Cayman Engine Failures - Page 2 - Boxster/Cayman - PistonHeads UK

I've spent some time on the US Porsche Cayman forums (planet 9 mainly) and all I ever seem to read about are engine failures - IMS, bore scoring, over heating, rod failures and other issues. I've had three Porsches now, 944, Boxster and currently an '07 2.7 Cayman. All my cars have run perfectly and only ever needed normal maintenance. I'm interested to know if instances of failure in the UK market are as high as they seem to be in the states. Has anyone had a failure of this type and if so on what model and year? I'm not worried about any of these issues but it'd be interesting to know. I suspect there have been failures reported that have been falsely diagnosed?

Same story over here. Hartech have spent a lot of time and money researching solutions to re-engineer the engines to eliminate the faults (usually after an owner has had a failure) and do so for customers the world over.

Nov 2007 3.4S Cayman. Owned from new and full dealer servicing. Never tracked. Used daily. No warranty so I had to pay for most of it myself... so it'll be my first and last Porsche.

ilduce said: Nov 2007 3.4S Cayman. Owned from new and full dealer servicing. Never tracked. Used daily. No warranty so I had to pay for most of it myself... so it'll be my first and last Porsche. Surely that would be covered by your extended warranty, assuming you have kept it up?

Helicopter123 said: ilduce said: Nov 2007 3.4S Cayman. Owned from new and full dealer servicing. Never tracked. Used daily. No warranty so I had to pay for most of it myself... so it'll be my first and last Porsche. Surely that would be covered by your extended warranty, assuming you have kept it up? The clue is 'No warranty'

With that level of observation, I hope he doesn't have access to a helicopter. Yes. No extended warranty. I mean, why would I need one? It's a Porsche, it's only done 60k miles, it's been regularly serviced and never abused. Maybe a water pump or rad or something fiddly might break but I'll take a gamble on that and offset it against the cost of the warranty. It's not as if the engine is going to explode is it? Oh.

Sorry to hear this OP I got out of Porsche just over a year ago and really haven't given it a second thought. I dislike their attitude towards a product which appears to have some serious issues.

I have also spent time trying to understand the problems with the Engine failures, reported over the years on PH.Most of the failures seem to be with the 3.4 Engines as Hartech and many owners have reported. The 2.7 Cayman Engine was I thought?, a New design in 05/06 which I understand has been very reliable.

ilduce said: With that level of observation, I hope he doesn't have access to a helicopter. Yes. No extended warranty. I mean, why would I need one? It's a Porsche, it's only done 60k miles, it's been regularly serviced and never abused. Maybe a water pump or rad or something fiddly might break but I'll take a gamble on that and offset it against the cost of the warranty. It's not as if the engine is going to explode is it? Oh. So you've saved about £5000 by not renewing the warranty every year - a Hartech rebuild (which addresses the weak points, whereas Porsche just replace with same flawed design of components) is typically £4k-£7K. Yes, you'd have probably been better off with a warranty but not by a massive amount.

The 2.7 Cayman is allegedly the strong one. The issue seem to be with the pre-DFI Cayman S models mainly.

juansolo said: The 2.7 Cayman is allegedly the strong one. The issue seem to be with the pre-DFI Cayman S models mainly. Yeah, that's pretty much how I understand it.

35000 mile Cayman using oil, full dealer history, stripped down by main dealer, Porsche are not interested hence I started a thread looking for valve timing tool.

thegoose said: So you've saved about £5000 by not renewing the warranty every year - a Hartech rebuild (which addresses the weak points, whereas Porsche just replace with same flawed design of components) is typically £4k-£7K. Yes, you'd have probably been better off with a warranty but not by a massive amount. No. I'm down by about 4k. The problem was that the dealer had stripped it down before they diagnosed a d-chunk crack. You are then looking at a 1.5k bill for them to give it back to you before you have to get it transported (more cost) it to Hartech for another 6-7k bill... or do you let the dealer finish the job and give you a full warranty for another 5k? It blowing up again will not be my problem because it'll have a warranty until I get rid of the pile of crap next year. It's a pity really because I enjoyed the car, but for the sake of the few thousand pounds difference, between what I should have paid for the warranty and the cost of the repair, Porsche have lost the family's custom for potentially 6 new cars. Clever Porsche!

Anyway, not to worry, it appears that I'm the only one in the UK that it's happened too.

