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YOUR RESEARCHSo I bought an IMS Guardian but......
Leading reported evidence
Install on the oil pan
Performed · outcome unconfirmed
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Performed · outcome unconfirmed
Regardless, I'd hate to be the guy that buys a used 996 to find a Guardian sensor installed on the oil pan when doing my first oil change and the other end of the wires snipped and tucked away.
Leading evidence: 'Install on the oil pan' (no explicit attributable resolution; this is a reported action or suggestion). Across 1 matching discussions, The most frequently discussed action is 'Clean pan and screen' (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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Performed · outcome unconfirmed · Original poster
The previous owner claimed that the IMS bearing had been changed but had no supporting documentation to prove it.
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Every used car ever sold has that potential issue, especially a generation of cars that is now 10-16 years old!
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Suggestion
Informs the owner it's time NOW to drop the tranny and replace the bearing, as well as perhaps clean the pan and screen with a full oil change.
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Suggestion
Also the IMSB now has recommended service intervals which didn't exist before.
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Regardless, I'd hate to be the guy that buys a used 996 to find a Guardian sensor installed on the oil pan when doing my first oil change and the other end of the wires snipped and tucked away.
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Suggestion
Look at his website and its indisputable that if you get a warning, he states you cannot just replace the IMS, you have to take the motor apart and rebuild it.
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Suggestion
Go and look at all the posts when the guardian was in development and Jake teased this board and used this board for pre production sales for the guardian, how he marketted the guardian as an advance warning of imminent IMSB failure so you could replace your IMSB when the guardian alerted.
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I recently bought a 2002 C4S.
The previous owner claimed that the IMS bearing had been changed but had no supporting documentation to prove it.
The car has 108K on it.
I dropped the sump and dissected the oil filter.
Everything was free of metal particles and immaculate.
No leaks on the garage floor, super dry under the engine.
I buttoned everything up without installing the Guardian.
So what is the consensus of the forum.
Install it on the next oil change or sell the kit?
Personally I think the Guardian is a great option... Low cost paranoia preventer. Makes way more sense than the legions of people dropping their transmissions and changing the bearing out of fear.
If you use an immaculately clean oil pan you can just do a quick oil dump, put in the guardian drain plug, and put the fresh oil back in. Install of the guardian (or jr.) is pretty easy, the only slightly tricky part if fishing the wire between the engine area and the cabin.
The issue that kept me from installing it was snaking it into the cabin.
Maybe the instructions should have been a bit clearer, I dunno know?
Run the wires under the the sill plate, through the center console?
I could not find an easy route.
I already own it so I am open to suggestions.
Pull the carpet cover on the rear deck (under rear window) from inside car. It just pries out, no tools if I recall. Once that is out, you'll see several rubber grommets separating the cabin from the engine area. Poke a hole in one and feed the wire through. Inside the cabin, it's pretty easy to tuck the wire under the carpet, pull the sill cover under the door, and route it to the dash area. A few zip ties in the engine area to route the wire were you need it.
Did the PO indicate it was a LN Engineering bearing? If so, there should be a sticker on the door jamb.
If you are already this worried about things, I would install the Guardian.
Btw, do you have a spot at Iron Gate?
I receive an IMS Alert from an IMS Guardian about once every month or so. The systems certainly do work and engines have been saved by them.
That said, the big issue is they work too well. Why? Because they give too much advanced notice of a failure, so the owner can choose to do an inspection for diagnosis and then sell the car to an unsuspecting buyer.
This is happening frequently these days.
Hmmm... looks like the same developers/builders as Iron Gate out in Naperville.
Edit: It appears that Iron Gate is a licensee of AutoMotorPlex, hence the similarties.
I know you've mentioned this several times as a key reason you don't promote the Guardian more, but it doesn't make a much sense to me....
When the Guardian gives a warning, isn't it pre-failure, pre-catastrophic engine damage? Informs the owner it's time NOW to drop the tranny and replace the bearing, as well as perhaps clean the pan and screen with a full oil change. While not a trivial job, not a complete wallet buster either... ~$800 in parts (less with an OEM-type bearing) and the labor for a shop to do the job. Not exactly reason to dump the car any more than, say, a clutch on it's last legs or a failing air/oil separator.
