GTS 4.0 Engine Failure

[freedman]

981Boxess said:

He didn't did he, feel free to post that on his behalf not having a clue if it is true or not.

You seem to have invented that it 'may' have worked on handover as some kind of reason the OPC were not at fault

No idea why, but you seem to be making excuses for them based on no facts whatsoever

[SV_WDC]

Jazzer said:

The whole experience has been an indescribable tale of woe, costing me time (lots of time), money, cancelled appointments, cancelled trip to Scotland, ruined holiday weekends (plural) and total embarrassment having to have my as-new Porsche recovered twice in front of my neighbours, both at my previous home and at my new one, where I moved smack bang in the middle of all of this.

Have you looked into recovery of monies via Porsche Assist - they do cover these things. At least, that's what the policy says!

[GT3Manthey]

SV_WDC said:

Have you looked into recovery of monies via Porsche Assist - they do cover these things. At least, that's what the policy says!

This is my thinking.

Send the car back and get a full refund and then have a think.

It could just be a Friday car.

[paulguitar]

GT3Manthey said:

SV_WDC said:

Have you looked into recovery of monies via Porsche Assist - they do cover these things. At least, that's what the policy says!

This is my thinking.

Send the car back and get a full refund and then have a think.

It could just be a Friday car.

My mate ended up doing a deal for them to take the car back. He had to fight like hell to get them to do it against vigorous resistance, despite their recorded history of relentless incompetence.

[GT3Manthey]

paulguitar said:

My mate ended up doing a deal for them to take the car back. He had to fight like hell to get them to do it against vigorous resistance, despite their recorded history of relentless incompetence.

I did consider going the whole hog and buying the 718 but reading this I'm glad I went for the 981.

Just hope the OP gets a good outcome

[981Boxess]

freedman said:

981Boxess said:

He didn't did he, feel free to post that on his behalf not having a clue if it is true or not.

You seem to have invented that it 'may' have worked on handover as some kind of reason the OPC were not at fault

I have not invented anything I have merely made the point that the problem may not have manifested itself until later, surely you can grasp that.

Regardless the OPC will be at fault because they did the job, but to suggest as you have, that it was handed back without checking it was ok at the time is ridiculous.

[freedman]

981Boxess said:

I have not invented anything I have merely made the point that the problem may not have manifested itself until later, surely you can grasp that.

Regardless the OPC will be at fault because they did the job, but to suggest as you have, that it was handed back without checking it was ok at the time is ridiculous.

the car presented a cooling system bleed issue within 100 miles of collection after engine replacement

On the balance of probabilities, the car was given back to the OP like that because it hadn't been bled properly

So far from being ridiculous, its a perfectly reasonable assumption

Surely you can grasp that?

[ChrisW.]

Either way it's not a problem that the OP or normal use could have created ...and quite a coincidence when it's a known complication of the design.

[Jazzer]

981Boxess said:

No, the OP said the fans blew cold once the 100 mile issue presented itself, it may well have been working perfectly well when it was handed over.

Small but important difference.

I had no reason to have the fans on - I collected the car on a warm day (Tuesday) and drove it back to the OPC on the warm Saturday.

The fault was almost certainly present on handover.....

[jamsp00n]

Jazzer said:

The whole experience has been an indescribable tale of woe, costing me time (lots of time), money, cancelled appointments, cancelled trip to Scotland, ruined holiday weekends (plural) and total embarrassment having to have my as-new Porsche recovered twice in front of my neighbours, both at my previous home and at my new one, where I moved smack bang in the middle of all of this.

Not clear what's embarrassing at all about having a car recovered, but that aside I feel there may be some slight loss of perspective here?

Not to belittle what will have been an extremely frustrating experience that would have made me pretty bloody cross, too. But the reality is that pretty much any mass produced car will suffer from some number of major faults, albeit I'm not sure if the 4.0 lump is problematic?

The thing is, once you have a fault like that which requires pretty invasive work to rectify, with the best will in the world the odds that an error is made repairing the car are fairly substantial.

It's relatively complex work by the day-to-day standards of an OPC and they have nothing like the systems and controls of the factory. The point is that once you're doing something like a full engine swap, it's not really a freak occurrence to have problems afterwards. None of which excuses a fairly basic error like not bleeding the cooling system properly. But with extensive work like that, there are lots of opportunities for basic errors and it certainly doesn't say much about the car in question or imply it's a 'Friday' car.

Not sure where and what state the car is in now, but if the fault was just an airlock, hopefully that can be rectified in short order and fingers crossed the car may now be absolutely fine and in terms of life and stress and enjoyment etc makes sense to move on rather than get in a fight over rejecting the car? If the car is fine now, you'll get your confidence back with it in a little while. Obviously if new issues emerge it's a different matter. Again, none of this is to dismiss what has been a fairly major f' up.

