996 Engine Replacement - Part II

Well, I got my letter back from Porsche today. "Pound sand" again they said. Bastards. Today I had the car towed to my independent mechanic who says he can fix it if it is a bad head gasket or a cracked head. The gaskets are now available and he has a guy who fixes BMW heads for him that he says can fix anything. If my problem is one of those 2 I should be good. He gives me a 50% chance just from what I have told him without tearing the motor out of the car. Tomorrow I should know more. Porsche has, of course, denied my claim because it is out of warranty, but I know I have seen owners who have said they got their motor replaced out of warranty for various issues. If you are one of those owners, and would be willing to help me out, I would really appreciate it. If I can point to one owner, one car, one VIN number which had a motor replaced out of warranty it will help my case. If I get 5 or 10, it would have to really help me. Again, if you are an owner of a 996 who had a motor replaced AFTER your warranty ran out, and you would be willing to give me a little info about you, your car and your situation, I think it would help persuade Porsche into doing the right thing. I would appreciate it. Please let me know. Today the dealer offered me a trade in on a new or CPO Porsche. I told them that I still have such a bad taste in my mouth that I do not want to reward Porsche by purchasing another car. If it comes down to it thought, it may be my best option. Hope not. I told them to give me a number and we will go from there. Stand up and fight against the 996 motor failures with me. Fight the power. J/K Thanks, Joe

Sorry, but that has got to be the most lame argument I have ever heard. I really feel for you but calling back PNCA with "well you replaced his engine and his and his and........" not only with they tell you to pound sand but they will bury you in it. Obviously you didn't pay close attention to that last thread you started (Part 1). No warranty means, no coverage. But......in some cases there is goodwill when the dealer can go to bat for you. Obviously, your dealer didn't and probably couldn't. It depends on the relationship you have with your dealer and it starts with the service advisor. Buy from them from new, have all the service perfomed there so they know the history. If that were the case and they STILL would not cover then maybe push the issue. Hate to break it to you, PCNA is not going to be happy to hear you bullying them with the argument you want to bring. Let it go. My advice to you is push for a GREAT trade-in number on your car and negotiate a great number on a new or CPO and I can promise you if the numbers work, you will be so happy in the end. And in the unlikely event that you are in the same situation in the future they WILL go to bat for you. Sorry for being so brutally honest but you need to pursue that trade-in.

Likewise, I feel bad for you, but you can't expect Porsche to warranty a '99 motor. The actuarial risk has been calculated up front, and as a 2nd owner, Porsche does not really make anything from you. If you wanted a warranty, you could have purchased a CPO car. You took your chances buying a car outside of the warranty, and unfortunately, they didn't work in your favor. I know you have issues with the fact that you can't rebuild the motor yourself, but from Porsche's perspective, I think this is a way for them to maintain consistent quality and brand equity. If any mechanic could open and work on the motor, you and subsequent owners can never be sure of quality of the work done. The motor is such an important part of a sports car.

Why not just get a new motor. I've seen some on e-bay for not too much money.

The thing that cracks me up is that you guys in the US & Canada get 4 years warranty and in the RoW we only get 2. If your engine blew up in 2002 you wouldn't have got warranty on a 99 model let alone even consider it in 2006! IMHO Porsche do a "fair" job when it comes to out-of-warranty claims: they rarely refuse to offer some sort of good-will if they feel the car, your loyalty and the mileage merits some claim from them. In general, if you have bought your car and had it serviced through the OPC network and it has not been abused they will consider offering some good will pro-rata the mileage. However, as you all know, I think Porsche's stance is "unfair" when it comes to issues reating to the RMS or catastrophic engine failures from unabused, normal wear low mileage 996's that have been serviced by the OPCS according to their specified service interval. In this case, the problem is not from normal wear-and-tear, it is from bad engineering and/or design. They should cough up for the entire cost of this problem.

But......in some cases there is goodwill when the dealer can go to bat for you. Obviously, your dealer didn't and probably couldn't. It depends on the relationship you have with your dealer and it starts with the service advisor. Buy from them from new, have all the service perfomed there so they know the history. I couldn't agree more. I know two 993 owners who had goodwill services performed by Porsche. The two things that they had in common was that they bought their cars new and they had 100% of their service work done by the Dealer. Having your Dealer being your advocate isn't any gurantee that goodwill services will be provided , but it certainly helps.

