3.4 engine breakdown

I bought a wonderful 996 C2 2000. with sport exhaust, sport suspension, full service history, 40Kmiles... I have driven already 2Kmiles and everything seems really perfect. However I have seen on a french forum that the 3.4 was not really reliable and most of them have to be changed between 45/50Kmiles. Do you know what is the percentage of breakdown ? Is their anything to prevent this problem if it is known ?

Well mine's still going strong on its original engine at 92,000 miles - and not used a drop of oil in the last 10k... There have been a small number of engine failures that have been blown out of all proportion, and I suspect a fair proportion of these can be attributed to performance engine abuse - i.e. high revs and full throttle when the engine is cold. A lot of people bought 996s as a status symbol, without the mechanical sympathy of the more enthusiast buyer of the more difficult to drive earlier models. If you have the OPC warranty drive it like you stole it then get a new engine if it goes bang, otherwise warm it up properly, drive it regularly (and not just short hops), and enjoy it!

Thanks for your comments, 92000 miles is a nice number. I bought mine from a private owner. The guy was really in love with his Porsche and all services have been done by Porsche Texas and Porsche West London regarless of cost. He even spent 4K£ 2 months before sellig ( service + sport suspension + short gear stick ) he was force to sell his 5 cars due to his divorce. So I have to concern about the history, however I heard abour a 8mn screw too weak replace by a 10mn later on. Anyway if there is no statistic this problem should be rare. People loves gossip so they might talk too much. You 996 looks great. you add a GT3 bodykit ! I had the same idea but I wondering how it will affect to value of the car. The best would be a real GT3... however the cost is not the same and there are only 2 seats !!!

I remember a post on the old version of the forum from Mark Pearce where he was saying that in his experience, if these engines are going to go, it either happens at around 17k miles or around 75k miles. I'm sure he'll be along soon to correct me if I'm wrong.

