You are reinventing the wheel. It's a five year old car, these things happen (not as often as forums suggest) and Porsche will rebuff any claim. The press won't be interested. Tell your boss to suck it up and pay for a repair with someone like Baz at Hartech, or get a full replacement engine (not as madly expensive as you might think).
And before you flame me, I speak from experience. I had exactly the same problem at 7500 miles when my 997s was still under new car warranty and Porsche wanted to repair it with a new block etc. Had to fight for a new engine, which I got but only thanks to the intervention of my dealer (OPC Bristol).
Oh, and I work for a national newspaper.
Sometimes life is too short.....

At 7500 miles and still under new car warranty (ie under 2 years old), would you have accepted a repair? It was wrong from new and I felt Porsche should do the right thing - which they did eventually. Very happy now - 20,000 miles later. I am sure a repair is fine but a new engine and ancillaries (it comes with all the bits) is better.

I was unlucky, not daft!

More importantly Porsche could definitely afford not to care before, they had pretty much as many customers as they wanted - but now ...

Cases like this are a legal can of worms - before even thinking about issuing proceedings anybody really needs to get a number of people together, some very good / respected engineering evidence and some very good statistical analysis of the market showing something is not right - and then, just maybe Porsche may have no option other than to sit up and take Notice. If they don`t then that kind of sets the precedent for where you are going next.

Litigation is very risky, very costly and very emotional - the key is to take that emotion and the perceptions that you have out of the equation and let the facts or evidence do the talking.

From what I have read on various forums - there is definitely something not right with the quality of the Porsche engine since the 993 days - whilst all manufacturers have problems, it is my personal view that Porsche should be doing more here to work with their customers on sorting the problems - whether to purely uphold the future perception of the brand or if to just ensure that they try and recoup that "quality" tag they seem to have lost over recent years.

I hope Porsche do read these Forums as I think that sometimes there is a misconception on their part of where their duties lie. Yes they are a business and yes they make a luxury product - but if you pay a premium for a product, you expect a premium service and Porsche should remember this. Porsche customers tend to be repeat customers, and given the current climate and their strong financial position, perhaps it might be time to give a little something back to those who support you through difficult times as well as the good times?

I write on behalf of my boss who has instructed me to spend a day a week researching this subject. I would like to hear from anyone who has suffered a similar problem. Legally he accepts he has no leg to stand on, but morally he is furious at how dismissive Porsche have been on what is increasingly appearing to be a fault with the engine of the 997 and wishes to build a case for professional presentation in the media based on the facts collected from this exercise. Had it not been for my initial research on the Web then he was pretty much accepting that he was an "unlucky one off" but my initial research has unearthed numerous identical cases accross the world. He is not internet "savvy" and is convinced there are many more 997 owners out there who are not "internet savvy" and will be unaware thier case is is not isolatated. As such, he has agreed a budget for me to place notices mainly in national journals and "High Net Worth" publications for owners past and present who have suffered similar problems to come forward.

The problem:

He purchased a Porsche 997 as they came out in 2004. It has been serviced exclusively by Porsche. He does very little mileage and as a result did not extend the warranty. It was last serviced in October 2008 when the mileage was aproximately 19,000 miles. A full service was carried out including full oil change. 1,000 miles later, during a drive the management system requested a visit to the workshop.

Porsche have diagnosed a fault with the sixth cylinder compression. The net result is a new engine. Like many other owners whom I have liased with the left hand exhaust is very black apparently from excessive oil being passed through a "score" in the sixth cylinder.

There seems to be huge inconsistencies as to how Porsche deal with thier customers depending upon where the car was bought and how it was serviced but the under lying fault appears entirely consistent.

It is the facts I wish to concentrate on and would be very grateful to hear from anybody who has had a similar, or most likely EXACT problem with the engine of thier 997 ONLY.

Should you wish to remain anonoymous then that is understood but the intention is to build a fully researched and accurate case and therefore your full support would be gratefully recieved.

He will be funding this research entirely from his own pocket and while initially the only costs involved are my time and publication of notices, ultimately the professional presentation to the media could prove costly. Should anyone who feels sufficiently strongly about this issue wish to donate towards this project thier donations will be greatly recived but the primary objective is to gather as many cases as is possible and it is in this regard that I would be most grateful to hear from you.

Like so many Porsche owners his loyalty and commitment to the Porsche brand has been total and it is only the dismissive and unsupportive response from Porsche when a clear fault on thier part is materialising that has shattered this commitment and led to this project.

Thank you for your time.