I dunno about that. Bad engineering and design means that a high % of cars exhibit these problems. There is no evidence to suggest that. In fact, the 911 tops most quality surveys. If there is a manufacturing defect in a specific engine, that should manifest itself within the warranty period, and they do in fact take responsibility for this. Most of these cars are driven extremely hard, so it's not really a huge surprise when a couple go wrong.

Scouser, you make some good points. First, only 2 years of warranty in Europe? Wow, that is pretty weak. It probably has something to do with the exorbidant cost of things in Europe relative to the States. My brother lives in England and he say that everything in London costs the same as in New York, only it's priced in POUNDS STERLING (read, it costs 1.76 times as much...OUCH!). Second, though it's been stated a ton here, how is Porsche to really know if the car is "unabused, normal wear" when it was bought used? Even if the car was bought new, if it's out of warranty, we are out of luck. We can bitch and moan about it, or even threaten to never buy a Pcar again, but that's about it. Anything Porsche or the dealer offer to do is entirely out of generosity, but NOT out of contractual obligation.

The 4 year warranty is a 996 phenomenon, previous models always had a (?1 or) 2 year warranty here in the US. Sorry to hear about your engine troubles, but I don't see any evidence other than internet hear say to suggest the M96 has any major design flaws. To the contrary in my own personal experience, as a daily driver and weekend track car for the last 6 years, the engine and car have proven to be very robust and reliable. That is not to say I am in love with the engine, I think PAG could have done better to develop a less expensive variant of the GT3 engine....bt that's another rant. Are yo sure there are no parts available? My service manuals give detailed instructions how to rebuild the M96 , complete with special tools and part numbers where applicable. The dealers are a little weird when it comes to used porsches. For example my local dealer will not work on "older" Porsches (944,928,...) unless you are the original owner. Ultimately, it comes down to your individual relationship with the ealer and Porsche, did you buy it new/CPO and was all service done by the dealer etc, it seems to go a long way. Best of luck with the engine.

[QUOTE=nycebo]Scouser, you make some good points. First, only 2 years of warranty in Europe? Wow, that is pretty weak. It probably has something to do with the exorbidant cost of things in Europe relative to the States. My brother lives in England and he say that everything in London costs the same as in New York, only it's priced in POUNDS STERLING (read, it costs 1.76 times as much...OUCH!). QUOTE] ABsolutely spot on the nail. A new basic model 997 costs �70,000 here in the UK and we get 2 years warranty. How does that compare to the US?

I was going to ask the same question. I had engine failure in my MY99 996 last November, I was convinced it was going to need a new engine. My independant (Hartech in the UK) stripped it, expecting to find the reported cracked liner but fortunately found a broken valve spring. He rebuilt it with all new springs and it's sorted I wonder whether they often take the easy option of replacing rather than repairing.

$71,300 USD here in the states with 4 year warranty.

So I could get two for the price of one and they will both have 4 yrs warranty. I wonder if I bought a car in the US, since PAG say they honour the warranty worldwide, would I get the warranty if I imported it into the UK. I mean seriously, if I bout a new 997 in the US I save about �35,000. That more than covers the cost of shipping it to the US return for a yearly service! and I could probably buy a spare engine and still have change! Then I could probably sell it in two years time in the UK and get my money back!! It's seriously worth a thought.

