blown engine

I took my 1999 c2 in for a 45000 miles service to the dealer about a week ago. Got it back the next day and it felt like a brand new car. A couple of days ago tried to start it but made an ugly sound and went dead instead. Got it towed to the dealership and few hours later I get a call from the service guy telling me that the engine is blown and it needs to be replaced. Does it make any sense to you guys? Isn't the service supposed to detect these kinds of problems? I’ve bought this brand car new and I’ve always kept up the maintenance and I only drove 150 miles since the last service. If I decide to go ahead with the work needed how do I know that it wouldn’t happen again next week? Any advice is appreciated… Thanks, Dan

Unfortunately this is not uncommon. An intermediate shaft bearing can let go with little warning trashing the engine. There is also a condition with some engines cylinders that results in a "D" chunk failure. See December Excellence for a good explanation of these two problems. Also see the buyers guide on the Hartech web site section 4 has much data and pictures. http://www.hartech.org/docs/buyers%20guide%20web%20format%20Jan%202008%20part% 204.pdf Many of us read and quote Excellence Magazine. In this month’s issue, May 2009, Bruce Anderson’s technical answer column, addressing a question about the design of the M96 engine, contains the following information. “When the Boxster and 996 were relatively new cars and the M96’s problems were not yet understood, rumors suggested that up to 50% of the cars were going to experience failure. Porsche addressed the problems and, today, I am hearing the number of cars that have had or will have a problem is closer to 20%, or one in five.” It is good to see that “Porsche has addressed the problems”. So those who have a Boxster/Cayman/996/997 with an M96 engine know that you have an 80% chance of not suffering a catastrophic engine problem. Make sure that PCNA has your current address and vin so you won’t miss the updated component install recall. NOT Maybe we should start a club with a cloisonné car badge and “T” shirts? “The 20% Club”

A tremendous amount of M96 engines have seemed to fail just after Porsche service!! I have 1/2 dozen emails that have the exact same words that your post does and thats amazing! Sorry to hear about the failure, but I'd like to get more info from you about it to help build my data base..If you want to avoid all of this in the future, feel free to contact me :-)

Mr. Raby, The first paragraph in your reply to 20n78x8 above; “A tremendous amount of M96 engines have seemed to fail just after Porsche service!! I have 1/2 dozen emails that have the exact same words that your post does and thats amazing!” Made me think about how some dealers might service an oil change. For instance I have a Mercedes that gets free dealer oil changes every 10K miles. I change it at 5k intervals so every other change is free. My point is that the dealer has not pulled the drain plug on this car, the glyptol I put on the plug is never broken. They must suck the oil out through the dip-stick port. This leaves some “sludge” in the pan. If a Porsche dealer were to do this with the “M” type engine couldn’t that also leave sludge in the pan? If that sludge were stirred up when the new oil is added it could migrate to the low mounted IMS bearing and cause failures. Are most of the above mentioned emails IMS failures?

Never really thought about this, because I can't fathom doing an oil change without purging the oil via the drain plug!! I can see where it could contribute to a failure, but it could never be proven. even the drain plugs on the M96 are cheesy, they need to be replaced after 5-6 oil changes because they are internally stripped of their hex used to remove them, so thats more reason to purge the oil via the method you mention.. That makes our billet aluminum, magnetic drain plug even more of a benefit to the engine, IF the dealer changes the oil with this method! (and it won't strip out!)

Mercedes and BMW have been sucking the oil out through the dipstick hole since the 90s. It's why on most models, the the oil filters are on top of the engine. For an oil service, the vehicle does not need to be lifted on a hoist. It comes down to the same scenario...you are only meant to keep the vehicle until the warranty expires, then you buy a new one.

I don't know about BMW but that may be why Mercedes changed thier oil spec around 2002 from petrol based to synthetic oil due to sludge formation. TSB S-B-18.00/16a. I would think that even a very slight amount of sludge in an M type engine would be more critical due to the sensitive IMS bearing immersion in the sump oil.

My '99 996 engine also failed with just 48,000 miles (not under warranty due to time expired). I was pissed when I found out that it was a known problem and Porsche wouldn't stand behind the product. If anyone forms a class action - I'll sign up. I replaced the engine with a factory rebuild and have had success for 2 years. They updated the bearings for the counterbalance shafts in the rebuilds. So far it has been fine but I only have about 20k miles on it. The issues have hurt resale so I'm just going to drive the wheels off of it for now. Better luck to you.