Alex's 25,000th Silver Jubilee 996 Ownership Post

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888 Thought I'd put a bit of effort in to my 25,000th post on here, seeing as I've been rattling round for 12 years in the same old treasured 996 and recently ran in to 180,000 miles on the odometer. Well, what can I say - it's been an absolute dream full of nightmares and fun and everything in between, meeting some great people along the way and learning so much stuff about not only the 996 but Porsche as a whole, thanks to this wonderful place. Some of the highs: Multiple trips down to the French Riviera with mates, son, girlfriend and dog (RIP Harvey). 93,000 miles of daily driving. Bucket loads of DIY maintenance. Free set of Top Gear Mild Sport Boxes. Monthly meets with some great members on here. Random car shows. The odd Christmas and Summer boozin' sesh. Sorting a good friend out on here with a 911 Super Sport targa. Far too much more to mention, but may add to this list over time. Some of the lows: Munching my diff. Driving in to the Irish Sea and flooding it. Fitting a new roof (although completing it was deffo a high). Snapping my rear subframe. Exploding belt tensioner at 80mph on the A8 just outside Cannes. Various bumps and scrapes. Rust. Running out of fuel outside a St Tropez Beach Club. Same again - Far too much more to mention, but may add to this list over time. View attachment WhatsApp Video 2026-04-14 at 20.39.51.mp4 Anyway, enough reminiscing. I think my next milestone will be 187k miles, when I've done 100k in it myself. Here's to the next 12 years of ownership. Oh, I nearly forgot - at 170k miles back on the 18th April 2024 I was driving back from Tesco when all of a sudden, CEL comes up on the dash and engine starts making a right racket and cuts out. I was at some traffic lights with a load of cars behind me so had no option but to start the engine, try and keep it running and managed to get down the road 50 yards and park up before it conked out on me again. At this point I chucked the towel in a decided it was time for a change, so after getting the car recovered back to mine I contacted Hartech and told them to book me in for the Full Monty. Grant got me booked in a few weeks later and when the time came I trailered the car over there. Initial steps were to get them to assess what had gone wrong, then drop the engine, start stripping it, assess the state of EVERYTHING, then decide on what course of action. At this point I'd already decided to go Full 6-Pack, the only uncertainty was whether to stick with 3.4 or go for the premium 3.7 increase, all dependant on cost and sensibility, a real brain vs. heart tug of war. After a week or so of them having the car, I get the phone call from Grant. Although they can't find why the car cut out and ran like a bag of spanners, they had done a full assessment of everything,,,,,,,,,F***ed!!, including my CRANK! Everything was basically beyond worn out and fit for F all, although Grant did state, for 170k miles, it was actually in pretty good condition. They'd seen far far worse at half the mileage. So, crank was totally worn out and knackered, bearings all the same, light signs of scoring, worn valve guides, chain tensioners & guides, water pump, evap valve, coolant tank, oil level sender and various other stuff. IMS bearing did show some light play, but for the mileage was in pretty good shape. Fortunately, the life saver - Grant - had a spare 3.4 crank I could have, which for me was what could easily have been a deal breaker if I'd have needed to purchase a new one. The next deciding factor was 3.4 vs. 3.7. Grant had priced everything up on the basis I'd go for the 3.7 - total cost inc. VAT being a straight £20k, although if I chose to stick with 3.4, then knock £3k + VAT off. Anyway, after some serious number crunching, juggling, phone calls.......and a nice word with my Dad (RIP) I knew I could sort the funds to cover it, so went with the 3.7, called Grant and told him to progress - "That's the spirit" was his reply. Now the wait for all the work to be done, including testing, remapping, running in, etc. before the car was finally handed back over to me on the 9th October. Meanwhile, I had enough to keep my self occupied with as one issue with getting the car back together was the aircon pipe that runs up from the sill over the engine round to the compressor - you know, the engine out one. Porsche weren't even sure what the correct pipe was and also claimed they didn't have any anyway and was on back order with no definite date when they'd be back in and no doubt the price would be double, so circa £1k!! As there was no way I wasn't having aircon and the fact the pipe was obsolete, I made the decision to make my own, but out of Stainless Steel, so it'd out live the rest of the car. I'm surprised nobody sussed me out at this point as I'd posted on here about the pipe but nobody seemed to pick up on it. After a few weeks of bending, twisting, measuring, welding, etc. of 3/4" Stainless tube I managed to do it. Took it back over to the guys there and had it scrutinised by Tobias and one of the other lads there, claiming they couldn't see it fitting right, etc. A week later, Tobias calls me up at work - "Alex, about this pipe..............fits like a glove!" Even some of the lads who worked there were apparently taking photos of it installed and filming it - a true work of art! So, the day finally came to collect the car, which had now felt like a lifetime, seeing as the last time I'd driven it was back in April, 6 months earlier. I must admit, it did feel surreal and weird, bit like the first day I collected the car around 10 years earlier. I'd been using a 1.6 mini one as my daily, so you can imagine the step up back to the 996. For a while, I couldn't really tell if it was any different from before it went in. It felt quick and had loads of torque, but after what I'd been using, that was to be expected. It was only after a week I asked my son to come round in his 986 Boxster S, which before I had mine rebuilt, felt very similar to drive. He jumps in the passenger seat and within a mile he's saying - sheeyt Dad, that's top! I quickly pulled over, swapped seats and let him drive it. Straight away he noticed the difference between his and mine now - the extra torque at low revs. Seeing as I was still doing the 1,000 mile run in, there was no winding the revs right round, but he didn't want to, he was happy tootling around in the low to mid range. As soon as we were back home, I jumped in his Boxster for a drive of that........that's when I realised the difference - his felt like it was running on 5 cylinders in comparison. Now I've done around 10k miles since the rebuild, I've got a good understanding of how different it is. So, in a nut shell - more torque lower down, best way to described it is you've dropped the lower end of the power band down 1k to 2k revs, now you constantly feel like you're in a lower gear than what you are. Number of times I think I'm in 4th, but I'm in 6th. MPG is definitely better, at least on a decent run, hard to tell on short journeys in varying traffic. I went on a run over to Bridlington on Good Friday over the M62 and when I came off at the other end (after resetting my mpg once up to temp when I set off) I pulled 35mpg, normally this would have been somewhere between 30-32mpg. Also, I don't know if I'm imagining it, but it seems to be slightly quicker and a bit more torque now than when I got it back from the rebuild. Oh yes, I couple of things were identified after the initial quote and agreed on, hence the price being a few hundred pounds over £20k .........and one last thing - Hartech were great from start to finish and made what could've been extremely stressful and upsetting as nice as they possibly could. Great service all round. So, I've said enough now, no doubt I'll post a lot more about it during the course of this thread, but its bedtime for moi. Another few pics about the rebuild (I haven't posted all the invoice as it's 7 pages long):

