Tail Pipe Soot w/ DFI

There are several instances reported of significant tail pipe soot w/ the 997.2 . The amount of soot reported varies from covering the garage floor to staining of the tailpipes. Both standard and S models have reported the finding. Increased oil consumption has been reported but this also seems variable given that use of these cars varies widely. One owner stated he had the dealer look into the engine but found nothing. It's really difficult to say at this stage whether this is a) not a problem; b) a real issue w/o long term serious consequences; or c) a new RMS in the making. Neither the fact that Porsche has not responded to individual owners, nor the high emotion some owners have expressed means anything at this stage. Something to watch over time. If I come across any hard information I will post it.

Having owned 2 Direct injection cars, the soot at the exhaust is completely normal and unfortunately a side effect of direct injection. I would image that since the distance the exhaust travels is much shorter than cars with the motor up front (my 2006 mazdaspeed6 and the Wife's Acura RDX), that is why the soot is more severe on a 911 . I am sure the 09 cayman S guys/gals will see the same thing.

Do not forget excessive carbon depositins on valves. Audi is already having nightmares with their FSI cars. Your best bet is to get a performance flash like Softronic. For emission reasons our cars are setup to run too rich.

Will that make it difficult or impossible to pass a smog test?

My 09 C4S is consuming a tremendous amount of oil. My dealer and several others I have called continually state it is normal. I am constantly keeping an eye on the oil level and adding oil. the dealers all insist the oil consumption will slow down. However, the oil consumption just seems excessive. I'm at 3000 miles and I am now on to adding my 5th quart of new oil. This is additional to the original oil! Any suggestions on cleaning the soot on the tailpipes by any chance?

It may be some time before we know if the oil consumption on the DFI engines is going to lead to bigger problems. I think the best course is to add oil as necessary but never overfill. Keep the dealer in the loop. I always change the oil at 5K but maybe a change at 3K at the dealer, despite the cost, documents that you are meticulous in case there are problems down the road for which we need "good will" from Porsche . I know for a fact w/ the RMS issue that some owners received more support from Porsche than others, even substantially past the warranty period. We've got 4 years to sort this out. Like RMS, if there is a defect and a fix is available, it will likely be made available to us "early adopters".

I must be one of the luckier owners. Our 09 Carrera C2 has only used one quart total in 4000 miles. I havent added any in the last 1500 miles and the gauge still shows 2 bars. Soot hasn't been that much of an issue either (knock on wood).

Guys. Contact APR and Softronic. Ask them if their software will help with this issue. It may. Tomasz

i agree, complete side effect of DFI. why i chose to buy a non-dfi car this time around, my a3 2.0T put out soot like you wouldnt even believe! well actually you would...you prob have it worse than i did with that big 3.8 L engine!

I ended up purchasing a 2010 S and my car uses no oil or has sooty tailpipes. The same with 3 other '09 S cars I am familiar with.

My DFI Cayman S does suffer from the sooty tailpipes, but that's to be expected. I'm concerned to hear jamcay has used 5 quarts of oil in his C4S! My bosses AMG C63 chewed the oil until the car reached 20,000km then it pretty much stopped. If the C4S continues to go through oil after 15,000kms then the piston rings may need replacing.

Our C63 uses some oil but not too much.

My 2009 uses no oil at 8K miles, but I've changed it every 4k and it was not low even one bar each time. However, the tail pipes are sooty and the engine runs a bit rich for the 1st minute when temps. are below 50 F. There is lots of whitish smoke and louder than normal exhaust during that time. This is not to be confused with the occasional white puff of smoke which all H6 engines seem to experience.

I've been experimenting with different brand fuels, and I can say BP Ultimate so far produces the least soot. This was the case on mt DFI Golf GTI.

The inside of the tailpipe is black (like all cars), other than that no soot anywhere else and no oil used after 4000kms. BP Ultimate used.

Curious if there was ever a definitive answer found - the last post seems about two years old now. My 2012 Turbo S is quite sooty, although no engine oil consumption issue to date (but I have less than 1000 miles on it so far). Still, if I clean the exhaust tips and drive an hour at highway speeds, they are notably blackened.

I get a little soot on my 2011 Cayman S but so far no oil consumption. I have about 4500 miles. Norm

My 09 is now approaching 18K miles. Very recently I had an oil leak that was showing up on the garage floor. Turned out the leak was the oil seals at the end of the intake plenum. When I asked the dealer about oil in the intake plenum he commented they see that a lot. Up to the seal replacement I had not used a quart of oil and I change the oil once a year (about 5K miles) I put in 8 ounces since the leak was stopped and its still one bar below full on the gauge ( I associate the oil loss to the leak). My other observation is since the seal replacement I had not had any soot beyond what I call normal exhaust deposits. Since the seals I now notice a little soot after a week or two of driving, and it just wipes off with a dry or slightly damp cloth. I do have the Softronic software and it is a daily driver (about 35 miles a day round trip).

I haven't come across anything new on this issue on the other Porsche forums that I surf. We've got three model years out there (09, 10, 11) on the roads w/ the DFI engines in both 997s and 987s so I suspect if there is a major problem lurking it will come to the forefront. Thanks for keeping the thread active w/ your input.

A small update...my car is at about 1500 miles now, and I notice the soot problem is much less than it had been at first. It was suggested on another forum that the soot could be some sort of internal assembly lubricants burning off for the first 500 miles or so, and I might agree. I've also switched from Sun to BP fuel, so that may also be a contributing factor. And of course, it's getting warmer here where I live, and the car seems to be running quite a bit leaner from what I can tell. The tailpipes still collect soot, but it seems to be less of a problem than I originally thought.