[av185]

Worth noting that all pre May 2014 991.1 GT3s and RS had OPC new initial (and subsequent) engine swaps and afaik very few had subsequent issues directly related to the actual engine change.

Ditto certain batches of GT4s.

[CanAm]

Jazzer said:

I had no reason to have the fans on - I collected the car on a warm day (Tuesday) and drove it back to the OPC on the warm Saturday.

The fault was almost certainly present on handover.....

I have the fans on permanently. Mind you, having had a Caterham for 18 years I feel lost without draughts!

[Snowy999]

Whoever said 'glad I bought a 981" - Don't forget that a large number of 981 GT4s had to have new gearboxes.....

[GT3Manthey]

Snowy999 said:

Whoever said 'glad I bought a 981" - Don't forget that a large number of 981 GT4s had to have new gearboxes.....

Ah , actually that was me :-)

I didn't know that and I had one of the 1st GT4's.

Every days a school day I guess

[ChrisW.]

av185 said:

Worth noting that all pre May 2014 991.1 GT3s and RS had OPC new initial (and subsequent) engine swaps and afaik very few had subsequent issues directly related to the actual engine change.

Ditto certain batches of GT4s.

Precisely ...

P.S. I also had one of the first 981GT4's which had the splined third gear that didn't fail ... I wonder why they changed it ?

[Slippydiff]

With a mid or rear engined car and front mounted radiators, it’s fairly common to have bleeding (let’s call them complications) and as a result the final coolant “drop” often only occurs after several heat cycles of the engine and cooling system.

And whilst vacuum filling the system should, theoretically ensure every void is filled, it’s clear this isn’t always the case.

I can see the situation from both the perspective of the OP, and as a former grease monkey several decades ago.

Under the circumstances it would have made sense for the OPC to have kept the car a day or two longer and done one or two further road tests, purely to take the engine and cooling system through some further heat cycles.

Unfortunately mechanics aren’t paid to do such things, and the dealership would want the job finished and signed off, so they can start the process of claiming the costs back from Porsche/Porsche GB as soon as possible.

None of which is particularly conducive to guaranteeing the installation has had any and every issue fully addressed to ensure the customer’s complete satisfaction.

[981Boxess]

Slippydiff said:

With a mid or rear engined car and front mounted radiators, it’s fairly common to have bleeding (let’s call them complications) and as a result the final coolant “drop” often only occurs after several heat cycles of the engine and cooling system.

And whilst vacuum filling the system should, theoretically ensure every void is filled, it’s clear this isn’t always the case.

Exactly.

[Slippydiff]

ChrisW. said:

Precisely ...

P.S. I also had one of the first 981GT4's which had the splined third gear that didn't fail ... I wonder why they changed it ?

Oh come on Chris, there’s only one reason Porsche/VAG change something, and you know exactly what it is.
Well there’s two things actually, cost and profit.

[Megaflow]

Jazzer said:

The second engine developed a low coolant warning within 100 miles (mostly to and from the OPC to restore functionality to an instrument cluster, something they missed...!).

I've yet to hear what caused this warning, but the Porsche assistance guy, incredibly the same one who recovered me the first time, expressed concern about a second failure being about to happen - it could be an airlock in the coolant system, it could be more.

The whole experience has been an indescribable tale of woe, costing me time (lots of time), money, cancelled appointments, cancelled trip to Scotland, ruined holiday weekends (plural) and total embarrassment having to have my as-new Porsche recovered twice in front of my neighbours, both at my previous home and at my new one, where I moved smack bang in the middle of all of this.

So I'm now exploring my options and thinking about how to proceed.

It took the something like 120 miles for the cooling system in mine to clear out properly after the cross over pipes were replaced. I drove it home, to Duxford, the got most of the way home before the coolant level flashed up.

[Spevs]

GT4P said:

This worries me a bit as it started with the whole engine replacement programme for new factory cars built early 2021 and now we have started to hear of random failures of the 4.0 engine in the 718, are we seeing another episode similar to the 996/997.1 failures??
What with PADM issues across all models since 9x1, turbo failures of 991.2/992, windscreen issues on 992 and so on, add to that the dealership game playing and overs market of recent years it doesn’t inspire one to purchase a modern Porsche!

I agree with you, whilst at my local OPC looking at a 718 Spyder, the salesman flippantly implied most 718's suffer padm issues and you'd be bonkers to run one without the OPC warranty, which on its own appears reasonably priced, however when you combine opc servicing for a Spyder at approx £1500-£2000 depending on major or minor (minor = oil, filter and air filter....wow) costs in at £3k minimum for two years. That's without fuel, insurance, tyres etc......why spend £80k on something so fragile.......?

Jazzer, I feel your pain, hopefully the current issue will only be an air lock...fingers crossed.

Edited by Spevs on Thursday 9th May 18:36

Edited by Spevs on Thursday 9th May 18:37