996-997 wet-sump engine reliability: enter your stats here!

996-997 wet-sump engine reliability: enter your stats here!

Author
Discussion

Jivaldinho

9 posts

114 months

Sunday 12th March 2017
quotequote all
Seeing as I Just got my car back from an engine rebuild I thought I would contribute.

2000 996 C4, purchased with a little over 100K Miles, Engine Rebuilt on 144K Miles

Bore Score on Cylinders 2 and 5 I think, Rebuilt Engine and though the IMS was solid on inspection I had it replaced seeing as engine was already out. Hoping the Engine will keep going for another 144K Miles

nebpor

3,753 posts

234 months

Thursday 4th May 2017
quotequote all
1999 3.4 C2, 88K miles, no issues

Rocketsocks

143 posts

137 months

Wednesday 4th October 2017
quotequote all
1998 C2 3.4. The original engine waved the little white flag at 87k miles.

Hartech then spun their spanners around the oily bits (in the form of a complete rebuild). Almost 40k miles later, the engine has proved to be bombproof and the car is as reliable as daylight.

LordHaveMurci

12,034 posts

168 months

Wednesday 4th October 2017
quotequote all
Jivaldinho said:
Seeing as I Just got my car back from an engine rebuild I thought I would contribute.

2000 996 C4, purchased with a little over 100K Miles, Engine Rebuilt on 144K Miles

Bore Score on Cylinders 2 and 5 I think, Rebuilt Engine and though the IMS was solid on inspection I had it replaced seeing as engine was already out. Hoping the Engine will keep going for another 144K Miles
I thought bore score on the 3.4's was virtually unheard of - did you just get very unlucky?

Redbaron1973

637 posts

252 months

Wednesday 25th October 2017
quotequote all
06 MY 997 C2S - no engine work or oil leaks 76k

hartech

1,929 posts

216 months

Wednesday 25th October 2017
quotequote all
They can be reasonably reliable. When they were first used for racing in the UK (Boxster 3.2 and later 3.4 and 996 3.4) they were quite unreliable - but things have improved since and we built several race engines (standard Hartech spec) last winter for the 2017 season and they won all 3 Championships they were entered into and were 100% reliable (Mark McAleer PCGB Class1, Jake McAleer PCGB class2, Mark McAleer PCGB Overall championship, Mark and Jake PCGB Team award, Ed Hayes BRSCC TOYO Tires Championship only being beaten occasionally at the end of the season by James Coleman (after having a Hartech engine rebuild) and another engine obtained a 2nd in a Spa endurance event.

Ed (who won the BRSCC Championship) also finished all 22 races on the podium as well with 15 wins, 4 seconds and 3 thirds.

This reliability under severe strain was achieved as a result of continually trying to solve problems over many years, testing solutions and persevering with ideas finally achieving the desired result.

Incidentally we also put something back into the sport by allowing those customers with Hartech built engines and displaying our "Hartech powered" decals to be rewarded by a podium based points system that has overall earned them over £8000 and will enable all three to have their engines rebuilt free of any labour costs this winter while some other competitors with Hartech engines have earned a contribution.

However the PCGB class in introducing the 3.8 engine next season and we expect this to have particular and specific additional problems (not the least of which relates to crankshaft flexure) which we are currently working on and will shortly be testing a solution for.

Generally the Boxster 3.2 engines are acceptably reliable, the 996 3.4 with ferrous coated pistons can suffer cylinder ovality, cracking and "D" chunking while the pater versions with plastic coated pistons, the 3.6, 3.8 and Cayman S versions - can score bores.

Crankshafts and shell bearings are usually worn out by 80-100K and if the crankshaft fails as a result it can wreck the engines but most are looked after better and driven more carefully as they get new owners (as the cars age) and can push on to over 150K.

Variations in the casting quality of the Lokasil preforms can influence longevity (and there is little anyone can do about that until they fail) and prevous owners can thrash the cars and use the thinner oil for too long and this also shortens longevity.

They are still brilliant cars and with a properly rebuilt engine (addressing many of the weak spots) at the right time or after a mild failure - they seem to be exceptionally reliable once again.

Baz


fot0

101 posts

173 months

Saturday 28th October 2017
quotequote all
1999 996 C4
98K Head crack Cyl. 1
Head repaired & I am in the process of rebuilding
Bores are clean above piston crown at least.

Neilfc

1 posts

124 months

Sunday 12th November 2017
quotequote all
Recently sold 2002 996 C2 facelift owned for 10 years with 75,000 miles from 19,000. No problem.

Porka986

6 posts

68 months

Thursday 28th March 2019
quotequote all
1999 Boxster, 2.5L, 98k Miles, No engine work what so ever.
1999 Carrera 4, 3.4, 75k Miles - RMS Replaced @ 68,000, no other major issues in it's history, i'm new to this car.

