new material ensures he doesn't have to do this again? I have vested interest in this subject because I also found plastic bits in my oil pan (though not nearly as many bits). I'm hoping if I wait long enough the material will improve enough so I'll only have to fix it once instead of repeatedly. I still don't understand why other manufacturers like Toyota can go many hundreds of thousand miles with their timing chains without this problem.

How about some super Teflon-like coating? I saw an ad on TV where a guy used a blender in a frying pan coated with it, and nary a scratch. Surely that proves it will hold up to chain wear.

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For one, they don't use Mobil 1 for a factory fill. For two, a horizontally opposed engine requires more chain rails, and more chains.. Plus, lots of Asian engines use timing belts. When they fail it's even nastier than an IMSB failure. They require preventative measures as well.

My 2006 Lexus needed a full top end rebuild at 170k km due to carbon build up. If its not timing chains or bearings or whatever, its somethign else. All cars are junk. lol

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Thats why the newest car I own is a 1995.

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I don't know, from my observation, I've seen paddle wear/chain guide all over the board including 15yo, 150k motors that look like they have wear of 50k motors and vice-a-versa(not m96 specific). As Jake said, it seems to point to how long you leave your oil in. Some think just because they drive 1k miles per year, they can leave it in for 5 years or more. This is obviously not the case. That's the only explanation that seems to make sense to me at the moment.

Oil service intervals are by far the biggest contributor, as well as the quality of the oil thats used. When the long service intervals were employed with these engines, they occurred before the engines had any real practical application run time on them, and before they'd been in the field. They were projections, and now the mileage intervals are 1/2 what they used to be. Calendar time is THE biggest thing. I am due to change the oil in my fleet as soon as I finish the 996TT I am building now. Some of those cars have been driven 100 miles in the last 6 months, some 3,000 miles, and one of them hasn't moved out of it's tracks (964, I have to finish the interior) but all of them get the oil changed every 6 months or 5K. You won't find a single bottle of Mobil 1 in any of my 4 buildings, at two different locations. Yes, its a pain to change oil "so often" but I don;t have time to build my own engines, so I keep up with preventative maintenance even more than I preach it to others. That said, driving style has a ton to do with the wear pads for the 4th and 5th timing chains, on 5 chain engines (up to 2001, 996). When the cars are driven lightly, or someone uses top gear too early in the RPM range, the load on the cam adjuster is greatly increased, thus increasing load on these wear pads. I have seen engines with 30K light miles look way worse than those with 150K before. All in all there's always a perfect storm that occurs with any failure, or accelerated wear. Decreasing the chances of those planets aligning is the key. The key to that, is awareness of the issue and discipline to carry things out.

Why do you dislike mobile1. Have you ever tried using it?

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I see the effects of it every day. Yes, I have tried it many times. It is usually the "control" when we carry out any back to back evaluations with other oils. Its good for MPG. The only vehicle I own that uses it, is my Mercedes 300GE Gelandewagen. It gets 3-4 more MPG with this oil, which matters when it only averages 12 on the highway.. Plus, the engine is high mileage and I look at failure like an opportunity. Let's don't turn this into an oil thread, I've said all I will say about it.

Lol. Fair enough.

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If this last statement is correct (and it does make sense to me), then we should see engine pad damages more frequently and at earlier mileages in Tiptronic cars as the latters do have a tendency to favor lower RPM gear changes. Right?

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Yes, and we do, but we see 1/10 the amount of tips as manuals since there's a lot less of them on the road. Its hard to get good trend data when we don;t see as many. I hate working on them and even doing IMS work on them, when I do an IMS job personally (for therapy and to stay sharp) I damn sure won't do that work to a tip!

So, what's the best oil for a 996? Thoughts, anyone?

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Castor oil.

Jake, if the car has gone no where in 6 months and had new oil in the CC, what about time degrades the oil????? I am confused on that. Also, Not looking for a recommendation on oil, but would appreciate your saying what you use in your fleet. I have a tip, 2000, with 137k on it and just had the IMSB and a tensioner replaced. I had not put a lot of miles on the car in the last few years and though the car was always stored indoors, I was changing the oil at about 1/2 the recommended miles cycle. My choice of oil after 80k or so went to Delvac 15w40 as the car never gets driven in the winter...... I may have broken all your rules and I am ready to repent, if it is not too late. My indy just did the IMSB and reported the oil filter inspection to be clean........

