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YOUR RESEARCHThings dealers tell you...
Reported or suspected cause
8% chance it blows up
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Reported cause
That being said the reason is due to the 8% chance it blows up.
Leading evidence: '8% chance it blows up' (1 discussions report identifying this cause; no attributable repair resolution). Across 1 matching discussions, the most frequently mentioned possible cause is '8% chance it blows up' (1 discussions; 1 report identifying it and 0 suggest it). The most frequently discussed action is 'Check engine-mfg date' (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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My dealership "changed owners" a number of years back.
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I e-mailed them letting them know it had been replaced with a Porsche 911.
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Suggestion · Original poster
I'll have to check the engine-mfg date to see when this one was made.
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Suggestion
Keep in mind for around 3k you can just replace the IMS and not worry about it for years to come.
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35 eligible posts · 0 unverified posts · 1 discussions match the subject in their title or opening post.
Rennlist: 1 discussions
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Called a dealer today to inquire about a 996. The listing didn't mention IMS replacement so, obviously, I called to ask.. He told me the car hadn't had it done BUT...good news...only 8% of engines fail due to IMS!
ONLY 8%! Yay. Thanks for that reassurance.
To his credit, he was familiar with the IMS bearing issue. So, it wasn't all bad.
Lol they're familiar because its the first question anyone asks! I had one dealer almost yell at me when I asked about it, calling it "urban legend". I think he was a bit worn out from answering endless phone calls with the same question.
I was also told:
"All porsches leak oil, its normal", and of course, "Dont worry about mileage on these cars, they run FOREVER!"
"Here put your $20,000 in this box. I'll close the lid and when I open there's an 8% chance it will be gone."
"What if it's not gone, do I get something?"
"No."
"Oh, wow, sounds like a great deal."
Things must have come a long way in the last 5 years since I bought mine. Back then dealers wouldn't even acknowledge it. If pressed, they would say "this car has x miles, which means that the failure would have happened already if it was going to happen" at best. I think dealers absolutely hate selling 996, which is fair. They get the Spanish inquisition for each one and they don't even have that much margin in it if it all goes well. I gave up on dealers in my search. Seemed like I was actually looking to buy the previous owner and their maintenance habits as much as I was buying the car.
This isn’t the case when you go to a dealership to trade your 996 for another Porsche. Then they know all about it. The first question they ask is: “Have you addressed the IMS bearing issue?” It was certainly the first question they asked when I traded my 996 for a 997.
The dealer's reply seems honest and accurate to me. Regarding the 8% failure rate, everyone has their own opinion of whether that is high, low, etc.
Further, the risk depends on the year and engine build month of the car - it is my understanding that '02-04 small single row IMS bearings had the 8% failure rate as documented in the class action lawsuit.
Pre-May '01 engines tend to have the dual row small bearing with under 1% failure.
Post September '05 engines have the large single row bearings which are fairly reliable.
If the risk bothers you, buy an '09 or newer at higher cost.
The dealership is not where you're going to find a wealth of knowledge about the M96. Considering turnover and the average age of folks who work the phones at dealerships, I'm surprised you got that much information.
My dealership "changed owners" a number of years back. Even though the location and most of the employees remained the same, they wiped out all of their service history records. My 986 was purchased at that dealership by the original owner, I later bought it CPO from them...and all of those records just went away when they renamed the place.
I agree it was honest and accurate. I just think it's laughable to say the engine failure rate is "only 8%", that's insanely high.
I'm fine with the risk associated with the aftermarket IMS solutions or I wouldn't be looking at 996s. I'll have to check the engine-mfg date to see when this one was made. It's an '01 so it could go wither way.
Dealerships are not there for the enthusiast .... They are there for wealthy people who buy or lease & service them there and turn them over every few years for newer ones and do not question paying full pop for anything either because they can afford it, don't care or they get reimbursed in some way due to their occupation.
