Tommy's 996.2 Carrera 2

[Toml]

Hello all

I've been on here a few months now and thought it's about time I started a journal.

As a bit of background, I have been a BMW man through and through since 2007 when I bought an old E36 328i to turn into a dedicated track car. It was my first RWD car and it turned out to be an incredible 'giant killer' on track and set off a long line of BMWs which included:

E36 328i track car eventually turned into a 350 bhp race car that my friend and I raced in just two races as it just wasn't the right time (babies!)
E36 M3 Evo road and track car
130i - went to town on AC Schnitzer and other parts
E46 M3 road and track car
M135i - current daily driver

Having spent many years doing track days in those different BMWs I started to feel bored. The cars are relatively easy to drive fast and I fancied a change. Step in Porsche!

Originally I was looking at 986 Boxster S's but then that changed to 987s, then back to 986s, then settled on 996! This is my first Porsche and the intention is to use it for driving trips and track days.

It's a 2002 996.2 Carrera 2 in Arctic silver metallic and Graphite grey leather, 80,000 miles and the following build codes:

09991 manufacture from the exclusive-programme
375 Color coded seat backs
411 18" Carrera wheels
425 Rear wiper
476 Porsche stability management
567 Windshield green graduated tint
692 Remote CD changer (6-disc)
936 Leather seats rear
981 All leather lining
983 Leather seats front and rear
C16 UK LUX spec: tinted windows, metallic paint, and a few other goodies.
X71 Aluminum Instrument Dials
X97 Aluminium/leather shift knob
X98 Aluminium/leather parking brake handle

I picked up the car at the beginning of March However, I'm not so sure my car actually has the option handbrake fitted as it looks pretty standard to me.

In the first week of ownership I was happy to find no drops of oil on the garage floor however I did notice the coolant level was low so I topped it up and went for a drive and on my return I found it low again. Let's hope it's just a split hose or expansion tank!

I booked the car into a Porsche specialist soon after purchase as it was overdue a minor service and to get a full inspection and report to understand what needs doing to bring it back to rude health. Even though the car drove very well indeed, I was very much expecting a long list of items as the previous owner only did a major service and no other fixes in over 3 years of ownership.

Some photos when I first picked up the car

 

[T8]

A belated :welcome: to 911uk Tommy.

Before discovering the absolute joy of 911 ownership I had an E46 328Ci for a few years and absolutely loved it. An E46 M3 was the only other car on my short-list when I bought my 996.

You're right, your aluminium handbrake should look like this.



Yours looks a nice car. Looking forward to hearing of your exploits in it. :thumb:

 

[jezgreen911]

:welcome: Never mind the list of jobs that need doing, how long is the list of modifications that you want to do!? :thumb:

 

[BHZ661]

Great looking car, and nice spec Tommy :thumbs:

 

[Ursa911]

Nice looking tidy car, love the wing mirrors. Nice tidy garage to keep store it, enjoy her

 

[stevepen]

Everything looks immaculate, car, garage, drive, fence and grass!

 

[TwinBoost]

Welcome. Car looks good :thumbs:

I too had an e36 328. I'm guessing you're on bmwowner.com too? I was on there for a few years. :bye:

 

[Toml]

Thanks for all the warm welcomes and comments.

Shame my car no longer has the aluminum hand brake.

I fully intended to write more instalments yesterday but things got in the way. The list of what's been done so far, what's still to do and a wish list of mods of course!

The immaculate garage etc is a bit of a cheat. It's a new build house that we've only recently moved into :lol:

 

[Toml]

Welcome. Car looks good :thumbs:

I too had an e36 328. I'm guessing you're on bmwowner.com too? I was on there for a few years. :bye:

Cheers and yes I'm on bmwowner.com too. Been on there since 2007 and still check in but generally only to the long running banter thread.

So to pick up where I left off, in the first week of owning the car I booked it into a Porsche specialist in Huntingdon for a minor service and full check over.

I pointed them in the direction of the faults I had already found such as a possible coolant 'leak', noisy climate system, the fact the climate system only blew ambient air unless you set it to 'Hi' when it would then toast your balls off. I also had intermittent PSM and ABS warnings.

