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

[pikey]

jackal said:

stuff

I know what you're trying to say and agree with you. Had nearly £2k of something that shouldn't have happened on a 4 year, v.low mileage Yaris that neither the dealer nor Toyota GB wanted anything to do with. Paid the bill, sold the car, and moved on. Far too much stress/cr*p/time and if they don't have a liability (ie. no warranty in place) and won't go down the goodwill route then you're just banging your head against the wall.

[996GT2]

khushy said:

masergs said:

Why on a car five years old , three years out of warranty would you expect Porsche to pay for the repairs.Either pay your money and get a warranty or pay your money when it all goes wrong.

^THIS as horrible as it sounds!

As much as it's not nice to hear this is also the way I look at it. Having seen the bills that some owners face I'd be biting their hand off at 4k to rebuild it, that should come with a further 2 years warranty should it not, or is that just for a new engine?

[Kieran]

Just to be clear about the issue in question, is it right that a customer be put in a position to pay for the damages caused by a known defective design/part on a relatively low mileage/age car , which if fails results in a material £5k-£10k bill. If this was a TVR or a Lotus then you might accept such design flaws as part of the 'ownership experience' – but like many you probably bought into the Porsche brand because with it comes with some reasonable assumptions about technical excellence.

Frequent these boards on a regular basis and the OP story is sadly too common. Indeed there are two sticky threads on this subject alone. From my own experience (an IMS failure issue) I have a letter from the MD of Porsche GB (or I should say his legal department by the wording) that categorically refutes any IMS design fault – but no surprise there. I believe there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to support the accusation that the IMS part in question has an inherent design flaw that results in a low % of terminal engine failures (no one but Porchse will know the exact figure as many will be repaired under warranty or Goodwill). Unofficially I suspect Porsche know this and I have also spoken to Porsche OPC representatives who have said the situation is an ‘embarrassment’ to the company internally. Publically they cannot confirm so as commercially it would be prohibitively expensive to issue a recall. Instead they rely on selling after market warranties to remedy any failures resulting from the said design fault or let customers face the bill (nice business model to get your customers to pay for your own design mistakes). I guess they also rely on a general consumer apathy as expressed in some of the comments in this thread.

My IMS failure, on a 33k mile 05 Boxster, cost approx £6.5k to repair. Luckily I had a non-OPC warranty so fortunately covered and the OPC even offered a 2/3 goodwill gesture. So some may ask why my continued angst as I was not out of pocket. Maybe for all the other owners who are not so fortunate or perhaps I am one of those ‘unreasonable’ customers who expect organizations to match their brand values.

I did not have the time, energy, means to pursue this issue myself besides making my feelings clear to Porsche HQ. I did move on but still have the old damaged IMS bearing in a drawer just in case we ever see that class action suit

The really annoying thing is as long as they continue to make the best driving machines out there I will keep buying them. Can't help think I have just trashed my own argument...

[Shnozz]

DELETED: Comment made by a member who's account has been deleted.

I'm guessing the exhaust was bought off Dave then?

I must say, having suffered the obligatory RMS on my 986S, there was a constant fear in the back of my mind re the 'what if' IMS concern once the car was out of warranty and I couldn't renew it. Potential £10k bill when the car was ony worth that much was not something I could stomach every time I heard a random noise. When Dave told me his had gone pop, it made me even more paranoid and I don't think I gave the car full beans after that which rendered ownership pretty pointless. Coupled with the fact I wasn't really using it much and it was more practical than I needed, I left the fold. As brilliant as the car was in every sense, I wont return to Porsche until I can be more secure in ownership not likely to throw a £10k bill at me one afternoon.

[mollytherocker]

Shnozz said:

I'm guessing the exhaust was bought off Dave then?

I must say, having suffered the obligatory RMS on my 986S, there was a constant fear in the back of my mind re the 'what if' IMS concern once the car was out of warranty and I couldn't renew it. Potential £10k bill when the car was ony worth that much was not something I could stomach every time I heard a random noise. When Dave told me his had gone pop, it made me even more paranoid and I don't think I gave the car full beans after that which rendered ownership pretty pointless. Coupled with the fact I wasn't really using it much and it was more practical than I needed, I left the fold. As brilliant as the car was in every sense, I wont return to Porsche until I can be more secure in ownership not likely to throw a £10k bill at me one afternoon.

Its sad that people are leaving Porsche and it is reflected in the current values of the affected cars.