Here is what I found on pistonhead forum : Out of 86 996's: - 13.95% or 12 engine failures (eight 3.4 and four 3.6) - 51.2% or 44 cases have had RMS. When you have it, you get it on average 1.3 times. - 41% or 35 cases have had none of these two problems (nineteen 3.4s, fifteen 3.6, one unspecified). In the survey, there are 35 3,6s, 47 3.4s, and four unspecified. To summarize, the mean car in this dataset is a september 2000 996, that has a 51.2% chance of an rms problem at 38,250 Miles and a 13.95% chance of an engine failure at 48,200 Miles. RMS distribution: 1998 5 RMS out of 8 cars in survey 1999 8 RMS out of 15 cars in survey 2000 4 RMS out of 11 cars in survey 2001 6 RMS out of 9 cars in survey 2002 10 RMS out of 15 cars in survey 2003 6 RMS out of 12 cars in survey 2004 0 RMS out of 5 cars in survey 2001 and 2002 are the worst years for RMS cases (the more frequent availability of a warranty being the the reason?). 2000 is the best year. 11 entries in the stats didn't specify the year, 5 of which were affected by RMS. engine failure distribution: 1998 2 failures out of 8 cars in survey 1999 5 failures out of 15 cars in survey 2000 0 failures out of 11 cars in survey 2001 1 failures out of 9 cars in survey 2002 2 failures out of 15 cars in survey 2003 0 failures out of 12 cars in survey 2004 1 failure out 5 cars in survey 1999 is the worst year, followed by 1998. 2003 and 2000 are the best years. 11 entries didn't specify the year, 1 with a failure. Complete dataset: ID enginefailure failuremileage rms rmsmileage currentmileage enginesize year username 1 1 failure 3 RMS 36 3.6 2002 xTVR 2 1 failure no RMS 48 3.4 1998 siko 3 no failure 1 RMS 55 3.6 2001 Wetwipe 4 no failure no RMS Bumcrack 5 no failure 1 RMS Wanta996 6 no failure 1 RMS Wanta996 7 no failure 1 RMS Wanta996 8 no failure 1 RMS 18 30 3.6 2002 steve996 9 no failure 1 RMS 55 64 3.4 1998 jonny996 10 no failure 1 RMS 53 56 3.4 1999 Ballcock 11 no failure 1 RMS 26 3.4 2001 2something 12 1 failure 10 1 RMS 50 3.4 1999 fastfreddy 13 1 failure 25 no RMS 25 3.6 2004 hussar10a 14 no failure 3 RMS 25 3.6 2003 Dreammeister 15 no failure 1 RMS 3.6 Geneve 16 no failure no RMS 3.4 Geneve 17 no failure 2 RMS 3.6 2002 whoami 18 no failure no RMS 11 3.6 2004 C4SCAB 19 no failure 1 RMS 62 3.4 1999 HONEYMON57ER 20 no failure no RMS 7 3.4 2000 mbutchers 21 no failure no RMS 5 3.6 2003 mbutchers 22 no failure 1 RMS 18 3.6 2003 mbutchers 23 no failure 1 RMS 40 60 3.4 1999 nbetts 24 no failure no RMS 25 3.6 2003 nbetts 25 no failure 1 RMS 30 3.4 2000 R1_JON 26 no failure no RMS 3.4 Homer J 27 no failure 2 RMS 35 3.6 2003 deevee 28 1 failure 29 1 RMS 29 3.6 2002 joelasagna 29 no failure 1 RMS 48 3.6 2002 baptistsan 30 no failure no RMS 55 3.4 1999 The Griffalo 31 no failure no RMS 19 3.4 2000 Ir Baboon 32 no failure 2 RMS 30 71 3.4 2000 Vesuvius 996 33 no failure 1 RMS 42 3.4 DucatiGary 34 no failure no RMS 24 3.6 2004 andrew! 35 no failure no RMS 66 3.4 1998 EVO575 36 no failure no RMS 95 3.4 1999 Ogiii 37 no failure 3 RMS 45 3.6 2001 thepilsbury 38 no failure no RMS 32 3.6 2002 wadfa 39 no failure no RMS 67 3.4 1999 LeeME3 40 no failure no RMS 17 3.6 2004 widebody 41 1 failure 86 no RMS 3.4 1999 italiansummer 42 no failure 1 RMS 27 3.6 2003 alxce 43 1 failure 70 1 RMS 3.4 1998 TheMonster 44 no failure 1 RMS 15 3.6 2003 fulham911club 45 no failure 1 RMS 11 3.4 1999 Jessica_Wabbit 46 no failure 1 RMS 4 3.6 2003 Jessica_Wabbit 47 no failure no RMS 52 3.4 2000 tracer.smart 48 no failure 1 RMS 52 3.6 2002 Spid 49 no failure no RMS 48 3.4 2001 Neilpeel59 50 no failure 2 RMS 80 3.6 2002 flow99 51 no failure no RMS 54 3.4 Fabster 52 no failure 1 RMS 27 3.4 2000 Ragtop 53 no failure no RMS 12 3.6 2002 Ragtop 54 no failure no RMS 49 3.4 2000 Diesel130 55 no failure no RMS 56 3.6 2002 nxi20 56 no failure no RMS 9 3.6 2003 C4S 3.6 57 1 failure 75 3 RMS 65 3.4 1999 rossfitz 58 1 failure 15 no RMS 18 3.6 headlesshorseman 59 no failure no RMS 65 3.4 1999 richardb.jones 60 no failure 1 RMS 35 3.4 1998 gfreeman 61 1 failure 63 no RMS 63 3.4 2001 g_j_d 62 no failure 1 RMS 44 3.4 2001 welshnobby 63 no failure 1 RMS 86 3.4 1999 kVA 64 no failure no RMS 40 3.4 2000 GMMK 65 no failure no RMS 3.6 2002 bigsi 66 no failure no RMS 3.4 2000 gmk666 67 no failure 2 RMS 72 96 3.4 1998 Stew The Bench 68 no failure 1 RMS 54 62 3.4 1998 mikeo996 69 no failure 1 RMS 70 3.4 1999 Rappa 70 no failure no RMS 37 3.6 2003 911Guy 71 no failure no RMS 65 3.4 2001 Naz 111 72 no failure no RMS 3.4 ricardo60 73 no failure no RMS 3.6 2002 KFB 911 74 no failure 2 RMS 5 3.6 2002 riskmerchant 75 no failure no RMS 20 3.6 2003 Wurls 76 no failure no RMS 16 3.6 2003 Wurls 77 no failure 1 RMS 30 3.4 2001 clorenzen 78 no failure 1 RMS 63 71 3.6 2002 Mousem40 79 1 failure 48 no RMS 3.4 1999 butcherboy 80 1 failure 61 no RMS 3.4 1999 johnstewart 81 no failure no RMS 45 3.4 1998 benno 82 no failure no RMS 18 3.4 2000 benno 83 no failure no RMS 10 3.6 2004 benno 84 no failure 1 RMS 33 50 3.4 2000 Mikeoupe 85 no failure 1 RMS 35 3.4 2001 Worzel 86 no failure 1 RMS 35 3.4 2002 green911 It could explain why the cost was "only" 5.5K£ to replace the engine. However it's quite unfair to have increase the cost tp 9K£. Anyway I think I should better buy a warranty but most of them limit the amount of repair to 1 or 2K£ per repair and it's limited to 98 year old cars so I have to speed up !

You can ignore most of the RMS 'failures' actually - in most cases this a very small oil seepage that gives the OPC a pretty good income from Porsche when the car is covered by warranty! It is technically a fault, and should therefore by fixed by them, but you probably wouldn't bother if you were out of warranty - unless it got significantly worse over time or contaminated your clutch. I had a new RMS under warranty (hadn't noticed any oil drips, but they said I needed it) and then 4 months later was told I needed a new RMS by a different OPC 'because there were oil drips on the engine undertray'. Yeah right! The only issues worth worrying about are the few intermediate shaft failures and the very rare cylinder liner crack - which I think sounds like the result of engine abuse (those tend to be on low mileage, rarely used examples) as the symptoms are very similar to fatigue failures in aircraft engines: i.e. not warmed up properly before running at full throttle, not allowed to cool gently, etc... I've had warranty for 3 out of 7 years of Porsche ownership so far and reckon I'm about £3,000 up at the moment - another year or two and I can probably afford a new engine anyway (when you take into account the higher resale of a 996 with a new engine). The aerokit was on from new (as part of £24,000 worth of extras :shock , 5 years before I bought it, and at this time of year I reckon my car is better than a GT3 (which was the same price as the total for mine when new) with 4WD! Final word on the stats from PH - how many people that have never had a problem went on to PH to add to the survey? 86 cars is hardly a significant sample out of all the tens of thousands of 996s sold in the UK!