My 2002 996 C4 goes bang

A43 half an hour in to my journey in my FPSH 40k 2002 996 C4 and Bang... loss of power and a smoke screen to make "Q" from James bond proud!! Basically with out looking i know what happened. head gasket gone flooding the cylinder with water this then hydraulic'd the thing with the pressure cracking the block....nice.. i'm telling you this as i couldn't really find any such symtoms documented, however it is known that when a simple head gasket goes, a 996 engine is f**ked, with NO exchange. Porsche also knows this and like the RMS issue do nothing about it... because you cant either... Hence the reason for the residuals of the 993, but am now not going to bother....sorry fans, an ex 911 lover....

Have you got a warranty?

Sorry to hear of your woes - was the car under warranty? What's happening with the car etc? I can understand you being upset at the moment, but I would add that this is not why 993 residuals are higher!

luckily the car has been "rejected" meaning the deal has to take it back due to the short time i had it and limited mileage. It has been rejected under the clause due to the high price of repair. ie nearly 12K for a newie lump...... the dealer picked it up and returned the cash.... and as regards the 993 residuals according to many POC members thats is one of the reasons, but not all, I just now wont go there on principle...

Result!

Its a shame you have lost faith. They really fantastic cars-

yeah but still absolutley gutted.... the car was perfect spec, with many a weekend spent looking for it, i just cant get it out of my head that these Fully serviced jokers can go bang at anytime, imagine if the car wasnt dealer bought or warrantied....i urge your members to 1, get the car inspected, 2, pay for a FULL porsche warranty, 3, dont accept insurance based warranties with a maximum claim limit, like i said it can be 12 to 14K for a new lump with no exchange.....

That is pretty much the advice we peddle on here and I agree with it completely. The OPC warranty is so much better than the other ones and the inspection is essential. As you say FSH does mean perfect. But you don't hear of too many engines going pop these days, especially not 3.6s. Out of interest do you know how many type 2's your car had before you bought it?

type 2's? is that 12k/1year services?. it has had 4 in its history, no record of RMS changes either

Type 2's are an overrev situation where the engine is over reved, this is normally caused by missing a gear going down through the box, so dropping from 5th to 2nd unintentionally. The rev limiter won't save you in this situation & it will stress the engine if done too often. Tyoe 1's are basically where you hit the rev limiter.

nope sadly didnt get that far...... crusing in 5th at 65 in traffic, then i coudlnt see the bloke behind me, (for the smoke). My friend ( the service manager of a well know dealership near a well know circuit has seen this happen a few times on later 996's an recently 2 997's, they are never above an 'S' spec tho, alway pretty standard...

The type 2's would normally have been in the history of the car, it won;t immeadiately cause a failure. The OPC's can read them off of the ECU. Though to be honest it's probably just bad luck. My comiserations.

Sorry to hear about the engine going. Would be gutted too even with waranty etc for something like that to happen. One thing I was thinking about with over reving, is it possible to over rev with a tip box? I've heard its not possible as the cars computer won't allow the gear change down if it will breach the soft limit.

Hi, very sorry to hear of your woes. Certainly everyones biggest worry an expensive engine blowup. I know you say 2002MY was it a 3.6 engine then? I know there were problems with cylinders cracking on the 3.4 block causing catastrophic failures as you describe - water into the bores - and pop. A head gasket failure out of the blue (no overheating cycles prior to event) would be a lot rarer. I guess you are shot of the car now (thankfully) but I wonder if it could have been the block cracking problem. I think it was an inherent weakness in the casting of the block between a particular pair of cylinders, there is a company in oxford (Autofarm I think) that specialises in remedying this. Porsche world magazine were running an early 996 that had the engine rebuilt/strengthened by this company a while back. Just a thought - sorry that your 911 experience hasn't been a pleasant one.

Hi, Just to add my sentiments, sorry to hear about your situation. Hope you regain your faith in 996's. An awesome machine as are all Porsches. Unfortunatley these things happen and are a right bummer. Alan