Scouser, Some insight regarding warranty, price differences, and gray market products. I purchased US spec cars through US dealers for factory delivery 4 times - 3 x Porsche, 1 x BMW. In each case, the US warranty was for a longer period of time than the European warranty. These differences were due to market pressure in the US vs. that in Europe. They needed to offer a longer warranty in the US to be anywhere near competition. That was not the case in Europe. On each Euro Delivery I was involved in, I asked the question as to who would cover the cost of repairs while I drove the car in Europe before its final shipment tot the USA. Both Porsche and BMW told me that I was covered by their World Wide Warranty which I believe was 24 months. This would appear to be the rock bottom lowest common denominator warranty. Many folks fail to realize the prices quoted in the US are BEFORE tax, and the only tax applicable is state sales tax on the sales price of the car or the difference in price between your trade-in and the new car. In Europe, the quoted prices also include VAT. Now there's a cancer you folks ought to fight! It raises the price of goods on everything in every step of the market process were "value is added". I would guess your VAT to be 15-17%, while our sales tax is 4-7%. Now for gray market cars. Most manufacturers will not allow one Marketing Subsidiary to sell the product as built for another Marketing Subsidiary. It countervenes the differential pricing that they have set up between areas of the world and protects the dealers franchise territory. In my business, a customer is free to purchase at any dealer in the world at local price and use the product in any other area of the world. To discourage "selling outside one's territory", we ask the selling dealer to pay the servicing dealer 5% of the sales price to cover the servicing dealer's labor for future warranty repairs. Remember, the servicing dealer made no money on the new sale to the customer. As we are selling to the dealers at different net prices around the world (low price markets pay lower dealer net prices) we reserve the right to re-invoice the selling dealer at the higher dealer net price of the servicing dealer. So he gets charged the higher dealer net price AND pays a 5% service fee. This usually discourages dealers seeking out these type of deals. Now The EU has broken down many of these barriers and prices are pretty much the same there, but not necessarily the same as in the US or the Far East. When the MB ML series first came out, a friend of mine had a business acquaintance in Germany who just HAD TO HAVE one of these ASAP. My friend purchased the car in the US, then sold it to his German friend in Chicago and had the car shipped to Germany. It was THE FIRST ML in Germany. When MB found out what happened, they punished the US dealer (who really didn't know this was going on). The dealer will not likely offer any sort of deal to my friend in the future. Isn't capitalism complex and great? Cheers,

The reason I started this new thread was to avoid the "I told you so's" and the "suck it up's" of the other thread. I know i read on here that someone had their engine in their 996 replaced out of warranty and that is the story I want to hear. What were his particular circumstances? What was his engine mileage? What were the sympotoms of the problem? When you preface something with "I do not mean to be a jerk/***" it means you are about to say something you know to be jerky or ***-like. I understand that I do not really have a valid warranty issue, but I KNOW these motors have been good-willed and I would like to find out more about the circumstances. Thats all. I am not here to be a cry baby or to get off on tangents. I have said from the very beginning that if Porsche would offer parts and train their techs to open the damn motors and fix them that I would not bitch. To junk a motor and spend $10K because of a blown head gasket blows my mind. Like I already said, if this was a ford, chevy or ****ty Hyundai, it would already be back from the mechanic and I would only be about $1500 lighter. That is fine, but their blanket "we don't know, we can't even look" policy is what pisses me off. To answer your question, my mechanic has a supplier who now carries the head gaskets, and a guy who rebuilds heads if one is cracked. If it is more severe than that, my understanding was that Porsche does not sell replacement parts? Maybe the valves listed came from a Porsche dismantler or wrecker? LA Porsche maybe? I would be curious to find out where the parts were acquired.

Firstly, it's more than a couple that have gone wrong and they continue to go wrong 8 years after the M96 engine first appeared. Secondly, there are well documented cases of the most popular engine problems (liners, RMS leaks, bearing failures, intermediate shaft bearing failures) happening at low and high mileage cars and a lot of them are daily drivers driven very conservatively. But, the real problem is the fact that Porsche do not tell an owner that, in the event of a component failure in a 996/997/Boxster engine or transmission, there is a very good chance that the complete unit will need replacing. So for most out-of-warranty engine failures, the �10k bill comes as a bit of a surprise. If they made it clear that it costs this much to repair a cracked liner or failed bearing, more owners might extend their warranties. Warranties, of course, are a calculated risk. If an owner has all the information available,he can make an informed decision. It's the witholding of this information that annoys me. Come clean Porsche and reveal how many M96 engine failures there have been. Prove that it's a reliable engine. Prove that these catastrophic failures are a drop in the ocean. And if an owner is sooooo unlucky to have an engine failure because of a freak one in a million component failure, why not use some of that profit you're making to keep that owner happy so he'll buy another car from you next time. Isn't it worth the odd goodwill settlement to keep your loyal fanbase happy. Or is it actually a bigger problem than that?

