Where are all of the self-destructing 996s???

It’s been awhile since we have seen a post about a granading 996…WHY? If in fact 10% of these cars self-destruct, and let’s face it thousands of owners of these self-destructing cars would seek out RL due to the fact that it is the BEST P-car site on the net, we would be inundated with posts regarding IM$B failures…Could it be that the moderators are conducting better checks to cut down on the infomercials(thanks aspen)??? Could it be that this problem is a BIT overblown??? Where are said posts??? Where are they???

Please....don't ask for them back. There's enough already posted to keep a speed reader busy for months. Drive 'em fix 'em is the motto around here.

there are none....we've all been using DT-40!

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Let me guess...your license plate is ILUVJR?

Oh dear... Despite misgivings about even touching this topic let me try out what could be part of the answer: One reason could be that a combination of prior failures, heightened awareness, and retrofit bearings has gotten the model over the hump, so to speak. This would mirror the cylinder head gasket problem (a nice term for bad design) in early 964s. Eventually most or all of the 89-90 cars were retrofitted with the 91 gasket. Today, major oil leaks are really no longer a problem in well-maintained 964s. That said, I'm certain Jake Raby can describe in detail the number of panicked phone calls he probably received just last week. Oh, and most Porsche owners probably do not waste their time on Rennlist... Not that wasting time on Rennlist is a bad thing. But any attempt to determine a trend by surveying people on this board is somewhat flawed from the start.

Hi, im new to the porsche community, about 2 months ago i bought a 2000 996 c2 artic silver with 72,000 , im the 3rd owner, the first owner had it for 10 years, ever since i started surfing the forums I've paranoid about the ims, funny

I saw 2 since December - I imagine Jake has seen a few yes the numbers are low, who knows...maybe 0.0001% but for the person who is holding the keys to a financed car now worth less than what they owe and staring a big repair bill they have no means of paying for - its a crappy place to be standing that said, enough talk about it - you may have as much probability of having a shopping cart fall off an airplane and hitting your car - but at least that would be covered by insurance - not coming back to this thread - PS - I drove an early 996 on track yesterday for a session. My student asked me to drive his car and WOW - you guys all have it easy, these are fun cars, fast and EASY to drive. I have NO CLUE as to why you wouldnt go to the track with such a car - FANTASTIC!!!

Because we dont want to be in the group Dream posted about!

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Jake mentioned that the LN bearing sales is around 7,000 units in another thread. Not all 7,000 units were retrofitted to the engines that will fail and it is a very small percentage of 986s, 987s, 996s and 997s produced. I believe M96 engine failures are probably blown out of proportion but it just sucks if you are holding keys to a car with a bad engine. Challenge with new water cooled p cars is that values continue to drop because even good cars are easily replaceable. It just does not make as much sense to put a new engine in the car even if you love the crap out of it.

