Boxster engine issues - have they fixed them?
Discussion
Having owned several 911's over the years, I am considering a Boxster (2005 or later) and have been hearing the odd story about serious engine issues, half time bearing failures etc. My question is: Did Porscehe definitively address these known faults by a certain time? as in: am I safe with an 06 onwards (or whenever)
Does anyone know?
Cheers
GG
Does anyone know?
Cheers
GG
In a word, no. You might want to look at this thread though:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Trev450 said:
In a word, no. You might want to look at this thread though:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
In a word, yes.http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
The gen 2 Boxster/Cayman has the new dfi engine which so far has been impressively resilient. They arrived in about '09 though so you might have to pay a bit more for peace of mind.
betternotbigger said:
Trev450 said:
In a word, no. You might want to look at this thread though:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
In a word, yes.http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
The gen 2 Boxster/Cayman has the new dfi engine which so far has been impressively resilient. They arrived in about '09 though so you might have to pay a bit more for peace of mind.
These IMS, RMS and bore scoring issues have put me off buying a Porsche. As has been said, these issues are clearly fairly common but the percentage of failures is unknown....meanwhile my neighbour has run around in his 05 Boxster (a low mileage example) for three years, oblivious to all of the above and has had no issues whatsoever.
Bite the bullet or not, that's the question.
Bite the bullet or not, that's the question.
betternotbigger said:
In a word, yes.
The gen 2 Boxster/Cayman has the new dfi engine which so far has been impressively resilient. They arrived in about '09 though so you might have to pay a bit more for peace of mind.
Maybe they are resilient so far because they only arrived 3 years ago ?The gen 2 Boxster/Cayman has the new dfi engine which so far has been impressively resilient. They arrived in about '09 though so you might have to pay a bit more for peace of mind.
I think it's way too early to draw any conclusions, either way.
It's only taken Porsche 13 years to get rid of the IMS, so other issues may take a bit longer to be ironed out.
the fact that the dfi is in turbos now and with no problems plus we should know soon enough when the dfi goes racing ala gt3.oops it already has in the states in caymans and boxsters with no problems,so problems would have surfaced by now,why,well they raced gen1 caymans when new out early 2006 and problems soon showed up.i agree the pdk may be the weak spot it already had problems early after release
Would be interested to know how many of the armchair pundits here actually own one of these cars or actually have objective data. If you actually bothered to read the detail of Hartech's reports then you will know that the Boxster doesn't suffer from bore scoring. The IMS bearing can be replaced with a new design - relatively easy to access if the clutch is being done. Do it if youre worried. As discussed, RMS has a fix and in a downside gives a minor oil leak - which would be monitored electronically by the car anyway. There are a lot of these cars on the road running happily. I've had a Boxster for 5 years and have spent very little on it above scheduled maintenance. I ran an M3 for two years during this time and spent a much larger amount on mods to make up for its deficiencies (brakes, bushes, suspension, air con condensors etc etc). The schadenfreude crowd should get a life.
nickfrog said:
It's only taken Porsche 13 years to get rid of the IMS, so other issues may take a bit longer to be ironed out.
Err, try more like 40 years. All air-cooled engines have an intermediate shaft AFAIK and it's not a problem area - the problem with the water-cooled ones is the inadequate specification of the bearing, not the principle of having an intermediate shaft.
Also, the 987 Boxster S does fall into the bore scoring category. - I'm still a bit confused about this. I asked a direct question on the lower temperature thermostat thread and the answer seemed to be that there are some components which are different between the Boxster and Cayman 3.4 engines which mean that the Boxster engine is not prone to bore scoring (I have a vested interest as I own a 3.4 Boxster S (non DFI). I was a bit confused as nowhere in the Hartech technical info did it mention the 3.4 Boxster when discussing bore scoring so I wanted clarification.
So far it seems that bore scoring issues mainly affect the Cayman S, 3.6 and 3.8 996 and 997 engines - due to some changes in materials and the design of some parts.
Bore scoring is not a new phenomenon and has been a problem in engines with silicon alloy bores for some 40 years - during which time several solutions have been found.
Most solutions are covered by patents and licences so it can be difficult to provide a new part or parts to provide a cost effective answer.
Cost reduction exercises to enable Porsche to survive past their financial crisis in the early '90's (when they were designing these engines) may have influenced the outcome (but may not it is impossible for us to find out).
Nikasil bores (as we use in our present solutions) are known to be extremely reliable but are also expensive.