The PO of my car used Motul but I'm thinking of switching to Castrol Edge (Ex-Syntec) as it's supposedly Porsche A40 approved and can be found at a decent price from time to time. What are thoughts on it?

http://bobistheoilguy.com/motor-oil-101/

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Based on previous posts by Jake I believe he uses DT40 (Joe Gibbs 5W/40) exclusively.

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I think that's a safe bet. Not sure how many hours Jake put into testing, collecting data, and developing DT40 for the M96 but I think it was a crazy amount.

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Years. We originally did the work only for our engines, DT40 was to never be sold.... The recession is the ONLY thing that lead to it having to go to market.

Meet the latest (and hopefully greatest) chain pads from Porsche. It's white delrin like (but softer and more rubbery) material. Only on the non-tensioner side. The tensioner side still uses the old black plastic.

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I assume this is from the upcoming guidance you've been hinting at. But...if it's simpler for a DIY, wouldn't that also carry over to shops that could then (theoretically!) charge less?

the labor to put together the engine wont change. so there's no savings in the labor to assemble the engine. the only parts I reused inside my engine were: -engine cases -crankshaft -piston rods -bearing assembly case everything else was bought new. This wasn't a refresh, it was a rebuild. I did the rebuild myself so labor was free. the parts for the rebuild still costed me close to 15k CDN. that price includes the LNE work for the nickies and new pistons.

if I wanted to include the parts LNE GAVE me, the build price for parts alone would be creeping close to $20k.

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That is true for a full rebuild. But if you can DIY, how much would it cost to just replace the paddles, tensioners, chain guides, and whatever seals and bolts can't be reused? If the engine hasn't failed and just has these wear surfaces damaged, then you can do a refresh instead of a full rebuild. You have to open the case, but do you even need to remove pistons?

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Unfortunately yes and that's the point. You need to remove the pistons so you can put them back into the bores during reassembly. You can probably skip disassembling the crank carrier. My take is if you DIY, you can replace just the pads for maybe a couple of thousand dollars of parts (gaskets and bolts only and no new crank and con rod bearings). If you pay someone else to do it, the labor will be significant (~$4k?) and then you have to think about while you're in there items so you don't do it again anytime soon. The WYIT items will be a few thousand dollars without re-sleeving, which is ~$5k itself.

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That's exactly the design I was going for. Glad they finally took me up on it.

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Hope you've patented your idea I think all it means is we need to look for WHITE plastic bits in addition to black ones

Yeah, even a DIY "refresh" is going to cost a few K. Look up the price of head bolts....yikes

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What's the scoop on head bolts? Why are they so pricey?

one time use. oem isn't bad at $11/each. you need 24. if you go with ARP however...

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I'm not exactly sure what "your" version of refresh is but Vertex Auto sells a kit for a little over $1300. Not everything is OEM though so might not be apples to apples. http://www.vertexauto.com/showitem.a...20C4%203.4%20L Parts List: Qty Description Part Number 1 Rod Bearing Set (Standard) 99610312162 1 Main Bearing Set (Standard) 99610120510 1 Piston Ring Set 99610305302 12 Connecting Rod Bolts 99610311551 1 Loctite 574 50 ml Tube 00004301000 8 Flywheel Bolts 99907309209 24 Valve Guide (Intake & Exhaust) 99610414501 1 Chain Rail - "U" Shaped 99610516651 2 Chain Rail - Straight 99610517353 2 Chain Rail - Curved 99610517552 1 Engine Gasket Set 98610090500 1 Cylinder Head Gasket 4-6 99610426901 1 Cylinder Head Gasket 1-3 99610427006 24 Valve Stem Seal 99610427006 2 Timing Chain - Intake Cam 99610517053 2 Timing Chain - Exhaust Cam 99610517752

Yeah, not apples to apples. some of the gaskets in these kits look like total junk. I never used this one but I used aftermarket gaskets from pelican and was glad I had the OE stuff around for some of then. ... and you're still missing head bolts, case bolts, lots of bolts missing..lots of gaskets are missing in that list also. You arent going to reuse your water & oil pump gaskets. hope not anyways. that's a good kit to get you started but don't think that will be it. looks like that's the 3.4 kit too. the 3.6 is 2k

You could always go the KK route and fabricate all your own parts. You could make all your own bolts and gaskets for less than $50.

Beautiful car. Nice job on the rims too.

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Shops charging less is called "cutting corners". These engines will not get any cheaper to purchase without owners doing the work themselves. Each year prices for these engines go UP, and not down. This will continue. Cheap... Cheap.. Cheap.. If you can't afford to do it right the first time, why think that you can afford to do it again? People never listen till it happens. I gave up long ago. That said, DIYr's stand by.