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Thats true, but the exact same logic applies to plane crashes. Id argue that they are a *hell of a lot* worse than an IMS failure for the person that draws the short straw, and yet no one sane runs around discussing plane crashes all day on travel forums. Its just the nature of car forums. The bad is discussed far more than the good, there is a tendency to really want to believe conspiracy and deliberate bad action on the part of vendors, and there is also a Pollyanna effect that tends to have pretty strong gravity. Every car marque Ive owned has had this going on on some level. Now with the 996 you have to add in the fact that the Porsche community tends to be a pretty inflexible lot who, in many ways, had already damned the 996 and 986 from day 1. "Porsche enthusiasts" hate these cars and always have and love to talk about that all day long. So when *any* actual problem with the model that *can* be serious comes along, it isnt a shock that its impact would be exaggerated. Porsche haters, and even Porsche enthusiasts, were *waiting* to kick the 996 when it was down. Just look at that ridiculous venom filled "truthaboutcars" posting. It's almost personal with these people for whatever reason. And then FUD has a network effect... It always starts with a real problem that can be scary. Lets take PC malware as an example. There is enough smoke that of course there is some fire, but the internet spreads paranoia like a plague, often fueled by detractors who *want* the worst to be true, and next thing you know there is a conflagration. Vendors rush in and, to be fair, provide legitimate solutions that can help mitigate risk. Is it in their best interest to calm fears though, honestly? It's really just in their best interest to sell solutions. Not at the risk of credibility, but there is plenty of plausible deniability when a legitimate issue *is* being addressed. In other words McAffee isnt going to say "well if you're smart about how you work and you learn something about your computer and you avoid dangerous behavior, you'll almost certainly be fine, BUT we recommend you spend $99.95 anyway". That wouldn't be smart marketing. And again, yeah it sucks if its you that has a failure, but so does any catastrophic problem. Every model has them, but the community doesn't fixate on and obsess over them the way it does with the 996 because the air cooled models are up on their high pedestal I expect that over time the dust will settle. At that point FUD will be separated from reality and either the retrofit folks will be billionaires or the entire thing will have been a really interesting footnote in automotive history. The near euphoria "Porsche enthusiasts" feel when seeing air cooled cars will keep them all (911/964/994/etc) priced so ludicrously high that, IMO, the 996/997 market *will* have a bottom. There is a point where a clean, well maintained, 911 reaches a price that (whatever year it is) the market floods in to buy it and either doesnt know, or doesnt care, about any of the BS. I think, quite honestly, that the 996 is just about there now, but again time will tell. Anecdotally, I dont know *anyone* young(ish) - like below 35 - that given $25k to spend would buy a 1988 911 vs a 996. The fact that the 996 is the first 911 that is at least reasonably modern and "easier", and yet still maintains something of the 911 character will ultimately help it IMO.

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I totally agree. With every car magazine highlighting the new 911, Boxster and Cayman, this is a good thing for 996 owners. Porsche is on the front covers at every newstand. More advertisements everywhere. They are doing us a serious favor.

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This is so full of wrong that I don't know where to start. Air cooled Pcars have a following because Porsche was engineers first and business men second. The cars' on the road reflects that today whether you believe it or not. Secondly, the supply of the air cooled cars will ensure their value long term. This is seen by the fair number of cars exported to Europe from the US during the past several years. This will continue as long as the exchange rates are favorable. 964 pricing rivals 996s even today after their recent appreciation in value. Why don't you search a few threads in the air cooled forum on age of owners and find yourself in a bit of surprise. I owned a 996 and loves it. My budget on mods rivaled anyone here and then some so I speak with experience. I went to a 993TT because it was my grail car. I will never lose a lot of money should I decide to sell my TT in the future compared to my $30K of depreciation and mods given away with my 996.

Hopefully all of those motors that were destined to break have already done so and now we can rest in peace.

M96 failures are like H1 6.5TD failures or Subaru headgaskets/rod bearings. Something's going to happen, the issue with the 996 is the cost to repair vs. overall value and in-ability to do preventative maintenance to the stock engine. I was so nervous about my 3.4 having a failure (IMS, cracked cylinder, headgasket failure, RMS, etc) that I sold the engine while it was in good running order (with upgraded IMS bearing and new RMS) and did an engine swap. Now, I have zero worries about engine failure.

Thank God for the 'scare mongers'. They brought the 911/996 to a price within my reach which, in turn, made me into, a proud owner of one of the best (if not THE best) racing/sports cars in the world. Porsche 911 is not just 'another car' it's a 996...........Do I get a resounding YES? White Out... and the guy who got your old engine got the deal of a life time.

It's never a problem until it happens to you. I'm a big fan of insurance. $1800( I can afford) to retrofit the bearing upgrade is not such a big deal to avoid the rare chance of needing a full $13,000-$15000 replace/rebuild engine(which I can't afford).

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good one!

Answer is obvious. They are all at Jakes, they come in by the truck load

It's never a problem until it happens to you. Yup. That's VERY true.

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I find it rather interesting this continues to go on and on. I have had an air cooled 6 in my 914 for 12 years and have seen my share of issues with it. I like what I read when I was looking at buying my 02. " grow a pair Nancy and drive it". I have and have loved every second of it. If it blows up I'll figure a way to fix it. 120k and going strong. Bill

Some friends of mine rented a house in the Orlando area for a Flag football tournament this weekend. When I arrived Friday the next door neighbor came in behind me in his 996. I talked to him for about 10 minutes and he stated he just had the engine replaced 30k miles ago, fyi.

There is always a solution

They are all on the Flat6 facebook page.