Generation 2 engines still have silicon alloy bores (but not Lokasil) - Alusil instead (as used in the 944's and 968's). This is less expensive than Nikasil (as used in turbos, GT3's (that cost more to cover it) and older 911's (that they made a loss manufacturing)).
How reliable the 2nd generation engines will prove to be will depend on how much was spent on some of the other related components and how the cooling was designed.
I guess they should have learned from the previous experiences and therefore they should be much more reliable than the generation 1 engines.
Older 2.5 and 2.7 Boxsters, and 3.4 996's should not have a bore scoring issue (unless something else is seriously wrong like a leaking radiator, cracked head or cylinder or damaged coolant pump). The 3.2S will however still be slightly prone to cylinder or head cracks at higher mileages (unless the bores are re-shaped and restrained by converting to a closed deck design during a rebuild). Early 2.5's may slip liners (fitted by Porsche to recover scrap blocks) and the IMS bearing will also be an issue.
Generation 2 engines should not crack bores - already being a closed deck design.
Generally manufacturers could have avoided both of these problems of cracked bores and scored bores by spending more on the engine during the design and specification (as they did with the turbos and GT range etc). I feel sure they thought they had got the balance right but as it is impossible for them to reproduce tests that cover what will happen next out there in the real World - some years later and in car with different driving styles, owners and care - they will have found out too late that their design had a few flaws for a small number of engines - and found out too late to do anything constructive about it except design out the problem in future engines.
They then have a choice of what to do about it for existing customers - helping can be seen as an admission of a fault (with massive potential legal complications and costs and loss of confidence in the product) - they do have a warranty scheme etc - and we all know how they decided to handle it and they still sell cars and seem to have overcome the problems with the new models (although only time will tell).
Meanwhile owners of the models affected can resort to protection through the Porsche warranty, a Maintenance plan or accept the possibility to have an engine rebuild during their ownership and factoring the costs into their purchase decision.
Boxsters are a relatively reliable version with only the IMS bearing being a slight weak spot and perhaps cracked heads an even rarer possibility.
Baz
Bore scoring is not a new phenomenon and has been a problem in engines with silicon alloy bores for some 40 years - during which time several solutions have been found.
Most solutions are covered by patents and licences so it can be difficult to provide a new part or parts to provide a cost effective answer.
Cost reduction exercises to enable Porsche to survive past their financial crisis in the early '90's (when they were designing these engines) may have influenced the outcome (but may not it is impossible for us to find out).
Nikasil bores (as we use in our present solutions) are known to be extremely reliable but are also expensive.
Generation 2 engines still have silicon alloy bores (but not Lokasil) - Alusil instead (as used in the 944's and 968's). This is less expensive than Nikasil (as used in turbos, GT3's (that cost more to cover it) and older 911's (that they made a loss manufacturing)).
How reliable the 2nd generation engines will prove to be will depend on how much was spent on some of the other related components and how the cooling was designed.
I guess they should have learned from the previous experiences and therefore they should be much more reliable than the generation 1 engines.
Older 2.5 and 2.7 Boxsters, and 3.4 996's should not have a bore scoring issue (unless something else is seriously wrong like a leaking radiator, cracked head or cylinder or damaged coolant pump). The 3.2S will however still be slightly prone to cylinder or head cracks at higher mileages (unless the bores are re-shaped and restrained by converting to a closed deck design during a rebuild). Early 2.5's may slip liners (fitted by Porsche to recover scrap blocks) and the IMS bearing will also be an issue.
Generation 2 engines should not crack bores - already being a closed deck design.
Generally manufacturers could have avoided both of these problems of cracked bores and scored bores by spending more on the engine during the design and specification (as they did with the turbos and GT range etc). I feel sure they thought they had got the balance right but as it is impossible for them to reproduce tests that cover what will happen next out there in the real World - some years later and in car with different driving styles, owners and care - they will have found out too late that their design had a few flaws for a small number of engines - and found out too late to do anything constructive about it except design out the problem in future engines.
They then have a choice of what to do about it for existing customers - helping can be seen as an admission of a fault (with massive potential legal complications and costs and loss of confidence in the product) - they do have a warranty scheme etc - and we all know how they decided to handle it and they still sell cars and seem to have overcome the problems with the new models (although only time will tell).
Meanwhile owners of the models affected can resort to protection through the Porsche warranty, a Maintenance plan or accept the possibility to have an engine rebuild during their ownership and factoring the costs into their purchase decision.
Boxsters are a relatively reliable version with only the IMS bearing being a slight weak spot and perhaps cracked heads an even rarer possibility.
Baz
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