Uprated Intermediate Shaft - which MY?

Anyone know which MY had the uprated intermediate shaft with the revised bearing and 'gear wheel' cam chain drive to replace the old sprocket? The 911&PW + Total911 M96 engine articles from the Autofarm Website have left me a bit confused. The 911&PW article tends to suggest the revised intermediate shaft was specified for the MY2002 however the Total911 article seems to imply that the shaft was not revised until the introduction of the 997.

The intermediate shaft chain drive was beefed up for MY2001, but the gear drive wasn't introduced until MY2004. You can get all the details of the 2004 mods from: https://techinfo.porsche.com/techinfo/index.jsp and go to GB>Training documents. The 2001 details are shown below:

Richard, thanks for that - and for the link. I wasn't aware of the availability of this information from Porsche's site; now bookmarked. So the bearing would also have been uprated with the gear type wheel for MY 04 and carried on for the 997 ? I'll have a root through the Techinfo to see. Why I'm asking, is that after the recent Warranty price hike - and more than likely to go up again next time - I have been weighing up the risk v cost (as I'm sure most people are/have) of chancing it without the OP Warranty...and of course in < five years time my car will not qualify anyway. And what I'm particularily worried about more than anything on my 02, is an 'engine grenade' as a result of i-shaft bearing failure.

Concept Having looked at it again, I think I've made a c*ck-up there. The gear drive was introduced on the GT3 for MY2004, not the Carrera. Therefore, 911&PW have probably got it right about the 997 drive.

The design change/s have not solved the problem of failures, see my post in 997 section - "Old problem still not fixed then"

Richard, it's a hard act to follow. The more articles I read, the more I become confused. There are seldom any definitive reasons published as to why certain engine components have been re-engineered, but in this instance (the i-shaft bearing) it's obviously due to catastrophic failures. A recent article in 911&PW on the 997 referred to the engine as "...bulletproof. End of story." However in view of Geoff's post above, I see there's no point in looking into this any further to find out if my 02 has an upgraded IS bearing! I just wish I had a GT3 engine in my car!

Geoff, I hope they don't tell him "Sorry Sir, no 'Good will' on this: we did give you an opportunity to purchase our extended warranty " (not being cynical, it's been said before)

Go to Renntech and see how many facelift 996s have had intermediate shaft bearings go.........then call your nearest OPC and get the warranty extended......sigh of relief.[:-]....then mash that peddle to the floor without a worry! [ ]

Rodney, I haven't found a great deal on Renntech with respect to IS failures. Is that your point i.e. that there haven't been that many reported ?

I had a quick look at Renntech, and from what I can make out it seems like the early cars can suffer IS bearing failure, whilst the newer cars can have a drive shaft bolt shear off. (Both can be catastrophic). Also, as far as I can see, in both cases, failures, if they are going to happen, seem to occur below about 25000 miles. I hope that isn't just wishful thinking. [ ]. It would be nice to have some real numbers to get this into perspective, but I don't think they exist. Again, the nature of forums is that there are going to be a lot more posts about "I have had an intermediate shaft failure" than "I haven't had an intermediate shaft failure". If insurance makes you sleep better, then go for the warranty. Personally, I decided to self-insure my 996. So far I would have spent around £3400 in Porsche warranty. I reckon a second-hand replacement engine would cost £3000-3500, so I'm near to a break-even situation. I appreciate that this won't be a nice, shiny, warrantied Porsche unit, but I try to run the car as economically as possible.

So, it looks like they fixed one problem, only to move it somewhere else - in accordance with the old adage 'something's' got to give'!? Anyway, whatever, thanks for all the info. and advice.

Do you reckon you would get one as cheaply as this, Richard? The last time I looked/enquired (mostly at Ninemeister's website and in person when I was getting my variocam solenoid done on the Boxster) Boxster 3.2 engines seemed to be around the £3.5k mark (they had a few on their website at one point) and I was told a 996 engine would be around £6k secondhand, but you's probably have to wait for a couple three months to get one. However, I haven't looked around recently.

I think so Paul. There is a low-ish mileage 3.6 engine here with a Buy-it-now of £2995: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PORSCHE-911-CARRERA-996-3-6-ENGINE_W0QQitemZ320079753848

A few examples http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=9052&hl=intermediate+shaft 'That is weird, my 2003 996 C-2, built in 2/2003 suffered the same fate at 23,000 miles. No DE or track events, just a semi-daily driver to and from work. The intermediate shaft broke and made the initial grinding noise followed by a metal bolt-noise bouncing around the engine'. (sheared bolt ?) http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=5092&hl=intermediate+shaft 'Just got my 03 996 C2 Coupe back from the dealer. I've ended up with a new engine (M96/036 ...) following the collapse of the intermediate shaft bearing a couple of weekends ago. Car has covered < 12k miles' http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=9527&hl=intermediate+shaft 'Porsche Technical Rep called me and said I had an intermediate shaft bearing failure. He said they had been redesigned, and it was a good design, but that they gone back to the old design.' ('03 Boxster) There are a few other threads where the drive shaft bolts have sheared off too. 'The threaded end of the shaft sheared off with the nut still attached. I was told this happens because Porsche switched from a double roller bearing to a single at the end of the shaft.' (Tool Pants' explanation) I made it seem like they happen all day[:-]...of course they don't, and getting a warranty is going to be, on average, to Porsche's benefit, not yours......I guess it's all about your attitude to risk. I ran a Boxster for 2.5 years and did well not to get a warranty....I have run my car for 10 months and have done very well out of getting the warranty. But the difference for me was when taking out the Boxster I was always listening/stressing out for things that might be wrong, which led to me driving it less....I don't worry anymore and enjoy stress free driving...for me, that's worth the money.

Rodney, many thanks for your time in retrieving the info from Renntech. I'd obviously used the wrong search area or something. ? Interestingly, the examples are all MY03 996 & boxsters. Someone had suggested that the bearings may have been uprated for MY03 and that Porsche subsequently reverted back to the original design!? (I know this is more wishful thinking than fact [:-]) Nevertheless, I'll be renewing the Warranty and meantime, if I hear "... initial grinding noise followed by a metal bolt-noise bouncing around the engine..." I'll know what's happened! [8|][&:][:'(][ ][ ]

...or maybe I should go and buy a Turbo.[8D]