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YOUR RESEARCHEngine number- what can it tell me about my engine and how many 3.4s have failed?
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Replace failed ones
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It seems likely to me that they have been making or remanufacturing model year 2000 3.4s every year since 2000 to replace failed ones.
Engine number- what can it tell me about my engine and how many 3.4s have failed?
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Leading evidence: 'Replace failed ones' (no explicit attributable resolution; this is a reported action or suggestion). Across 1 matching discussions, The most frequently discussed action is 'Replace failed ones' (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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Engine number- what can it tell me about my engine and how many 3.4s have failed?
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I read Peter Zimmermans book and learned that the engine number on my 996 tells me the year it was made and it's sequential number of manufacture. If I understand this correctly, the "new" replacement engine installed in my 2000 C2 996 in November is the 66,294th model year 2000 3.4 engine made by Porsche. It seems likely to me that they have been making or remanufacturing model year 2000 3.4s every year since 2000 to replace failed ones. The original engine was just the 4,071st 3.4 engine from 2000 and wound up with mixed fluids (perhaps a result of the engine block porosity problem that allowed coolant to mix with oil?)
Should I rest assured that by engine number 66,294 they probably worked out the problems? Several threads indicated that "new" replacement engines are actually engines that failed inspection, then were rebuilt from scratch, tested thoroughly and may be even more reliable than a truly new engine. This is my hope.
The new engine number also has more numbers in the code than the old one(M96/044T66Y66294 vs M96/0466Y04071). Do these two extra digits (i.e., the "4T") tell me anything about the rebuild process?
Finally, is it reasonable to take the number 66,294 and subtract the number of new 2000 996 cars built to wind up with the approximate number of replacement engines that have been distributed to replace failed ones? Does anyone know the number of 996s built in 2000? This calculation may not work if some of those 66,294 model year 2000 engines have been installed in '99 or 2001 cars...
I now see that my first post could definitely be viewed as a morbid "failure" mentality type post. That's not at all what I intended. In fact, I've got a "glass is 9/10ths full" perspective right now. I've just purchased my first P-car (from Justinmm2) and I couldn't be more excited.
I knew he had the engine replaced in November and after a 3 1/2 hour PPI I'm ecstatic and feel like, mechanically, I've got a 3 month old car with 4K miles on it.
I was just reviewing the records and became curious about the engine numbers, I didn't mean to stoke the wrong fire or beat a dead horse...
love the car.... don't worry about engine failure.... it's not a huge statistic if you look at the overall number.... don't ask... i have no idea... i just know that there are more porsche ON the street then OFF...... if you don't believe me...... why is porsche still making money........Congrats on your new purchase.....PICS dammit.....
