Cayman S engine failure and how Porsche will deal with you.

Cayman S engine failure and how Porsche will deal with you.

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Discussion

Globs

13,841 posts

230 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
PistonBloke said:
cars need maintenance and some things inevitably wear out but I'm finding this isn't perhaps an isolated instances of bore wear
Read these threads:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

There are several design faults in the engine that tend to write it off, the M96/M97 engine failure rate is the worst thing Porsche have done in their history IMO, and they let it continue for years.

The good news (for those in the know) is that the price of second hand cars is impacted so if you buy low and know the right places to fix them (before of after failure - before is cheaper) they are still great cars.

The bad news is that so many fail that Porsche are being a bit techy about fixing on 'goodwill' and an OPC warranty is rather expensive now.

If it was my car I'd get it shipped up to Hartech so they can fix it properly so it won't fail again. Cheaper than an OPC too. The most an OPC will do is stick another dodgy engine in there, as they regularly do.

Durzel

12,232 posts

167 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
Reading this also reminded me of that guy who bought a 2009 Cayman S with if I recall correctly sub-10k miles. A month or so into ownership he's getting plumes of smoke and an eventual boroscopy confirmed the worst - bore scoring on most/all cylinders. He was also very lucky from what I remember because the dealer he bought it from took the car back off of him and gave him a refund.

Who would expect a 2009 car with sub-10k miles that one presumes hasn't been mistreated to fail like that?

996ttalot

1,931 posts

174 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
OP sorry to hear your troubles.

1) I would expect a 5 year old car not to fail, certainly not with that mileage

2) On the warranty front, there are probably a lot of other porsche owners who purchased from new, their dream car, who never read the forums we post on, and quite rightly would be thinking that the only reason for extending the warranty would be to cover small items (not worth the paper it is written on etc) and not even consider that the entire engine would fail. On the otherhand, I throw away all warranties on items such as TVs, Dishwashers etc, because if it goes wrong, it is just as cheap to buy a new one - I consider a washing machine as disposable. If I received a Porsche warranty then I would make a decision probably to renew, but a lot of people don't.

3) If you are having to pay 4k, then it is a good deal in the end, given you have not paid a warranty for presumably 2 years. That said it really should not happen in the first place.

mollytherocker

14,365 posts

208 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
Sorry to hear of your troubles Graham, especially as you seem to have taken good care of your car.

Bore scoring does seem to be prevalent on these engines and some specialists have suggested that all will have some scoring on them by now to an extent due to a poor cooling design.

As others have said, pay your 4k and move on the wiser.

Going forward, these cars need to be warranted, on a maint plan or the owner needs to accept and plan for the risk.

Dont lose faith in Porsche cars too much, there are still great cars out there!

MTR

996ttalot

1,931 posts

174 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
One other point..it seems Porsche runs this just like the local councils do when it comes to potholes. They (councils) worked out that it was cheaper to pay out for damage to cars (for those of us who write more than one letter) than fix the potholes in the first place.

According to our local council, they save £2m a year taking this approach - they know that the problem exists, but they know that most drivers will either not put in a claim or roll over when they write back saying they are not paying out etc.


colin 82

235 posts

201 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
Sorry to hear about your troubles.
I have to admit im slightly concerned.

Before driving you caymans and other Porsches do you guyd warm the car up etc for a period of time before setting off??

BliarOut

72,857 posts

238 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
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nono Start up and drive off, extended warming up without a load isn't good for your engine.

colin 82

235 posts

201 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
Thats what I do....start it u....drive off. Low revs. Shimples

thanks
(ill get my coat)

Globs

13,841 posts

230 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
colin 82 said:
I have to admit im slightly concerned.

Before driving you caymans and other Porsches do you guyd warm the car up etc for a period of time before setting off??
It doesn't matter, it seems the problem of bore scoring is caused by stopping with a hot engine (maybe at traffic lights), then booting it when setting off.

The idle-at-stop fails to cool the engine (flow too low) and when you boot it the feeble coolant system is too hot and too slow to react (the thermostat is on the coolant _entry_ to the engine!), so you get localised coolant boiling, cylinder temps shoot up (you have 300BHP ish to heat it up quickly with) and the soft bore metal scrapes off in clumps - scored bore.

Cylinders 5 and 6 IIRC are the last in the coolant path so they always score first.