However, as long as you have a good warranty or maint plan, they must surely be a reasonable ownership proposition if bought with care?

MTR

[RudeDog]

Durzel said:

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?

That was a friend of mine and it was a 2.9, not an S. It seems this problem affects all the modern flat sixes.

And yes, he was very lucky the dealer was reputable.

[RudeDog]

Durzel said:

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?

That was a friend of mine and it was a 2.9, not an S. It seems this problem affects all the modern flat sixes.

And yes, he was very lucky the dealer was reputable.

[RudeDog]

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.

A friend of mine recently bought one of the current model M3's. It has launch control but the dealer said you can only use it a few times before it needs to be returned to the dealer for a check over. That's just madness in my mind. I hope Porsche doesn't go this way.

[BliarOut]

Kieran said:

Just to be clear about the issue in question, is it right that a customer be put in a position to pay for the damages caused by a known defective design/part on a relatively low mileage/age car , which if fails results in a material £5k-£10k bill. If this was a TVR or a Lotus then you might accept such design flaws as part of the 'ownership experience' – but like many you probably bought into the Porsche brand because with it comes with some reasonable assumptions about technical excellence.

Frequent these boards on a regular basis and the OP story is sadly too common. Indeed there are two sticky threads on this subject alone. From my own experience (an IMS failure issue) I have a letter from the MD of Porsche GB (or I should say his legal department by the wording) that categorically refutes any IMS design fault – but no surprise there. I believe there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to support the accusation that the IMS part in question has an inherent design flaw that results in a low % of terminal engine failures (no one but Porchse will know the exact figure as many will be repaired under warranty or Goodwill). Unofficially I suspect Porsche know this and I have also spoken to Porsche OPC representatives who have said the situation is an ‘embarrassment’ to the company internally. Publically they cannot confirm so as commercially it would be prohibitively expensive to issue a recall. Instead they rely on selling after market warranties to remedy any failures resulting from the said design fault or let customers face the bill (nice business model to get your customers to pay for your own design mistakes). I guess they also rely on a general consumer apathy as expressed in some of the comments in this thread.

My IMS failure, on a 33k mile 05 Boxster, cost approx £6.5k to repair. Luckily I had a non-OPC warranty so fortunately covered and the OPC even offered a 2/3 goodwill gesture. So some may ask why my continued angst as I was not out of pocket. Maybe for all the other owners who are not so fortunate or perhaps I am one of those ‘unreasonable’ customers who expect organizations to match their brand values.

I did not have the time, energy, means to pursue this issue myself besides making my feelings clear to Porsche HQ. I did move on but still have the old damaged IMS bearing in a drawer just in case we ever see that class action suit

The really annoying thing is as long as they continue to make the best driving machines out there I will keep buying them. Can't help think I have just trashed my own argument...

Ahem, the last catastrophic failure on my TVR cost £11.99 to fix

[MrTickle]

If I was Porsche, I would offer the OP the chance to 'back pay' for extended warranty to when the Porsche warranty expired. I would guess this would be around £3,500 for 3 years. Then subsequently, repair under warranty.

Porsche about £500 out of pocket from current offer. OP said he would have had warranty if he knew about it. How can anyone complain?

[Gibbo205]

masergs said:

Why on a car five years old , three years out of warranty would you expect Porsche to pay for the repairs.Either pay your money and get a warranty or pay your money when it all goes wrong.

This I could accept for say just general repairs/failures, yes that is what warranty is for. Because things like sensors can fail and are not expected to last the life of the car for instance.

However an engine has a certain life expectancy these days, my oppinion is an engine serviced according to a manufacturers specification, not abused should last a minimum of 100,000 miles these days, it seems most other manufacturers can manage this.

Yet Porsche, a premium sports car manufacturer who sell cars for £50,000 - £150,000 generally are struggling to scrape 30,000 miles.

Warranty or not, an engine should last a reasonable amount of time, 5yrs or 30,000 miles is not a reasonable amount of time by any stretch of the imagination and Porsche should be replacing this at no cost to the owner irrelevent of warranty or not.

When you spend £30,000 on a used Porsche, will full OPC service history, nothing alarming on the DME scan you'd expect its engine to be the last thing to fail, it should last well beyond 100,000 miles with ease as long as servicing and car is maintained. As such many people will buy such cars and give warranty a miss and be willing to repair cars which break at their own cost as most typical failures tend to be sensors, cats etc. which are affordable or worth the risk of no warranty. An engine is not expected to fail on any car, especially a low mileage well cared for Porsche, the engine should last far longer.

