Have you had to replace your 996 engine?

Curious to get the numbers here of ALL Rennlisters - I have 46K miles on my car and I am a bit concerned, as we all probably are...but I would like to know the REAL numbers behind who has replaced their engine and who hasn't. Not looking for any great stories or horror stories here, just a simple yes or no will do! Stories welcomed though

90k miles and still the original engine, but transmission starts making problems with the 2nd gear, might need rebuild very soon.

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Yeah! I love statistics. Especially when they are accurate! -td

Thank you for starting this thread. I'd be lying if I said all the threads/posts lately about engine rebuilds hasn't scared me ****less—to the point where I've been seriously thinking of selling or trading-in my car. As there have been so many posts about 3.4s being ticking time bombs, I really love my car, but I don't want to hold onto it if every time I drive it I'm stressed out, thinking of when it's going to give up. As far as my car, It has 50k miles, and it's been clean and strong since I purchased it almost 3 years ago (except the stupid airbag light). I've been thinking about maybe trying to find an aftermarket warranty company, and maybe paying around 1k a year for a little peace of mind.

I replaced my engine about 5 months ago with 92,000 on it. New factory motor and the car runs perfect! Now if only the value of our cars would stop decreasing a decimal a day... Kent

i have a 99 996 c2 with mileage in the high 60's. as we speak im having a rebuilt tranny installed (2nd gear synchro shot) and also the oil cooler ( heat exchanger) replaced due to oil seeping into coolant. it has been a 2nd car for me but is about to be my daily driver due to the loss of my company car....im excited about driving her daily BUY NERVOUS AS HELL ALSO !!

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Interesting suggestion/concept. Keep me posted if you find anything as I would be highly interested as well. I was a little hesitant to start this thread but more interested in seeing some real numbers of 996 owners out there so hopefully it doesn't bug anyone. I know if I just replaced my engine and dropped a lot of money replacing it I might not want to participate - but bottom line is every answer - yes or no - gives us a bit of an idea. Numbers don't lie and the more people I am aware of that have never had a problem, the better we can all feel. But good to know the real potential of the problem as well.

I am not voting... I dont want to JINX myself - 106k on the original mill... some light lifter noise at start up, absolutely no other issues cept that damn airbag light and some queaks in the front end I am tracking down... But seriously, not spending much money, I have the nest egg ready if it happens... PS, I drive it everyday it is not raining, and 1/2 of the days it is. I drive smooth, concentrated, and with purpose. I dont ***** foot around. The cars like to be run thru the rpm's and driven. Not hard, but firmly and smoothly... remember, they are your girl, (boy in some cases) Be nice, treat her like a queen and when it comes to a work out, do it right, and do it often!

You guys have GOT to be kidding me. Worrying about engine rebuilds? Again? On a car built in this century? I'm getting the sense that most people come online to be worry warts. We drive veritable tanks of a sports car. Drive 'em regularly and they will reward you. Treat them like garage queens and you're begging for some trouble as a result of the car sitting idly by. If RMS is the worst we have to afraid of, guys, I suggest you buy a VW or a 993 and experience the fears of electrical problems. Frankly, I can't even list the issues that my father has with his Ferrari compared with zilch on the 996.

^So I take that as another "No" vote as you haven't had any troubles

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That is probably just the vanes inside the variocam "drums" if you will being without oil pressure. Normal.

Read my sig on the 996.

so Tippy you blew you turbo?

Interesting...so if the poll is accurate thus far, it looks like 1 of every 5 996 owners experience engine trouble/failure - scary!

2000 3.4 with 46,000 mi, supercharged since it had 18,000 mi. replaced rms when i replaced my clutch, otherwise no problems. did 17 de's so far this summer. doing another tomorow with 3.5 hours of track time. is there any parts that can be upgraded or replaced to prevent problems down the road?

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Yeah, my fault. My point was my old 996 is going strong even today. The new owner told me has over 110k miles without issue.

We should sticky this ... and narrow it down between the 3.4 and 3.6... wonder what it would look like in a couple of years!

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That is a great idea...

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Call me when you get to 1000 in 50,000 and you may have something.

K, seriously. Um, we've talked about this before. Many times. Search is your friend. Been there. Done that. Again. And Again. Well, you get the idea. All you have to do is ask Dell to interpret the data. He loves these engine failure polls/statistics. -td

40,000 miles, no problems. But I won't keep car after warranty expires.