There is a thread on here started by Hartech about this. One also has to wonder at Porsche for making these schoolboy errors in not just the coolant system design but also in the IMS bearings, RMS seal and the flexing open-deck 'D chunk' disasters. These are really all simple traps for young players - Porsche should know better.

cragswinter

21,429 posts

195 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
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jackal said:
Whilst I empathise with you and can understand the conviction of your principles, In the scheme of owning a high performance car with one of the worlds most desireable badges, 4k is a pittance and not few off a few years warranty costs as outlined by someone else above. Drop the crusade, give yourself a break, get it fixed, sell it and then buy another porsche with warranty, an older aircooled car or something from another manufacturer that wont suffer from endogenous engine production line quality issues. Life is too short IMO. Expend you energy elsewhere, maybe making up the 4k in the process. Even if they did eventually agree to help, you will never get your time back, your anger, frustration and stress.
Rich,
With respect I love what you add to this forum (& the Porsche world in general with your excellent articles on your website) but that is one of the...? I'm struggling to think of the word? Condescending? ....posts I've ever read.

First of all the figure of four grand being bandied about means nothing, as it can cost anything up to and above 8 grand for an opc to sort out this type of failure. The 4 grand is merely hypothetically taking into account what someone "may" have saved by not paying the warrenty for X amount of years. Even Hartech won't come one here with a definative answer as to how much a fix may cost as every failure can be subtly different.
Plus it seems any opc's tactic is to twist the customers arm to get them to agree to an opc strip down thus locking them into the opc fix, ie " I've already racked up a bill with them I may as well get them to fix it"

Second, four grand is not a pittance, no matter what car. Remember this isn't a case of this bill being the only expenditure that the op has spent on his cayman in the last few years, I'd imagine there are many other large bills in line with regular servicing that the car required but I think most owners would imagine that as long as they serviced their car & replaced what parts the service managers recommended they would expect their cars to last a whole lot longer (I'm obviously not suggesting that a service manager would recommend replacing an engine as part of regular servicing-not at 28k miles any way!)

Thirdly, you post would seem to suggest that just because a modern Porsche is desirable it should be unreliable? I simply cannot fathom this one out? Just because you own a nice car you should expect big bills? Regular maintenance yes, but as stated a new engine is not a maintenance consumable, or it never used to be.

Maybe I read your post the wrong way? It's difficult in a forum as sarcasm, tone of voice etc don't come across too well.

But if not I think you & me differ on this one. smile


Mermaid

21,492 posts

170 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
996ttalot said:
One other point..it seems Porsche runs this just like the local councils do when it comes to potholes. They (councils) worked out that it was cheaper to pay out for damage to cars (for those of us who write more than one letter) than fix the potholes in the first place.

According to our local council, they save £2m a year taking this approach - they know that the problem exists, but they know that most drivers will either not put in a claim or roll over when they write back saying they are not paying out etc.
Good summary. Porsche, IMO, generally don't care much about customer service but they seem to be making some effort to help the OP.

Is the service centre the most profitable part of an OPC?

mollytherocker

14,365 posts

208 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
Read this post for driving style advice to reduce scoring.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

MTR

996ttalot

1,931 posts

174 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
mollytherocker said:
Read this post for driving style advice to reduce scoring.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

MTR
Yes that is a good thread...better get a drink first smile

The problem is that what if you don't read forums? I know some Porsche owners who don't even have internet eek

I think this is where it come back to how long should an engine last if it has been maintained correctly.

I have to say the one thing that I do nowadays when I buy luxury items is search for the "'luxury item' issues" first.

Ken

Durzel

12,232 posts

167 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
It's still silly though isn't it. People don't buy Porsches to potter around (well, they do but that's hardly who the hot models are pitched to), suggesting to people that they shouldn't give it the beans from a standstill now and again, while everyone else in "normal" cars can do that every day for years, seems a strange state of affairs for a performance marque.

mollytherocker

14,365 posts

208 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
Durzel said:
It's still silly though isn't it. People don't buy Porsches to potter around (well, they do but that's hardly who the hot models are pitched to), suggesting to people that they shouldn't give it the beans from a standstill now and again, while everyone else in "normal" cars can do that every day for years, seems a strange state of affairs for a performance marque.
Its a very sad state of affairs. We can only pray that the DFI's hold up.

MTR

Globs

13,841 posts

230 months

Tuesday 27th September 2011
quotequote all
mollytherocker said:
Durzel said:
It's still silly though isn't it. People don't buy Porsches to potter around (well, they do but that's hardly who the hot models are pitched to), suggesting to people that they shouldn't give it the beans from a standstill now and again, while everyone else in "normal" cars can do that every day for years, seems a strange state of affairs for a performance marque.
Its a very sad state of affairs. We can only pray that the DFI's hold up.