Fact is the engine has not lasted a reasonable amount of time and Porsche know this is the case and also recognise they have a problem, hence why they are offering to do the job for 4k, which is not bad, but really why should he have to pay anything.

I have warranty on my 911 and I over-service it, even though I do have a warranty. If I went without warranty then I understand if things break they come out of my pocket, but I'd never expect the engine to be one of those things to let go and nor should it.

[nickfrog]

+1

[carcrazypop]

This story is one of the reasons why many PH's are now going back to older 911's, 964's, 993's etc.

I've had 997's in the past & have now settled on a 993, albeit, not a daily driver; one thread the other day was a guy who'd gone back to a 964.

I think that if Porsche continue with this arrogant attitude, one day it will catch up with them, which is a real shame. IMHO

[Mermaid]

Gibbo205 said:

..However an engine has a certain life expectancy these days, my oppinion is an engine serviced according to a manufacturers specification, not abused should last a minimum of 100,000 miles these days, it seems most other manufacturers can manage this.

Yet Porsche, a premium sports car manufacturer who sell cars for £50,000 - £150,000 generally are struggling to scrape 30,000 miles.

Warranty or not, an engine should last a reasonable amount of time, 5yrs or 30,000 miles is not a reasonable amount of time by any stretch of the imagination and Porsche should be replacing this at no cost to the owner irrelevent of warranty or not.

Alpina approach always has been that their tuned engines should outlast the standard BMW one for they are bespoke. Porsche should be really concerned that their engines are suffering this fate, for reputations spread fast on the internet.

[Gibbo205]

Mermaid said:

Alpina approach always has been that their tuned engines should outlast the standard BMW one for they are bespoke. Porsche should be really concerned that their engines are suffering this fate, for reputations spread fast on the internet.

Its not just internet rumour though is it, this month alone on PH and 911uk there has been over 10 new customers who have had engine failures on a 987/997 based car.

This is shocking, thats 10 that we know off in just a month, in the UK.

Porsche do the right thing and replace your badly designed engines when they go pop due to the design flaws in the first place which cause these issues, especially if the car has been maintained and looked after irrelevent of warranty or not.

[BliarOut]

100K out of a three litre lump is still a pretty early failure these days IMO. With regular oil changes 200K should be a comfortable minimum life expectancy.

[cragswinter]

Gibbo205 said:

Porsche do the right thing and replace your badly designed engines when they go pop due to the design flaws in the first place which cause these issues, especially if the car has been maintained and looked after irrelevent of warranty or not.

but if they were to admit such a thing i wonder what would happen? all you guys with 997's would see your residuals crumble even more than they already are.

essentially all 996/997/future 991 & 986/987/future 981 owners would have cause to sue porsche for selling a vehicle that is not fit for purpose. the public relations would be a complete desaster

bye bye porsche i'd say.

by the way i still think that it's terrible the way porsche are treating their customers who have suffered these failures. if the car has been serviced on schedule i'd think that the least porsche can do is stand by their car.

but i simply can't see them doing it.

[mollytherocker]

carcrazypop said:

I think that if Porsche continue with this arrogant attitude, one day it will catch up with them, which is a real shame. IMHO

I dont believe that they understand the long term damage that has been done. Now that these cars are getting older and into more enthusiast hands the word is spreading.

I dont think that it has really affected them much yet in terms of new sales but it will eventually.

MTR

Edited by mollytherocker on Wednesday 28th September 18:31

[Digga]

cragswinter said:

but if they were to admit such a thing i wonder what would happen? all you guys with 997's would see your residuals crumble even more than they already are.

Even some OPC backed 997.1 C2s are looking 'cheap' already. I think the word is already spreading.

[vantager]

I had a 2004 Boxster I bought new. Always serviced at Porsche. Carefully run in. 4 years/35k miles later (in 2008) had the RMS/IMS problem. Porsche UK (when pushed) agreed cost of parts and half labour only after I did lots of research (should have done this at the start) which showed this to be a common issue. I will nevr buy another of these models. Had a chat with a leading Porsche Indie who said (of that engine) "they are like those cheap lawn mowers you buy - you need to buy a new one every summer". He did say the GEN 2 engines seemed to be WAY better. If I ever get another Porsche, it will have to be 2009 or newer for this reason. Porsche have got away with lots here!