Would some sellers dump their cars as first sign of trouble? Sure, along with the guy that had a "money shift" (downshift over-rev) that he's worried about, or thinks the clutch or AO separator is just about to fail, whatever... But it's not like having the guardian going off signals a $20K repair, it signals a $2K repair, as long as you attend to the problem. What am I missing?
Seems like educating owners/buyers on the Guardian (and the less expensive Guardian Jr.) and getting them on more cars is a far better strategy than abandoning the product because some owners sell their cars at the first sign of trouble. Especially these days, when most 996 owners are enthusiasts rather than the first few waves of luxury sports car buyers that wouldn't know a bearing from biscotti.
Some might not want to take on the risk as it's already been "tainted" to them possibly. Also by that time, it might not pass pre-qualification, not that most shops do it but if they were to decide to bring it to Jake's shop, that could be something to worry about as well.
Regardless, I'd hate to be the guy that buys a used 996 to find a Guardian sensor installed on the oil pan when doing my first oil change and the other end of the wires snipped and tucked away.
As Alpine said above...I would think the same thing. Technically you are supposed to pre qualify the motor before installing a bearing and if you put in a bearing with any signs of issue, then chances are the new bearing will fail. If I'm not mistaken, which I probably am, doesn't this void warranty of the new bearing? Why buy something to tell you when your car takes a dump...just wait for it to happen naturally!
Lots of incorrect info flying around in this thread...
The whole point of the guardian is it alarms at the very early stages of bearing deterioration, before the bearing falls apart and lunches your engine. I think it's specifically designed to detect the small bearing component pieces which tend to come off
before
the bearing entirely spills its ball bearing guts into your engine and drops the timing chain.
And since even a replaced bearing can fail, it's just baffling to me that folks would somehow think
not
getting very early detection of bearing failure is a a good thing...
No, the whole point of the guardian is when the alarm sounds, your engine is still running so no real damage has happened yet vs when you wait for the IMS to blow and make the engine seize with cylinders kissing valves.
You are supposed to turn the engine off as soon as possible after the alarm goes off to avoid damages to the engine.
From what I've read and heard from Jake and others...
There's plenty of non-ferrous metal in the engine (lots of aluminum) that wont accumulate on a metallic drain plug or magnetic chip detector (MCD), but you might pick up on your oil intake screen or filter. Small amounts (a few flecks in the filter) are common, large amounts are not good. MCD won't pick up these particles.
For the ferrous metals that get picked up on a magnet or MCD, my recollection of Jake's explanation is the spacing of the two contacts/sensors on the MCD are specifically spaced to allow some typical magnetic fuzz to accumulate and
not
short the sensors with a false alarm, but that small magnetic chips typical of the early stages of bearing deterioration
will
short the sensor.
IMS bearing failure stages explained a bit more
here
, but again I think the key idea of the MCD sensor is to catch a failing bearing (or other pending doom) early before the catastrophic failure stage. As mentioned above, it's not just the foreign particles that cause the catastrophic damage, but the skipped timing chains and resultant piston/valve collisions that occur upon full bearing failure.
Wayne Dempsey's
article on the pelican board also does a pretty good job explaining the bearing failure stages and resultant damage...
So again, if the MCD (Guardian) can detect early stages of bearing failure before major engine damage is done (and there isn't much dispute that it does just that), why is it not more enthusiastically received? Because an unscrupulous owner might sell and mislead a buyer about potential problems? That just seems like a really weak reason. Every used car ever sold has that potential issue, especially a generation of cars that is now 10-16 years old!
Its very interesting to see how many people still think the guardian is an alert to replace the IMSB, as shown by this post. Go and look at all the posts when the guardian was in development and Jake teased this board and used this board for pre production sales for the guardian, how he marketted the guardian as an advance warning of imminent IMSB failure so you could replace your IMSB when the guardian alerted. I dont have the time to link to all the posts, but if you do a little research, one thing is clear.
Jake promoted the guardian, directly or by ommission, as a warning device so you could replace the IMSB and everything would be perfect. But now, he says, if you have a guardian alert, you cannot just replace the IMSB, because the foriegn object debris in the motor will kill a new double or single row IMSB replacement. Look at his website and its indisputable that if you get a warning, he states you cannot just replace the IMS, you have to take the motor apart and rebuild it.