MTR
Sadder when you think of the number of tiny cheap Fiats etc that have been mercilessly thrashed from new and are still going long after the Porsche gave up in a cloud of expensive smoke..

mollytherocker

14,365 posts

208 months

Wednesday 28th September 2011
quotequote all
Globs said:
Sadder when you think of the number of tiny cheap Fiats etc that have been mercilessly thrashed from new and are still going long after the Porsche gave up in a cloud of expensive smoke..
Indeed. I wonder if Mezger has a pop at Porsche in his new book!

MTR

davey68

1,199 posts

236 months

Wednesday 28th September 2011
quotequote all
This sort of post saddens me too. I was hoping to move into a cayman s in the not too distant future, it ticks all the boxes for me. However i'm having serious doubts, as the only way to run one safely is stump up for an OPC warranty during your ownership. I currently own a type-r and always keep the revs max 3k til its warm but when it is warm i drive it as it is intended and never once worry about major engine failure, this on a 8krpm revving engine. Many manufacturers make high performance engines (M3 for example) which do not seem to have this fragility. Porsche clearly dropped the ball in the design of this engine and for a car like the OP's to fail is pretty poor IMO. I sincerely hope you get it resolved ok OP and I will be thinking very hard in future over whether i want the expense and potential hassles of porsche ownership. Sad but true.

Arenki

252 posts

168 months

Wednesday 28th September 2011
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Truly sorry to hear about your sad tale, OP. You don't expect a £10k Ford to go wrong like this, especially a so called 'premium' product.

As far as i can tell from what i've read, both IMS failures and Bore-scoring failures are both an engineering flaws. If this happens to me, then it'll most certainly be the end of my love affair with Porsches. Why Porsche do not wake up and realize that stories like this do the company image no good at all. A premium brand such as Porsche should be very, very concerned about how the public and more importantly, customers view the company.

My mother has had Porsches for nearly 40 years, 911 after 911 after 911. In total, i think she's had somewhere around 9. None of them, bar a 964 (oil leak, if memory serves) has ever had any problems. I'm on my first 911, and apart from 4 RMS replacements, touch wood - nothing major has gone. However, if my engine does go, i will be breaking the family tradition with Porsche.

If Hartech's theory regarding Bore Scoring failure is correct, which I suspect it might be (also makes me a prime candidate :/), then we are looking at a serious engineering flaws that have never officially been acknowledged by Porsche. Wonder what the newish owners at VAG make of this.

Even so, I cannot believe some of the stories i'm hearing regarding blown/knackered engines. It seems to me, that the new generation of water-cooled engines are far from bulletproof. Whilst i've been informed that the failure rate is low (~2% - from a senior tech at an OPC no less), it's shocking to see how a desirable premium brand such as Porsche will treat it's customers with such poor service. An old work collegue of mine recently suffered a IMS failure on a 2005 997 C2S. Car was maintained exclusively by the dealership he purchased it from (brand new, i hasten to add). I suspect, it was only due the fact a few days earlier he'd placed a deposit on a brand new 991 that he got any form of goodwill. They covered 80% of bill from what i understand, but his opinion of the company took a serious turn for the worse.

I do not have an extended warranty on my 997 C4S, but stories like this do most certainly make me strongly consider it. However, i don't buy the 'oh well your car is out of warranty, deal with it' arguement. Any owner of a sports car should know full well that maintainence is costly, often wallet wincingly high, but upon purchasing a Porsche, i was under the distinct impression i was buying one of the most highly engineered cars around. I'm not sure about other people, but my idea of 'highly engineered' means that big things don't go wrong. My 2009 A4 has done 57k grueling miles in just a tiny bit over 2 years. Nothing, except a windscreen washer has gone wrong on it. I accept that Porsche doesn't have the funds (or didn't) to conduct such a level of testing equal to Ford, BMW or the VAG group, but this problem has been staring them in the face for a very long time and yet the continue to act as if every one of these cars that goes pop is an absolute monumental suprise.

High performance cars often have fragile tolerances, none of us should forget this - but like most people on here, i bought a Porsche to drive it. If i wanted to travel everywhere at sedate speeds, gliding merrily over bumps i'd have bought a fking Kia.

edit: jesus christ my spelling is terrible, sorry!

nickfrog

20,871 posts

216 months

Wednesday 28th September 2011
quotequote all
Sad, very sad. Almost as sad as some of the comments on this thread...

Porsche make a great performance product despite its well publicised engine flaws but as a Company they are so corporately arrogant, it's unreal.

I would not give any money to an OPC but they still try to sell me a new car, they are absolutely desperate for sales atm...

What goes around...