My friend who will never post on here has a 1998 C2 3.4 - 150k miles, no engine work what so ever.

Edited by Porka986 on Thursday 28th March 14:35


Edited by Porka986 on Thursday 28th March 14:36

Sturminator911

49 posts

151 months

Wednesday 26th February 2020
quotequote all
2002 996 Targa purchased at 63k miles in 2011, so now in 9th year of my ownership.

Engine failed at 93k miles last July, diagnosed as a value seat cylinder 3 letting go. Just completed running in period post a full Hartech rebuild. Went for a full rebuild of all 6 cylinders & the works as car is a keeper. Guess I was unlucky as this valve seat issue is as I understand it, a rarer failure in these engines.

Chris Stott

13,191 posts

196 months

Wednesday 26th February 2020
quotequote all
Jan 2000 c2. Manual. 177k miles. Original
Engine.

andy-ski

78 posts

189 months

Wednesday 26th February 2020
quotequote all
2002 Boxster 2.7 sold last year on 149k miles, no engine work and almost zero oil consumption over the 50k I drove it.

porkey

630 posts

171 months

Thursday 27th February 2020
quotequote all
996 3.4. C2. 1999. 56000 miles. No oil leaks, no oil consumption. No rebuild.

MGR

195 posts

187 months

Saturday 11th April 2020
quotequote all
911 997.1 C2S 89K

Now going in for a rebuild due to bore scoring (cylinder 6 confirmed, will know how bad the rest are after its apart) . This is the 2nd time the engine has been apart in its history (although the 1st time was not bore scoring).

For anyone interested in symptoms, it was pretty clear my car had an issue - I didn't know what to look for but it started to smoke on startup if left for a few days, this got worse and worse over a few thousand miles. Then the oil consumption got worse, and finally when idling you could tell there was an issue with a knocking noise from the engine. I did google this and there are a lot of people claiming its common for the cars smoke on startup however mine never did previously badly enough to notice it.

I followed all the advise about driving style (no standing starts etc, changing the oil very regularly, making sure the cooling was working etc) and still had the issue. Its been used as a motorway car for me - 85% of the miles over the last 30k have been motorway cruise at 70 ish so its had a very gentle life.

Pretty disappointed its had the issue, as I had dismissed the issue as unlikely to happen given the age of the car and my usage.



Olivera

7,068 posts

238 months

Saturday 11th April 2020
quotequote all
MGR said:
911 997.1 C2S 89K

This is the 2nd time the engine has been apart in its history (although the 1st time was not bore scoring).
...

85% of the miles over the last 30k have been motorway cruise at 70 ish so its had a very gentle life.

Pretty disappointed its had the issue, as I had dismissed the issue as unlikely to happen given the age of the car and my usage.
Sorry to hear that.

Abjectly bad that it's going onto it's third engine in 89k miles of gentle use. It makes you wonder how many engines it would be on if it was used in a harder fashion...

cvega

402 posts

158 months

Monday 17th August 2020
quotequote all
996 3.6, 146k miles, recent Millers oil report had nothing of interest in it, a bit smoky. Maybe i'll rebuild it in a year or two and likely do a 3.9.

noumenon

1,281 posts

203 months

Monday 11th October 2021
quotequote all

Is there an established pecking order of most to least reliable for these engines?

nunpuncher

3,364 posts

124 months

Monday 24th January 2022
quotequote all
General consensus from worst to least worse.
3.8 (997.1 S models) - pretty likely it'll need a rebuild due to borescoring eventually
3.6 (996.2 and 997.1 non S models) - Could suffer borescoring and the 996 versions could suffer IMS failure
3.4 (996.1) - Rarely suffer borescoring, most have dual row IMS, can suffer cracked heads.

When it comes to things like IMS failure and cracked heads a lot of people say if it was going to happen it would have happened by now as many of the cars are 20+ years old (talking about the 3.4). The difference with borescoring is that it's a cumulative issue so the older the car gets the more likely it becomes an issue.

They are all getting on in age and mileage now and there's lots of other bits that can go wrong same as any other mechanical thing. If you buy knowing the potential then you can only be surprised if it never happens.

bennno

11,516 posts

268 months

Thursday 16th February 2023
quotequote all

I owned 3 x 996’s from new to 50k miles, no bore scoring but one lost 2nd gear synchro and had a new gearbox.

Tony P-P

3 posts

13 months

Sunday 21st May 2023
quotequote all
Only just spotted this thread, and see it is pretty old and possibly long forgotten, but FWIW:

996 C2 1999.
Owned since 2003, regular use as only or mail car including some years of daily commute, in recent years mostly weekends only.
c.80k miles when bought in 2003, now 160k miles. Still the original engine, no surprise issues in my 20 years (i.e. just usual age-related/wear issues).

Cheers.