Congratulations on both milestones Alex. Well done on celebrating with such an interesting post. Only another 5,000 and you'll be breathing down GT4's neck. It might even bring him out of retirement.

Fantastic post Alex..... that bespoke pipe you made will never be forgotten.....!!!!

Good on you Alex on the milestone and it’s great to read the ups and downs you’ve had along the way. The knowledge you share with the rest of us is brilliant well done sir

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Here here.... can't think of anyone with more knowledge of the 996.

GT4 was pretty good. I have a lot of respect for that guy........hopefully I can coax him back if I get close to his post count. Mistercorn is also up there.

You're a fixture around here Alex, but I can't help thinking that 'running out of fuel outside a St Tropez Beach Club' was something of a deliberate mistake accidentally on purpose. There are presumably worse places to run out of fuel in order to elicit sympathy, white wine and a cabana.

Trust me it wasn't. I totally misjudged how much we had left in the tank. We were actually about 50 yards from the beach car park but when the car conked out we were going downhill and there's yellow lines everywhere. We ended up coasting in to the car park whilst my lad jumped out and paid the attendant. We then had to push the car (to everyone's amusement) across the car park out the way. Fortunately a looky looky man selling snyde Rolexs was sat under a palm tree there and came to our assistance. A quick phone call and his mate rocks up with a 2 litre pop bottle full of petrol. We ended up having a barney with him as he wanted 60 euros. We gave him 30 and told him to sling his hook. Thought he were gonna stab me. Fortunately the looky looky Rolex chap knew I knew his uncle Ali, so helped calm the situation. Me with his uncle Ali:

fantastic post @Alex welcome to the 3.7 league

How did the Irish sea incident come about?

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I was up at Arnside with the GF & dog. The heavens opened (bigtime) and it was high tide. Driving back toward the M6 along the estuary, the road was flooded, but like an idiot I drove through it. Water came up right over the front of the car, started p***ing in through all the vents and dash board lit up like a christmas tree. I managed to get the car to a higher part of the road, but had to turn round and drive back through it again. God knows how I didn't get water in the engine. I then had to drive all the way home back down the M6 to Preston, then A59 to Ribble Valley with the windows part open (as it was still hammering it down) and aircon demisting the window. When I got home the frunk was 6 inch deep in salt water, my headlights were like goldfish bowls half full and the interior about 2" deep in water. Car would easily have just been written off had I gone through my insurance . Upside to the story though - I busted the myth salt water kills your car. So long as it's dealt with immediately, the car lives on. This was the road in question: View attachment K0048598-Flood.mp4 to

Just checked when it was - 20th February 2022.

F**kin' hell!!! Looks like you were very lucky, maybe the constant rain after helped rinse it... Glad it worked out, I'd have papped miself!

Everything that got wet in the car tasted of salt water when I stripped everything out and that was days after the event. No doubt it got in some of the wiring looms......but 4 years later everything still works.

congrats on 25K posts heres to doubling it! quality forums are built on guys like you taking the time to share -thankyou