Many have no idea about the Porsche brand and history nor do they care ....They wouldn't know a flat six next to a lawnmower motor ...
Last time I was at the dealership a very young "foreign" guy who had just bought a top of the line Cayenne with sport exhaust who brought it back a week or so after purchase because he said it doesn't sound right. He was advised that it sounds that way due to the sport exhaust... He said he does not like it and want's to return it ... They said due to the mileage they would charge him $25,000 + an additional $25,000 for the Panamera model he now was looking at instead.
He pulled out his card and said Ok all in a matter of 10 min !! ... I looked at the service guy and nodded my head and he said we get them in here all the time ...This is what keeps dealerships alive and well not us enthusiasts.... We are a pain in the butt because we know too much ....
Understand these are great cars and you should get 200,000+ miles out them if maintained, but at near 20 years old there's going to be expenses... All the rubber and plastic will eventually need updating if not done already. Water pump, bushings, struts, chain rails, tensioners, coolant tank and injectors just to name a few. Parts for the 02 and up seem to be cheaper in some cases.
If you rely on shops to do your servicing it could get expensive!
i was told a story in graduate school about the wealthy oil man who the MBA program was named after. early 1980s he went into a rolls royce dealership, picked out a car, and handed a credit card to the salesman. the salesman looked at the credit card in disbelief. "call my banker he was told"
Upon calling the man's banker the salesman was asked "is he buying a car or the dealership!"
My friend worked at a dealership in the 90's. He had so many stories to tell about how many customers came in and wasted so much money. It was definitely neat to hear them!
I took my car to the BMW dealership to have the airbag recall done. When I picked it up, I got a "courtesy" inspection done on the car as well. The total was around $5500 in repairs. lol I told my girlfriend that most people would've traded it in for a new car. Most buyers now think they are saving money by getting rid of a car like mine.
If one is shopping at a Porsche stealership for a 996, one should not complain about anything said in the dealership. His statement was accurate, and helpful.
Incorrect.
ETA: Probably helpful to some people, not those who do their research before buying a car. In any case, I was simply laughing about "only 8%" failure rate. It's a funny comment, to me considering that 8% failure rate of any specific part is horrifically bad.
EDIT 2: I believe this is an early '01 with the dual row bearing, so the 8% is actually not correct.
If it's helpful to only one buyer out of 10,000 coming from a used car salesman, that's a bonus.
Your 'belief' system notwithstanding, you have no idea what bearing is in there, and neither do I. So, the used car salesman quoting the higher of the two published values was again being helpful. If he were edging toward deceitful he could have used the lesser value, and like you, guess that the car has the double row bearing. He could have said "what is an IMS bearing".
From my investigation, the 8% failure rate was the one most covered by the media likely due to it's high incidence of failure. Certainly the qualifier 'only' is rather disingenuous but what's a used car salesman to do if one calls for a 996 at a stealership and asks about the IMS first thing? His job is to move tin, not discuss the finer details of zero defects, and six sigma, infant mortality, bathtub curve of materials failure, etc. He's a used car salesman, not a freaking mech engineer.
These cars are high end sports cars for less money than a new Honda Civic. That being said the reason is due to the 8% chance it blows up. So for me that is a low percentage in my eyes to have an awesome car for a fraction of what it really should be worth. Keep in mind for around 3k you can just replace the IMS and not worry about it for years to come.
Get one and enjoy the ride!!
I tell people if you are going to worry about the cost of maintenance, preventive maintain ace or the IMS/Bore Scoring these cars are not for you. They are cheap to buy, expensive to keep....
Not trying to be a jerk, just sharing my outlook on these awesome cars!!
When I took my 135i in for the airbag recall, they told me my car was in great shape. (It really was, with 200HP more than stock!)
They keep sending me letters offering me money for my 135i in a trade in for a new BMW.
I e-mailed them letting them know it had been replaced with a Porsche 911.
The letters just keep coming though.
Last offer was just under $6K.
Heck, I would probably pay that much for another 135i!