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Based on the Law of Large Numbers, I'm pretty sure it will take far less than 1,000 observations to achieve steady-state in this poll. However, accuracy depends on the responses being random across the population of 996 owners. Unfortunately, I agree (with many prior posts) that folks with an engine failure are more likely to vote in the survey... so this bias most certainly skews the results. In summary - we'll have a good estimate of a very biased poll fairly soon. I would venture to say that even with the current number of responses - this is a testimonial to the fact that (possibly all pre-2009 - since they've deleted the intermediate shaft) waterpumpers may have a common failure problem. I'm not referring to the RMS leak, but to the failed IMS. However, this survey also includes owners reporting an engine replacemed due to failed RMS repairs presumably under warranty - so again, that shouldn't be included in this poll... I think Porsche replaced these more for R&D than for the actual seal failure. The bottom line IN MY OPINION is that there is a substantial failure rate - the failure isn't predictable in advance, and that it could be more than 1% and certainly less than 5% (regardless of this poll). All you can do is factor that into the purchase and your "ownership plan" and go forward enjoying a tremendous, fabulous, *****-out fun car. Treat the car with some amount of respect, but drive it like it's meant to be driven. I have no regrets, the price was right, and sometimes you just have to accept the unexpected disappointments in life - such as looking at my 401k lately.... I mean, what can you do but face the reality and live your life. If you simply can't live (or sleep) with the anxiety - then it's a good idea to buy a different car, and sell all your stocks for "safe" bonds. Lastly, information IS power, but let's not get carried away and think that this poll has any chance of representing reality - it's merely pointing us in a general direction of the facts... Anyone quoting the numbers in the poll would be no different from the political candidates in their side-by-side untruthful smear campaigns that twist facts and turn half-truths into accusations. Don't do it...

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Exactly why this type of a poll will produce total garbage (read biased results). You are searching on a Porsche web forum, which by it's very nature often attracts individuals looking for answers with problems on their cars. Garbage in.......garbage out......

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I hear you Ray... it seems that at least half of the threads here are about problems of the car and the other half is about what oil to use.

Redridge, good point. What oil do you use?

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I used 0w-40 this year (happy with it, but dont like the low oil pressure it produce), next year Im gonna go with 15w-50 and try it out (just to get a bit more oil pressure)... I hope she wont blow because of it.

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did you find the shell helix ultra in your area yet? Low weight and a tiny bit more comfortable on the pressure (for me, especially on the low end, I use 0-40 and it never drops below 1 any more, even in the heat) That and the blowing up thing has not occurred

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By the way, I DON'T think that a biased poll means garbage. It means biased poll. Just because the numbers aren't necessarily accurate doesn't mean they're worthless (if in your usage you're saying garbage is useless). We can still derive a failure rate from a poll such as this, but we can't take the numbers at face value - we need to adjust for bias. There's lot's of this we do in real world situations. After all, SOME data is better than no data... and bias is something to be dealt with, not something that completely invalidates all the data.

Disregarding the fact that such a poll is statistically useless, why do we need to keep reliving this every other year? We already HAD THIS POLL. And, if the statistics of this kind of poll are as "accurate" as the proponents say it is, well, we already have the answer. -td

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You're misquoting me - if indeed you were meaning to quote me... I said we'd achieve "steady state" on the poll - thus achieving accurate results from a biased sample of respondents - so accurate, biased results. But this poll is far from "statistically useless" as you claim. As for older polls - I'm not suggesting that this is necessarily a worthwhile exercise, merely giving some opinions on the validity of the exercise. So - the future question to the audience is - who wants to start estimating the bias? That's about all we can achieve at this point... I'd say there's 10 times the "yes/replaced" responses for every "no" vote. Hell - I dunno, I'm just killing time, but interested nevertheless...

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Redridge, I would use 15W-50 anyways because of the Vortech. That is what they recommended back about 10-12 years ago for the blower's transmission.

I didn't have to replace the engine, but my 2004 40th Anniversary blew the intermediate shaft. It likely would have been a replacement engine issue, but I was literally at the dealer's when it blew and only had to drive it a couple of blocks at low speed to get to the service bay. The car was at idle when it let go. If I had been on the road instead it surely would have been a replacement. As I have suggested before go to another marque's site, like BMW or Corvette an do a search there for "engine replacement, failure, blown etc." . Nothing like the volume of such with Porsche. Also remember there are alot more BMWs and Corvettes on the road than Porsche.

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I don't know how you can say this. I've done a search on engine problems on bimmerforums and there are many issues that they deal with. They key is that you have to know the car well enough to know what to type into the search. With Porsche, RMS brings up a ton of searches, but that's really not an engine failure unless you run the car without oil as a result of not taking care of the seal. The problem with forums is that this is where people come to search for problems. Porsche drivers, being enthusiasts and generally considered to be more **** compared to the average driver, will more diligently hunt down a solution to a problem.