But, Jake says, i have a solution. Just send me your motor and for a mere $20,000 +, I'll make your motor good by rebuilding your motor. Very good marketing, Jake.
Jake, you are a marketing genius. You let us believe your guardian is the holy grail, the solution to all the IMSB paranoia, but then you come back and say, well, you know, its not that simple, when you get an alert, just send the motor to me for a rebuild.
And as Jake admits in this post, many use the alert to commit a fraud. They get the alert, remove all traces of a guadrian install and sell to an unsuspecting buyer.
This is nothing new as he's done the same for when IMSB retrofit came out, then the solution, then the double row retrofit. He designed his initial tool, then when the faultless tool came out, he essentially bashed his old design. It used to be good but no longer. Also the IMSB now has recommended service intervals which didn't exist before. I also don't remember having a pre qualification stage before either. Things change anytime it needs to, it seems like...
As for "the guardian", that has been in existence in the aeronautical industry for ages used to monitor the engine condition of helicopters. However Jake was able to capitalize on it by adapting it to automotive use. FWIW, I've only seen it on Porsche motors in consumer industry probably because Porsche owners are worry warts and easily feed into the frenzy, not to mention the relatively steep price of a replacement motor.
An engine can be effectively retrofitted after receiving an IMS Alert from the IMS Guardian. As long as the engine is not operated after receiving the warning, and if shirt service intervals, and other measures are taken after the retrofit for a few hundred miles.
The IMS Guardian gives a symptom to an otherwise symptomless condition- that's all. It keeps the engine from totally failing, and that will save several thousands of dollars in collateral damaged.
That's not new- it's been that way since day one.
Also since day one service intervals have been in place for all retrofit bearings and they have been posted. The difference was that no one read all the details, until we have had to plaster them all over the place to educate folks..
The IMS Guardian should be renamed to Engine Guardian. The metal that triggers it could come from some many other places, other than the IMS bearing, that it gives a false hope to the owner that it guards only against the IMSB bearing. Its a neat product but people need to understand what exaftly it does.
I agree.. In every other application the unit is sold as an Engine Guardian.
That said, I have been out of the loop on the product for 2 years now. After development and selling the first 110 units, it was passed on to distribution.
Hi there! Any chance you still have the IMS Guardian you decided not to install. If you have it, I would like to buy it.
Please contact me via email:
[email removed]
Thanks so much!
Not sure if you realize this thread is (was) eight years old?
The guardian was IMHO a great idea... Monitor for early signs of IMS bearing failure instead of being paranoid about it. Unfortunately they stopped production of them years and years ago.
I've moved on from M96 engined 911s to Mezger and DFI 911s, but I think I still have an extra guardian in a box somewhere. If I run across it, I'll post it up
The Guardian technology and components were sold to another company that intended to use them for a broader application than Porsche engines. They shelved the product for unknown reasons, and never sold a unit.
Thanks for your reply! Yes, I know the thread was old, however, I still run the IMS Guardian and need some parts to keep mine in service. Since Raby MS sold off their ownership of the device many years ago, I have to resort to "long shots" to potentially find parts. I know several people likely have them in a box somewhere, so I am hoping to find one that is available for sale.
Mike S.
Do you need the actual sensor or the alarm bit? If I recall, the alarm portion was a pretty generic 12V warning circuit, with the sensor itself completing the ground to activate it.
Warning light/buzzer very similar or identical to this...
http://www.amazon.com/mxuteuk-Buzzer...dp/B07T1GXC17/
Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, I need the actual sensor that is custom built into a modified oil pan drain bolt. Not something I can easily remake.
I am hoping someone has one that is still serviceable.
Mike S.
Thanks for your message. Clearly, at least in my experience, the Magnetic Debris Sensor was too fragile for it�s location under the car in the oil drain plug position where the wires were constant vibrated and eventually break inside the hard resin filler. I dissected a couple and tried to repair them, but the simple act of taking out the resin destroyed the �guts� inside. Good idea - poor execution!! Perhaps someone with engineering expertise can give it a reboot with needed improvements!
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