Threads mentioning 987 engine issues always seem to refer to Caymans, but the same engine was put into the 987.1 Boxster S when they went from 3.2s to 3.4s. So why do we only seem to hear Caymans mentioned in this context? Is it the case that somehow Boxster S 3.4s are lucking out of the problems, or just that because Caymans were mentioned in Hartech's original post on the issue that that is all that gets repeated around here? Not trying to be facetious, just curious as to why we don't seem to hear about 3.4S Boxsters. Edited by ChipsAndCheese on Wednesday 30th October 13:09

ChipsAndCheese said: Threads mentioning 987 engine issues always seem to refer to Caymans, but the same engine was put into the 987.1 Boxster S when they went from 3.2s to 3.4s. So why do we only seem to hear Caymans mentioned in this context? Is it the case that somehow Boxster S 3.4s are lucking out of the problems, or just that because Caymans were mentioned in Hartech's original post on the issue that that is all that gets repeated around here? Not trying to be facetious, just curious as to why we don't seem to hear about 3.4S Boxsters. Edited by ChipsAndCheese on Wednesday 30th October 13:09 Funny, I thought most threads related to how Boxster engines went bang.

uknick said: Funny, I thought most threads related to how Boxster engines went bang. Most of those (IIRC) seem to be about the 986 and IMS issues. It always seems 987 engine threads only mention Caymans. I just would have thought that given it is the same engine, we would hear it mentioned more.

anonymous said: [redacted] Not sure about that. I was under the impression that the Caymans that are tracked, and get more attention (oil changes etc) than the normal service schedule, don't seem to go pop. Interesting point about the boxster/cayman thing though. Seems that the IMS goes more on the Boxsters too. edit: Just checked. The boxster has the M96 engine and the Cayman has the M97 with the improved IMS. Edited by ilduce on Thursday 31st October 09:56

Forgive me if this is naïve, but could incidence of bore scoring be related to sport/sport+? As I understand it the fuel map adds more fuel sooner - on the Boxster this seems to increase pops and bangs on overrun. But all that is a result of unburnt fuel (over fuelling) which whilst in the cylinder could be washing oil off the combustion chamber walls and piston rings. Just a thought.

griffter said: Forgive me if this is naïve, but could incidence of bore scoring be related to sport/sport+? As I understand it the fuel map adds more fuel sooner - on the Boxster this seems to increase pops and bangs on overrun. But all that is a result of unburnt fuel (over fuelling) which whilst in the cylinder could be washing oil off the combustion chamber walls and piston rings. Just a thought. A good point, but if this was a contributory factor then it would affect all the bores and not just no's 5 and 6 which appears to be the case most of the time.

Sport/Sport + doesn't mess with the engine map. It removes the soft limiter (500rpm before the hard limiter), sharpens the throttle pedal (less pedal travel for more throttle, the amount of throttle you can apply doesn't change), it opens the valves in your exhaust if you have PSE* and has a slightly less intrusive PSM (if you leave it switched on). It also messes with PDK if you have it. So if you have a manual car it gives you the perception of more performance and a peakier power delivery, it doesn't actually change the performance of the car. With PDK it actually speeds up changes apparently. *If you have a Carnewal GT exhaust (pretty much a PSE always open), the car pops and gurgles all the time Edited by juansolo on Friday 1st November 10:29

As most failures in respect of bores are thermal in nature in the UK it follows there are probably more failures in hotter climates.

On which subject, how are the Gen 2 cars faring ?

ChrisW. said: On which subject, how are the Gen 2 cars faring ? Its looking pretty good.

juansolo said: It removes the soft limiter (500rpm before the hard limiter), sharpens the throttle pedal (less pedal travel for more throttle, the amount of throttle you can apply doesn't change), That's altering the map isn't it!

juansolo said: It removes the soft limiter (500rpm before the hard limiter), sharpens the throttle pedal (less pedal travel for more throttle, the amount of throttle you can apply doesn't change), That's altering the map isn't it!

R1nur said: That's altering the map isn't it! The specific reference above was "fuel map" being altered - changing the fuelling at the load/rev sites. That isn't changed hence the answer. Bert

Indeed. The limiter may be a function of the ECU, but it's not part of the map. Changing with the map generally means changing the fuelling with a view to increasing power. Which sport/sport+ does not do on a Cayman/Boxster. Edited by juansolo on Thursday 7th November 17:31