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

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

Author
Discussion

Abagnale

366 posts

114 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
In fairness, I'm 20k into one of these, so as much as I would like to lighten up, you can't blame me for getting the heebee geebies reading the end of days merchants littering this thread.

WinstonWolf

72,857 posts

239 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
"Would not show any correlation".

northernmedia

1,988 posts

138 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
Abagnale said:
In fairness, I'm 20k into one of these, so as much as I would like to lighten up, you can't blame me for getting the heebee geebies reading the end of days merchants littering this thread.
Bury your head in the sand then.
Jobs a good un.

WinstonWolf

72,857 posts

239 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
If you had read and understood what Hartech wrote you would not need to ask.

WinstonWolf

72,857 posts

239 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Perhaps I should have added to my imaginary spreadsheet that if I had a line for what fuel was used - unlike all the other colour changes that formed an easy to spot pattern - even if I contacted all the previous owners of every car and then checked how often they used which type of fuel etc - the resulting colour mix would not show any correlation whatsoever.


edc

9,235 posts

251 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
cmoose - does it really matter? Your initial repeated queries were asking hartech to comment re ethanol. They were evidently ignored in the first few instances, then almost under duress, he writes that the business has not been investigating that as an issue nor collecting any data but if he were to fill in this hypothetical coloured spreadsheet it most likely would not show any correlation. No claims are made about the quality of the hypothetical data. And seemingly there is no trend data to suggest it is worth diverting resources to investigate it as a possible root cause. Hartech wrote that they were happy to write about things which they had researched and had confidence in or were in their mind proven yet you keep badgering him and goading him to respond re ethanol. if he really wanted to write anything about ethanol I'm sure he would!

WinstonWolf

72,857 posts

239 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
edc said:
cmoose - does it really matter? Your initial repeated queries were asking hartech to comment re ethanol. They were evidently ignored in the first few instances, then almost under duress, he writes that the business has not been investigating that as an issue nor collecting any data but if he were to fill in this hypothetical coloured spreadsheet it most likely would not show any correlation. No claims are made about the quality of the hypothetical data. And seemingly there is no trend data to suggest it is worth diverting resources to investigate it as a possible root cause. Hartech wrote that they were happy to write about things which they had researched and had confidence in or were in their mind proven yet you keep badgering him and goading him to respond re ethanol. if he really wanted to write anything about ethanol I'm sure he would!
yes

RudeDog

1,652 posts

174 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
EricE said:
RudeDog said:
Ran a 987c Cayman S for three years between the age of 3 and 6 years old (30-80k miles). You can see what it cost me and a full breakdown of breakdowns in my profile (under My Garage).
Wow - what happened?

Then again £800 per year for the extended Porsche Approved warranty and Minor/Major service for £600/900 adds up too...

Edited by EricE on Thursday 6th November 19:31
That's the thing, nothing major happened, these cars just cost a fortune to run. Simple stuff like an electric window regulator ends up costing ~£500 when it should cost about £80.

You should be able to see the full breakdown of costs if you click on the "Blog" tab under the car in My Garage.

RudeDog

1,652 posts

174 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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mollytherocker said:
RudeDog said:
Ran a 987c Cayman S for three years between the age of 3 and 6 years old (30-80k miles). You can see what it cost me and a full breakdown of breakdowns in my profile (under My Garage).

Would thoroughly recommend the car to drive but I won't be going back in to Porsche ownership again unless it has a warranty.

Good luck with your search!
Hells bells! I bet you could have leased a new one for half the cost!
Now leasing a new C63 for about half the cost smile

WinstonWolf

72,857 posts

239 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
You have asked the question and been given an answer. You might not like the answer, but you have been given one.

hartech

1,929 posts

217 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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I don't know if the following helps but I went to great lengths to explain that good engineers with excellent reputations have a developed mechanism to correlate lots of information in their heads from which they combine their educations and experience to come up with conclusions from very little sample sizes.

I also said that to work out who is really good at this - one way is to see if they compete in motorsport events and if so how well they do - because that is exactly the test I would always apply if I could and people at the front always know how to achieve that good outcome.

I also explained they do not always agree but that the more samples you have the better the outcome and therefore those with the largest sample sizes learn the most and those that fix the most engines or cars satisfactorily should be the most reliable.

I also mentioned how the "in house" access to machining equipment to make samples, prototypes and test them is an additional benefit which we also enjoy.

The question was asked "how can readers know who to believe"?

So I made it clear (I thought) that there is no practical way anyone can absolutely prove any solution or explanation is right as it would take too many cars, drivers, alternative test options and years to work out - even for Porsche themselves.