Here is one that PCNA/PAG needs to consider. Ability to purchase CPO warranty when you buy the car new (basically an extended warranty). Mercedes does that. THey allow purchase of 1-3 years and 100K total miles on a NEW car purchase. That would get me in the door to buy new. Instead, my next P-Car will be a 1-2 yr old CPO so I get the best of both worlds.......1st year depreciation gone and extended warranty!

Why not a free lifetime warranty? Surely these cars are so well engineered and manufactured, it would cost Porsche peanuts to honour that Seriously, though... A lot of people buy low mileage <1 year old cars for a couple of reasons: So they don't have to wait 9 months for a new one to be built and so that the 1st year's depreciation is avoided. Neither of those reasons should be held against the buyer as long as the car came from an official dealer and had been serviced properly. The warranties really should be more realistic, especially in the UK. We get ripped off left right and centre over here for most things. What we really need is a lemon law, although that doesn't seem to help you guys with these M96 issues.

Fred I really do appreciate your very detailed answer on this. Many thanks. It has cleared things up for me. Everyone else, I am sorry for hijacking the thread. I will dip out here now.

weren't you all waiting for me to chime in? :> but anyways, to help you out with your idea of potentially buying a used one.. i took that route.. only because my first engine blew a rod through the core and they wouldn't take it back because it was unfixable (thus unresellable to the next blown engine person down the food chain) so i had a choice of $18,000 (or $25,000+ for a new engine) vs $8,000 for the used route.. i took the used route and bought an engine with 8,000 miles on it, thinking it would be relatively safe.. i realized there was no guarantee, no warranty, and took my chances.. unfortunately the cards didn't roll in my favor, and at 8,800 miles the new engine had it's cylinder fall out of the sleeve lining, but this time i did have a core (bonus) so i sucked it up, paid the piper and had my reman with the 2 year warranty.. you can go the used route and save a few thousand, but in the end, you won't have a warranty... it depends what price that piece of mind is worth to you? is $5,000+ in savings worth 2 years of piece of mind? to some, maybe, to some others, maybe not.. i know after having another porsche engine fail at 8,800 miles with no options but to replace it, that was the end of my faith in the porsche marque and reliability.. but anyways, i'll leave it at that.. it appears you have three options 1) trade it in and get a good deal on another one (which in my opinion is just plain ridiculous.. even if you are offered a good deal, i would be so bitter about even that proposition.. service advisors shouldn't even have anything to do with sales.. what kind of dealer/company would even offer such a proposition annoys me.. something just doesn't sound right about that proposition.. and i have a feeling that dealership wouldn't be paying for the replacement engine.. they'd probably get a free one from porsche and use it for the next person that comes that needs a new engine..) 2) suck it up and pay the full amount and have 2 years of piece of mind 3) go the used route, and worry that something may go wrong and you'll be right where you were before, and potentially owe another $12,000+ in the near future.. only a choice you can make...

You can buy engine parts from any Porsche dealer (head gaskets retail for ~$35USD), its only the transmission parts that PCNA still won't sell. I think the reason most dealerships will just replace the engine (on warranty claims) is that its probably cheaper for PAG to build an engine in house (quality can also be controlled better). If dealer cost for a rebuilt engine was ~$5000 than the manufacturing cost might be around $2000USD? (probably even less but...) Even with the reduced warranty labor rate that PCNA pays their dealers there is no way to do a complete diagnosis and rebuild for that little $$$. For warranty claims it is completely understandable to just replace but for a non-warranty claim it might make financial sense to have the engine rebuilt over here, especially if you can find an independent shop with some experience.

I completely agree with JasonAndreas. If the dealership wanted to replace the head gasket, they could/would. But it's much easier and cost effective to replace the engine. My cousin was a tech at a non-p-car dealership before, if any internal damage is discovered, they replace the engine. They are able to bill the manufacturer for labor hours and they get the engine for free. It nearly guarantees a fix. Cheapest/easiest solution for everyone unless you don't have a warranty and then it's the cheapest/easiest for the dealership but not so good for the consumer. There's a lot to engine building and as I've mentioned before, it's not really a dealership's niche.