Over 200K Miles.... Still works.
Discussion
Serviced my 996 today, it's an early 99 C4. I also tend to use it everday so it racks up anywhere from 200 to 750 miles a week. It has 10K mile oil changes but aside from that has very little in the way of extra pampering and has now covered 206K'ish miles (the dash packed up at 155K miles and there was a few weeks running with no odo before one turned up on ebay). It also does a few track days when the opportunity presents itself.
It's pretty much standard engine wise bar having had the aircon removed (so no condensors in front of the coolant rads), an X51 style sump, no cats, relatively open air filter etc. but no third rads, low temp stats or IMS replacements.
As it was due plugs I thought I'd put the bore scope in it and....... it's fine, totally fine! Very light amount of scuffing on the thrust faces on all cylinders but no more than is to be expected given its age the mileage its covered and I do mean light, the kind of scuffing you see on a sporty Duratec after a few hours.
I thought I better have a look as I noticed it had a light tap from cold start now the temperature has dropped which went away as the coolant temp came up. On close inspection this appears to be a slightly lazy tappet on no.1 cylinder so that's one to ignore. This engine is so old and has so many miles it's not worth major surgery for that.
In it's recent past it's always been run on 0W/40 Mobil 1 and it consumes about 150ml per thousand miles. It generally has an extra litre two thirds of the way towards its next service.
It's still on the original clutch, diffs and gearbox..... massive amounts of stone chips aside, shrunken rubbers and slightly saggy drivers seat bolster it even scrubs up pretty well!
Consensous says early 3.4 had the better IMS and doesn't suffer from scuffing in the same way as the later 3.6 and this seems to prove out here. Has anyone else got one that seems to keep soldiering on regardless?
It's pretty much standard engine wise bar having had the aircon removed (so no condensors in front of the coolant rads), an X51 style sump, no cats, relatively open air filter etc. but no third rads, low temp stats or IMS replacements.
As it was due plugs I thought I'd put the bore scope in it and....... it's fine, totally fine! Very light amount of scuffing on the thrust faces on all cylinders but no more than is to be expected given its age the mileage its covered and I do mean light, the kind of scuffing you see on a sporty Duratec after a few hours.
I thought I better have a look as I noticed it had a light tap from cold start now the temperature has dropped which went away as the coolant temp came up. On close inspection this appears to be a slightly lazy tappet on no.1 cylinder so that's one to ignore. This engine is so old and has so many miles it's not worth major surgery for that.
In it's recent past it's always been run on 0W/40 Mobil 1 and it consumes about 150ml per thousand miles. It generally has an extra litre two thirds of the way towards its next service.
It's still on the original clutch, diffs and gearbox..... massive amounts of stone chips aside, shrunken rubbers and slightly saggy drivers seat bolster it even scrubs up pretty well!
Consensous says early 3.4 had the better IMS and doesn't suffer from scuffing in the same way as the later 3.6 and this seems to prove out here. Has anyone else got one that seems to keep soldiering on regardless?
mollytherocker said:
Very impressive BUT!
How long have you had it and how do you know its not either been rebuilt or had an engine change previously?
I'm responsible for over 80K of them. It has a huge amount of service history none of which relates to having had a motor, Porsche have no record of it having warranty work aside from a failed pas electric mirror in 2003, its never had an engine number change according to the DVLA and the number on the block is as per line, the engine mount nuts had never been removed until I fitted some RSS mounts a while back and all the cable tie retainers and similar are still in place and undamaged. Having had a good sniff around it earlier today there are other pointers, like the direction of marking on the bell housing bolts which show they've only ever had torque in one direction.How long have you had it and how do you know its not either been rebuilt or had an engine change previously?
I did a bit of research as until a few weeks ago I was certain it had been rebuilt at some point... because all 996s blow up before 100K right?
On balance all the evidence points to it being original. Rockster - Wow good mileage! 
I wonder if mine will make it to 300K?
If we're doing a full list of bits replaced I am at:
- Dampers and springs, swapped for KW V1 at 160K miles.
- Front coffin arms at the same time, rears were fine.
- Top mounts and bearings also done at the same time, they were actually okay it just seemed rude not to!
- Radiators are original but as discussed it has done a lot of miles with no aircon so the issue of rotting rads due to debris trapped between the coils is mute on this one.
- Aircon packed up and went in the bin at 177K miles, I only miss it two weeks a year if that.
- Original exhausts were all done at 133K miles. Now has generic stainless items on there with Design 911 decat pipes.
- Brakes get replaced every 30 - 40K miles. Usually pads at 20K but I run a soft pad.
- Rear link ball joints developed play at around 140K miles, I made some rose jointed ones to replace them so the rose joints generally get replaced once a year or so when they are worn.
- Dash broke as above and was replaced for an e-bay one. Most of it still worked fine but the LCD speedo display had lost two digits.
- Gear linkage front end fell apart at 180K and was replaced with a short shift.
MAF, Coils, Variocam actuators etc. are all original.
Not working list is pretty short. Air con (as it's in a box in the garage, reverse lights (never worked in my ownership). Aside from that it's all still good! I think on average it has around a week of maintenance/jobs done over the course of a year and 30 - 40K miles.
I wonder if mine will make it to 300K? If we're doing a full list of bits replaced I am at:
- Dampers and springs, swapped for KW V1 at 160K miles.
- Front coffin arms at the same time, rears were fine.
- Top mounts and bearings also done at the same time, they were actually okay it just seemed rude not to!
- Radiators are original but as discussed it has done a lot of miles with no aircon so the issue of rotting rads due to debris trapped between the coils is mute on this one.
- Aircon packed up and went in the bin at 177K miles, I only miss it two weeks a year if that.
- Original exhausts were all done at 133K miles. Now has generic stainless items on there with Design 911 decat pipes.
- Brakes get replaced every 30 - 40K miles. Usually pads at 20K but I run a soft pad.
- Rear link ball joints developed play at around 140K miles, I made some rose jointed ones to replace them so the rose joints generally get replaced once a year or so when they are worn.
- Dash broke as above and was replaced for an e-bay one. Most of it still worked fine but the LCD speedo display had lost two digits.
- Gear linkage front end fell apart at 180K and was replaced with a short shift.
MAF, Coils, Variocam actuators etc. are all original.
Not working list is pretty short. Air con (as it's in a box in the garage, reverse lights (never worked in my ownership). Aside from that it's all still good! I think on average it has around a week of maintenance/jobs done over the course of a year and 30 - 40K miles.
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