The issues found were:

1. Very slight leak from the IMS. It is so slight that it doesn't drip. He did say it looks like it's just sweating out and has been doing so for a long time judging by the oil residue found on the underside of the engine. I did think to myself, 'are the under trays catching the leak?' which leads to point 2

2. The car is missing all the under trays! This came as a bit of a shock to me. How the hell does a car 'lose' ALL its under trays? Apparently a 996 has 5 or 6 of them! I called the previous owner and he said he only found out the same when he took the car for its first service! So I've looked up these parts and was very happy to find they aren't silly expensive. Around £50-£100 each. I'll get these done as a lower priority. Regardless that all the under trays are missing, Martin said that the car was in very good shape underneath in terms of the lack of heavy rust. He was quite surprised.

3. On removal of the sump Martin was happy to report it was all very clean, no gunk, everything was the right colour, there was no metallic residue anywhere. Relief!

4. The hvac system. So the noise is coming from the a/c compressor and Martin recommends it is replaced. With regard to sensors, I did some reading up about the no heat/max heat issue I have and it looked like the cabin temp sensor inside the passenger side air vent is the culprit. I've since ordered a secondhand one, fitted it and the temp works properly now. That leaves the compressor and the lack of cold air.

5. The water pump has very slight play and none of the usual weak points in the cooling system seem to be leaking e.g. the expansion tank seems fine, as do the rads and other usual weak links. I must admit, since my last coolant top up the level doesn't seem to have moved.

6. The ABS and PSM errors have not stored any codes. I did continue to get intermittent errors when I got the car back so I bought and fitted a new brake pedal switch and that has cured the issue.

7. There were some stored codes around one of the variocam solenoids intermittently not working. Martin said to keep an eye on this rather than go for an immediate replacement.

Some photos. The sump:



The underneath:



The IMS leak:





The cabin temp sensor that I replaced:

 

[Toml]

Before getting into what I decided to fix on the car, some photos:









And here's the before and after of renovating my headlights using a Meguiars kit






And polished

 

[Halcyon]

The headlight renovation is night and day improvement!

Just asking, but you mention IMS leak, do you mean RMS?
IMS = Itermediate Main Shaft bearing
RMS = Rear Meain Seal

i hate TLA's too :grin: :hand:

 

[Toml]

The headlight renovation is night and day improvement!

Just asking, but you mention IMS leak, do you mean RMS?
IMS = Itermediate Main Shaft bearing
RMS = Rear Meain Seal

i hate TLA's too :grin: :hand:

Thanks. I recommend the headlight renovation kit by Meguiars. Dead easy to use and a great finish as shown in the photos

Regarding the ims the guy did say ims but thinking about it, he couldn't really know whether it was the ims or rms since he didn't remove the gearbox.

After thinking through the list of jobs that needed doing I decided to ring round a couple of indies as I didn't get a great feeling for the guy who did the service and check up. Other indies told me the noisy hvac was much more likely an empty system rather than a dying compressor, and my research on this forum corroborated that. That sealed it for me in terms of not returning to that first garage to get my list of work done.

 

[BHZ661]

Sorry to hear about poor experiance from garage , hopefully you will find a good one next time

 

[Toml]

Here's a photo of the Meguiars product.



Apparently it has 'exclusive wool pad technology' :lol:

Some close ups to see the finish, and the new LED sidelights I fitted.



Sidelight on but a relatively close photo so it's not really representative of how the white light projects and fills



Still just sidelights but taken a little further away. They are seriously bright!



Both sidelights and dipped beam.

Sorry to hear about poor experiance from garage , hopefully you will find a good one next time

Yeah it's a shame since they were pretty close to home. I ended up going with Revolution Porsche in Brighouse to do a load of work which I'll detail later.

In the meantime, I'd already decided I needed new engine mounts as the telltale of low hanging exhaust tips was evident. I went with the RSS engine mounts due to the excellent feedback on here







Beautifully machined!

 

[Halcyon]

Apparently it has 'exclusive wool pad technology' :lol:

I reckon Shaun the Sheep might have some choice words to say about their exclusivity! lol

LED bulbs:
Which did you get? straight forward fit? no errors?