It was a fun car, just not manual 996 fun.
I am not sure why people are concentrating on the 8% or whatever rate that affects these engines. It is just going to keep going higher and higher as time passes. It is a problem, a major one. These engines will keep dying.
It's like stating how many people have diabetes right now and focusing on that number for years to come. The number of people with diabetes will keep climbing as time passes.
They did that with my friend who had a 335i. They kept making random offers. He was excited. I told him I would bet money that if he took his car in to actually trade it in, they would offer less.
I didn't expect them to offer me any money. Mine is a 2001 with just over 100K miles.
I predict a manual 135i coupe with a 6-spd will go up in value in the future. Great little car! The 1M is very expensive now!
I looked at a 99 996 at a Honda dealer.
It was a trade in (should have been the first red flag) and I asked if they had any maintenance records and was laughed at.
Took it for a test drive and the entire suspension was junk. Just for laughs I asked about the "intermediate shaft bearing" and was told "only really old cars have one of those shafts"
Offered half the asking price and was quickly turned down
Ok.
[QUOTE=Prelude Guy;15998201]I am not sure why people are concentrating on the 8% or whatever rate that affects these engines. It is just going to keep going higher and higher as time passes. It is a problem, a major one. These engines will keep dying.
I sure hope so. The value of the cars that have addressed IMSB should skyrocket as 996s become more and more scarce.
Well, the total number of 996s worldwide that suffer these failures cannot go down, and any more failures will increase this number. So the crude COUNT of IMS failures will indeed go up.
But - I'd say the RATE of failures is not likely to increase. As seen in the stats, many of these cars already revealed their propensity to fail early on.
And, since knowledge of the problem is near-universal now among those giving these cars serious thought, more and more 996s are receiving updated IMS kits that reduce the risk of or prevent it from happening.
So altogether, the overall PROBABILITY of experiencing an IMS failure while a 996 owner is likely decreasing, and these occurrences will likely be isolated to the rough cars in the hands of non-enthusiasts. And the overall PROPORTION of 996s on the road that experience the failure will likely decrease.
They do a pretty good job at (
https://truedelta.kinja.com/a-pin-le...man-1672108784
) in discussing what we would call information bias in my field. Among cars showing up to Flat6 Innovations and other shops that trumpet the M96's failings (keep it up! keep prices down!), I bet the rate of IMS failure, bore scoring and countless other maladies is high. But among all 996s, the true numbers will never be known, and probably aren't large.
Put another way, I'll take the gross estimate of a 92% to 99% probability of NOT having an IMS failure to get a 911 for <=$20k that sold for $76k, any day. (In my case, the risk is hopefully lower, as my current 996 cab had a fresh IMS kit from the PO). That is called playing the smart odds.
To address another respondent here, when putting my $20k in the box, I DO get something back - a great-driving car with an acceptably low chance of catastrophic failure.
True, it's certainly over 8% already, since that number came out years ago. Also, this is 8%+ from ONE FAILURE MODE. An 8% engine failure rate would be horrific for all combined failure modes (google tells me Hondas have a 0.3% overall engine failure rate), but this is 8% from one of many potential failure modes. I would venture a guess that by 100K that 12-15% of 996s will experience engine failure. Total SWAG but based on average Mfg engine failure rates (2-3%) and the fact the the IMSB issue alone will probably claim 10%, or more, in the end. 12% as a floor seems reasonable.
But, yes, as someone has already mentioned the *chance* of failure from an IMSB is much lower now than 10 years ago.
Ok, I'm pissy, not enough coffee. Who cares?
If it bothers you, upgrade it: there are several options. If it doesn't, just drive it. Why rehash the same thing over and over and over and over...
This is quite normal with dealers, that is why we do offer a discounted rated on any IMS bearing equipped car to have our service facility replace it and warranty it. Being a dealer it is tough to cover the cost of buying a car and installing the bearing with margins being so small on car sales now days.
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