Porshce is buying me a new engine!

Wow, talk about a suprise....had the 996 towed to Pfaff for a strange rattle in engine area yesterday...today the service mgr calls to let me know a new engine is on its way from Germany... Apparently an internal flange needle bearing broke and Porsche felt better about giving me a new engine then tearing the existing one apart... So...car is an 2002 Targa with 18,500 km on it (12k miles for my American friends) Will this positively affect my resale value in a few years? Will they replace the clutch as well ? Anything I should look out for or ask? Will I get a 2003 motor? As thing are I am very very happy with the service at Pfaff here in Toronto, its so much better then my 7 years of BMW/MB experience, night and day.... Feedback is appreciated!

my C4S's motor was replaced at 13k. usually the dealer will do the clutch disc as good will. if they don't , pay for the clutch disc NOW and have them install for free since the motor is out anyway. the disc is cheap, but the labor cost is scary. but since they took the engine out already, they shouldn't charge you for labor cost.

Porsche even PAID my lease note for the 30 days it took PORSCHE to get a motor over here! This was last spring, on a minor oil leak inspection. The car then had 16,xxx miles on it. I had developed a FANTASTIC relationship with the service guys, and they happily inspected the clutch disc, and all related wearing items. My car was not a C4S(a measly "c4), but its still the same driveline, which IMHO takes alot more abuse and drag than my new 2003 Carrera 2 Hooray for PORSCHE's great customer service! I didnt even have to ASK for the engine...all done in good will

Yah, my service guys are the BEST...I got a nice Cayenne as a loaner, my wife loves it, will try it out at the cottage, even my 2 yr old loves it....beats the X5 we have in all categories so far... Hope they replace the clutch disk, I'm sure they will Cheers

For the most part I have had pretty good experience at Pfaff as well...how long did they say that they need the car for? What did they tell you about resale?

They will have the car until Tuesday, not sure about re-sale, probably sell the car back to them 6 mths before the warranty. What do you thnk would happen to re-sale ? I see the value going up due to new components with a letter from Porsche.

Depends on who is buying but I would think the opposite. Original motor is expected and the fact that it has a new motor is not a plus to me. In fact, I would be leary of a vehicle that needed to get its motor replaced at 12K miles. As far as the new motor, it has become pretty commonplace to replace rather than repair for Porsche with the 996 and 986.

Carbon, I used to work for Chris Pfaff. He will try to do rhe right thing ..... believe me. Tell him Theo said you should give him a new clutch !!!! Good luck. Theo

before this rattle?? Did you buy the car new or did it have +/- 8,000 kms on it? I ask b/c I was looking for one at Pfaff that fit that description a little while back. Good Luck!

At 10,000 miles, the crankshaft pulley guide pin broke off in my engine causing a bicycle bell sort of ringing noise. The dealer replaced it with a new engine, but they originally wanted to give me a re-built one. The worst thing about the entire experience was that I had to hold back during the break in period.

Hi Lap, The 996 was perfect when I bought it, it had 16700km on it when I bought it, and sounded fantastic. Did you buy the blk/blk targa with the aero kit? Had all service done and no previous problems from orig owner...so , major dissapointment having to get a new motor, but I look at the bright side. I get a very nice Cayenne to drive whilst targa is in for repairs and a new motor ( they better throw in a new clutch) I'm really not to worried about the resale as they will be buying it back in a few years. I have found the service and sales ( jamie taylor is my sales guy ) fantastic, cannot say enought good things about Pfaff! Looking forward to the new engine and the RUF short shifter install. Downside is that I will not have it at the cottage for my early morning high speed runs to Starbucks. Not going to worry, just going to enjoy the (new) car, lifes far to short. Give Jamie a call and tell him Scott says hi.

Porsche has a long-standing practice of "buying" failed components (especially during the introduction of new models like the 964 and 986) to discover the cause of the failure. One could look at this as customer service or "let the customer do the final testing." I was in a Porsche dealership service area while they responded to a message from galatic central headquarters about an early Boxster with a engine failure apparently due to a combination of inadequate lubrication and over-revving. But the engine was recently serviced and had been driven a thousand miles or more (so it presumably had oil aplenty) and it was a Tiptronic (so it's practically impossible to over-rev.) Apparently Porsche was interested in this failure, so instead of replacing the failed components, they insisted the engine be removed in toto with the transaxle and all electronics without disassembly. I recall the guy doing the work estimated about 100 hours work. And he was overjoyed with the opportunity to play with the new hardware. At the time I was reconciling thoughts of being concerned that an engine could fail even when protected by a Tiptronic, plus I was concerned that Porsche had initially pushed back on the claim and blamed the driver for abusive behaviour until they found out it was a Tipto and I was troubled that Porsche took this as almost a "beta" cycle to discover problems with the car and thought little of the problems the customer would experience during each failure. I also thought Porsche was quite active and moved quickly to get cars fixed but they're hampered by the incompetence and plain stupidity of minimum wage dealership staff. It was, as I recall, both humorous and disconcerting to listen to the mechanic ridicule the "not my problem" behaviour of service managers at the dealership that did everything they could to point the blame at the customer and avoid the "work" of involving Porsche NA or AG. Well, I ended up getting a Boxster the next year, but I can't say it didn't occur to me to stipulate that I wouldn't take deliver of the car unless I drove it beforehand to be confident it was making temperature and pressure.

Carbon__00 I ended up buying a new one from DFC as it turned out to be cheaper than the used one @ PFAFF. Was trying to trade in a c32 but could'nt make the numbers work with them.

IMO resale of your car with a new motor whould be very minimal since it's Porsche replacing the engine versus car got rear ended hard but not totaled but needed new engine. Regards and hope you'll get your car back soon and off the to the track : ). Regards. Mike

A co-worker of mine has a '99 Aero coupe that recently (within the past 6 months) suffered an engine failure. Since the car was still under warranty, Porsche replaced the engine for free. The problem is that he is trying to sell the car and can't get rid of it (for the record he was planning to sell the car before the engine trouble occurred). He has had it for sale for several months and every interested person thinks the car is gorgeous (blk/blk w/titanium inserts), but runs for cover when they find out it has a fresh motor. Unfortunately, it looks like he is going to take a beating on this one. He has already lowered his selling price considerably. -Cajun