996 engine help

Hi there I Live in southern california, and was wondering if anyone could help me out on getting my 1999 996 motor rebuild. I took my car to Walters porsche in riverside and they told me i would need to buy a new complete motor at the price of over 13K. I guess from what i am told the early 1999 996 motor had a promblem with a seal around the water cooler. and also a promblem with the borus cyclinder. either which one i have one of the promblems, what has happened is the coolant has leaked into my motor causing my either to replace the motor or having it rebuilt.. So i am in need of some help finding someone to rebuild the motor or put a used motor inside my car. i am not going to pay Porsche's crazy price. The only person whom i found so far to rebuild the motor is Meister motors at the price of 7500.00 If anyone could help me out please post to this thread thanks for everyones help

Slipped sleeve, new engine. Rear Main Seal, replace seal. What was the manufactured date of the vehicle (probably early-mid 1998).

First sorry to hear of your mishap. The early 996 suffered a problem that was first discovered in the Boxster where the cylinder sleeve slipped and caused irrepairable damage to the engine. If this appened to you then your engine is trash (sorry to put it so harshly but that the truth of the matter). The early 996's also did not have the completed TSB's (obviously) that corrected the water leaking in the coolant reservoir as well as a few other problems. If the engine/car was originally dealer serviced many of those TSB issues would be cleaned up. But the reason why you wrote us here was not to hear the roblems repeated to you, however, I don't think that your engine is repairable if that sleeve has slipped and the cost to replace the engine is likely to be the same where ever you take it and (becuase they have to purchase a new engine form Porsche anyway). I am fairly certain that unless you do the work yourself the labor costs between the dealer and an outside mechanic (a good one worth going to) will be much different overall. However, the warrenty service you will get from the dealer on the engine and the associated labor will lilkely exceed that of an non-dealer mechanic. The RMS, no biggy. It will likely be replaced any way when the engine is mated back to the transmission case and drive shaft. Anybody out there disagree?

I had the same incident with my second replacement engine.. cylinder sleeve coming out of the lining on a 9,000 mile engine... basically, bit the bullet and just ended up buying my third engine from an authorized porsche dealer... there really is nothing you can do but shell out the $13,000+ ($14k+ with tax.. gotta love sales tax)... otherwise, you may end up on the freeway in a few hundred miles breaking down, potentially causing yourself and others harm and potentially do even more damage and cost... I wouldn't drive it, now that you are aware of the situation.. just have to eat the $14,000 cost unfortunately... (and if you sell it now that it's in the porsche service computer of what happened... you are asking for trouble from the new owner... and it will end up costing alot more than $14,000) and let it sit until an engine can be put in.. just my two cents from having gone through what you did.. i can emphathize with you.. ..unfortunately, those that haven't had to pay for engine replacements that are internal failures not caused by themselves and had to pay for themselves (those without a warranty), will never understand the anger and frusteration from this happening from no abuse or any fault of their own... it's simply an internal problem within the engine, where porsche lies fully responsible... and they make sure to charge you up the *** to pay for their mistakes in faulty engineering.... upsetting when it happens once, twice... grrr... i'll stop now.. when it comes to replacing engines, trust me, I know all about it.. thoroughly did my research on all options, from rebuilding to used, to porsche customer service.... don't bother... porsche won't help you, especially on a 99, and out of warranty.. I tried everything.. it's useless... you just have to shell out the cash... $13,000 is actually a pretty good price.. that's with the core i'm assuming, but without tax (another nice $1,000)? Usually it's about $15,000 to $17,000 if they don't accept the core, with labor, tax, etc... I'm at $47,000 in repair bills on my 99 in the first 1,100 miles of ownership... on my 50k mile 996.. don't get a used engine, and let a porsche dealer install it... I took the route you have been considering to save money, and 150 miles later, the second engine had an internal failuire (the cylinder out of the sleeve that you have).. the nice thing about the rebuilt, installed by a dealer is that porsche covers it for 2 years... or if you get an extended warranty, and they dont' cover it for some reason, if anything happens again to your second engine recently after.. you won't want to drive it off the nearest cliff like I almost did :> (luckily porsche is covering the replacement cost for the replacement tranny, but everything else came out of my pocket :I ) still waiting for my new tranny to be shipped from germany, hopefully get to drive it by the end of the year.. haven't had a chance to drive it in a few months with everything going wrong.. but oh well.. life continues.. (yes i'm still bitter.. but i'm dealing.. just a lesson learned...two words.. extended warranty ) i would never ever, ever, considering buying a 996 that didn't have a warranty... sure most people haven't had any problems... (and boy I wish I was one of them) but I have a very sour taste in my mouth from what i've been through.. the fact is, nobody really knows why some engines fail, and some don't... nor will porsche offer any assistance in that department either... it's pretty much russian roulette.. chances are nothing will happen... but with no signs, or prevention you can take... it's the one $15,000 bullet that can go off everytime you start the car... most likely it won't happen, but it can... and there are many that can attest to it here... and yes, i know many of you out there, aren't too fond of me... but anyone that has gone through what I have, I would feel has the right to vent... and assist anyone to the best I can with my experiences of what I have gone through...

and yes, i know many of you out there, aren't too fond of me... but anyone that has gone through what I have, I would feel has the right to vent... and assist anyone to the best I can with my experiences of what I have gone through... Bob: Your story just wasn't plausible to some of us, but we still like you.

Why are they charging so much for the engine? Is that the engine and installation? If you talk to a lot of the Boxster guys who have done 3.4 engine swaps they could tell you, you can buy a new 3.4 engine from Porsche for 9k!!!

Hey Bob, I got no problem with ya buddy and I think you are waaaaay correct in your statement above. There is another thread here where there is a real creep telling a guy that there is no big deal in the in the early release 996 (pre July 1999) and that the clutches in these 996 are 100K capable. He is just offering flat out no experience awful advice. So to me it is refreshing that someone can speak the truth about a real life experience with their 996. Things can go wrong,,, horribly wrong! Boiled down not all 996 experiences are good ones and everyperson should remember the letters "YMMV". My personal experience has not been overall very bad, in fact I think it has been rather great RMS repair under warrenty, alternator repalr under warrenty, and just routine maintenance that I do myself because I enjoy it. I also agree with you that I would NEVER consider making this big of a money commitment in the 996 without doing it through a dealer where I could get a warrenty for that engine and labor especially when it could happen again particularly if the engine purchased is used or a refurb .

I'm just glad I didn't have a similar experience on a ferrari enzo.. was reading the dupont registry exotic cars of 2005, and they indicated a replacement engine for one of those guys is going for a nice $200,000 and I don't think that includes labor... brake replacement $24,000... etc.. eeek... I wonder if I tried to have an extended warranty put on one of those if they'd laugh at me or hang up on me first?

I recently bought a used engine from LA Porsche dismantlers for $5500 plus I paid $1800 to have it installed. I haven't had any problems yet with over 5k miles since install. I considered a new engine also, but decided to save the cash for a used one. Give them a call, they usually have several engines to choose from. Rob

Hi Bob, nice post. I know you get a lot of flack here, so thought I'd say I like this post because you're using your experiences to help someone else. That's a big part of what I think Rennlist is about. Cheers!

I bought my previous used engine from LA Porsche dismantlers as well for $6000 and paid about $1800 to have it installed.. (9k miles) it went bad after 150 miles, after an internal cylinder sleeve came loose... and then I had to buy another engine for $13,000... good luck.. the used engines don't have the 2 year porsche warranty remember... so I wouldn't recommend a used engine for anyone.... it's worth it for the 2 year porsche warranty imho..