You are unfortunately left having to make up you own mind about who to believe and where to go if you need help. All I have tried to do is convey a huge amount of technical reasons in a way I hope readers at different levels will understand and explain why we think our solutions and explanations are right and our background and facilities reliable and up to the job. Our customer satisfaction backs that up as well.

I also tried hard to avoid conflict that would not be productive in the larger scheme of things.

Sorry my attempts do not seem to suit everyone - perhaps some of the other vaunted specialists would like to contribute why they think they have a better explanation or solution than us to generate a proper level of technical discussion and enable readers to judge the outcome.

Baz

Trev450

6,321 posts

172 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
hartech said:
Sorry my attempts do not seem to suit everyone - perhaps some of the other vaunted specialists would like to contribute why they think they have a better explanation or solution than us to generate a proper level of technical discussion and enable readers to judge the outcome.
Baz
The absence of input from other specialists could be interpreted from a number of different perspectives. Thus far,you appear to be the only one who is prepared to explain the issues that these engines can suffer from and to offer long-term solutions. I for one am grateful for this.

gt3nor

113 posts

160 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
Hi.

I claim that ethanol is not a factor, based on the following facts from Norway:
98 octan fuel has 0% ethanol.
95 octan fuel has for the most part 0% ethanol. One oil company and fuel station chain (Statoil) started introducing E5 (5% ethanol) in 95 octan fuel in 2010, but even this single company has not replaced regular 95 octan with E5 within this year at all stations. No other fuel stations in Norway offers E5 at the moment.

Porsche engines in Norway has suffered plenty of the well-known problems discussed in this (and numerous other) threads, and that for a long time.

If ethanol was an important factor, Norway should have close to 0 of these failures due to the lack of ethanol in the fuel, but that is not the case.

In my opinion, the lack of ethanol in the Norwegian fuel combined with seemingly just as large number of engine failures as anywhere else is empirical evidence of ethanol not being a big factor for the spesific Porsche engine failures.

Corky

704 posts

240 months

Friday 21st November 2014
quotequote all
Trev450 said:
The absence of input from other specialists could be interpreted from a number of different perspectives. Thus far,you appear to be the only one who is prepared to explain the issues that these engines can suffer from and to offer long-term solutions. I for one am grateful for this.
Plus one.

hartech

1,929 posts

217 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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Good stuff especially as we have already repaired 2 cars with bore scoring from Norway.

Baz

westwood35

123 posts

183 months

Friday 21st November 2014
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We have a very good customer in Switzerland for our Porsche cylinder liners. We saw him last week in Germany and he had recently met with some of his freinds who all work at Porsche.

He said that none of them had a definite answer for the scoring issues. They had many theories but could not confirm a specific cause.

I would be very surprised if Porsche ever admitted the actual cause, as this would legally cause them many issues. Having already supplied liners for the Panamera, I hope we are not seeing another Porsche model with a problem. It would be good for business, but not good for the owners!!

911wise

1,867 posts

209 months

Saturday 22nd November 2014
quotequote all
RudeDog said:
EricE said:
RudeDog said:
Ran a 987c Cayman S for three years between the age of 3 and 6 years old (30-80k miles). You can see what it cost me and a full breakdown of breakdowns in my profile (under My Garage).
Wow - what happened?

Then again £800 per year for the extended Porsche Approved warranty and Minor/Major service for £600/900 adds up too...

Edited by EricE on Thursday 6th November 19:31
That's the thing, nothing major happened, these cars just cost a fortune to run. Simple stuff like an electric window regulator ends up costing ~£500 when it should cost about £80.

You should be able to see the full breakdown of costs if you click on the "Blog" tab under the car in My Garage.
Nice to see an honest picture of the true costs involved with these cars. Better than the usual "mine only costs peanuts to run" if I gloss over a few major factors.

drmark

4,836 posts

186 months

Saturday 22nd November 2014
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
You mean there are no data - data being plural. teacher
Dr Pedant

monthefish

20,443 posts

231 months

Saturday 22nd November 2014
quotequote all
monthefish said:
hartech said:
But all the engines fitted with ferrous coated pistons would be green (this is all the engines from Boxster 2.5 up to most of the early 996 3.4 engines) - no bore scoring. All the engines made after the pistons coating was changed to a "plastic" coating would be BLUE (not RED including the last of the 996 3.4 engines, Cayman 3.4S and all larger engines with Lokasil cylinders) - because it only affects one side of the engine (bank 2).
Thanks Baz. All interesting stuff.

Is the date for the cut off/change known? (bold bit)
Baz - trivial question perhaps getting lost in the bigger issues, but do you know the answer to this one?

Thanks.

hartech

1,929 posts

217 months

Sunday 23rd November 2014
quotequote all
I'll try and find out for you but if the different IMS bearing and shaft design changes are anything to by there could be quite a long period during which either could have been fitted!

Baz