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997. gen 1 without bore POSITIVE POSTS please

I'd agree, as a young lad my dad made me take my first car to a guy up the road who looked after everyone's car, the general rule of thumb was 4 oil changes every year, NEVER EVER increase revs until oil and water needle was up to operating temp,

And every time he filled it back up with clean oil he said the same thing 'if that engine could talk it would be thanking you now"

I later found out that he was a rubbish ventriloquist! He had an Oil burning heater for his home and he'd cleverly utilised the pit in his garage for extracting a means to heat his home whilst getting paid for servicing work, but I still change my oil every season and think the same thing every time !
 
OK, OP, so suppose I decide to start a thread with something like this: "hey guys, thinking of buying a 997 Gen 1. Are they a good purchase? Opinions welcome."
If there's a 10% chance that the engine will destroy itself, leaving me with a huge repair bill, I'd want to know. And if Baz Hart says they all need a rebuild at 100k (I'm paraphrasing) I'd want to know that too.

Pretending that a problem isn't there won't make it go away.
 
Counter Of Beans said:
OK, OP, so suppose I decide to start a thread with something like this: "hey guys, thinking of buying a 997 Gen 1. Are they a good purchase? Opinions welcome."
If there's a 10% chance that the engine will destroy itself, leaving me with a huge repair bill, I'd want to know. And if Baz Hart says they all need a rebuild at 100k (I'm paraphrasing) I'd want to know that too.

Pretending that a problem isn't there won't make it go away.

Just to define your position in case I misread , you are effectively claiming that "all" 997.1 will need rebuilding after 100k?
 
I think in fairness to the OP that there is too much negativity and focus on the bad points. To a certain extent this is inevitable, but it does seem to be all-pervasive, and as such, it starts to wear very thin.

There is, of course, a need to share and discuss common problems (and solutions!); but to keep relentlessly focussing in on those problems to the extent that the very many upsides of ownership are ignored is a real shame.

By way of example, I am new here. I recently purchased a 997.1 2S at over the phone at an auction totally unseen and un-inspected. Many people would think I am insane, but it is the way that I have bought my cars for over 30 years, and in that time I have only had one genuine horror show. (For those that are interested it was a Lotus Esprit). Thing is, I have wanted a 911 for years. Not just any Porsche, a 911. I like cars that I can tinker with and the 997 is probably the last 911 where you can do some stuff yourself.

I might be lucky, I might not. I keep a contingency fund for issues and sometimes I use some of it, but mostly not.

I am absolutely delighted with my car, and my wife (who is not a car person at all) is literally a changed woman, who actually keeps going outside and looking at it. I couldn't be happier.

It is to be my everyday car, not some garage queen, and it will commute, do tip runs, go abroad and take my small children to nursery. I can't imagine a finer choice, and in my time I have owned the aforementioned Lotus, an E type and a Ferrari Daytona (also bought unseen with a blown engine - another story completely).

Then you come onto forums like this (others are worse, by the way), and read the inevitable stuff about IMS, bore scoring, your car is worthless without a Hartech rebuild, etc, etc. It does kick sand in your face somewhat. If I had no car knowledge, and perused these forums before buying my hero, I would probably have been put completely off.

I like to see people enjoying their cars, celebrating them, and doing completely normal and trivial stuff with them.

So I for one salute the OP. There is plenty of time to talk about problems and issues. Let's be sure to make some time for talking up the good bits as well.
 
This thread is a perfect example of why I did the 996 IMS data collection thread. That thread proved and displayed how much of an issue the problem was and to which specific model affected.

Rather than members hurl abuse at other members (comments now rightly deleted by mods), maybe they could put their time to better use and do something similar (and more productive).

I even got asked when I did that thread over 4 years ago to do one on bore-scoring.

Far more help to all members than slinging dirt.
 
I just take the view that you cannot ignore the elephant in the room and so long as a buyer goes into ownership with the eyes wide open then they are awesome cars.

That is based on personal experience of a very good friend who bought a gorgeous 997.1 C2S, he later found out about the engine issues and took out a hartech service plan, there was nothing wrong with his car but it played on his mind to the extend that he sold it 6 months later, it ruined his whole ownership experience and he swore he would never own a Porsche again.

To me, unfortunately it takes a certain mentality to own one without the issues ruining the experience, I could not own one and I know Porsches pretty well, but others can and enjoy everything else the car has to offer. I can fully understand how those owners get frustrated by the constant reference to the problems but that is in effect what you are buying into ie you bought with your eyes wide open because the problems are discussed, to then expect to stop as soon as you own one is just not reasonable. Therefore I have no guilt in discussing / referencing the problems.

At the end of the day the .1's are and always will be considerably cheaper than the .2 and that is 100% down to one thing which is amplified by the fact that the .2's are at the other end of the spectrum ie they simply hardly ever go wrong in the same way.

You pays your money, you hopefully get out of it what you wanted but unfortunately with the .1's you are buying into the legacy of the engine issues which Porsche left secondary owners to live with (I stay say shame on Porsche to not recognise these issues as manufacturer liability but instead left those out of warranty to pick up the pieces :roll: )

I fully understand the sentiments of the thread but in reality it has got no chance of meeting its objectives as the issues are fundamental to the ownership experience and simply cannot be ignored IMHO. Others of course will totally disagree with me but the debate has been had many times over the years and the net result is always the same.
 
:thumb:

Here here ! I couldn't agree more, except for the garage queen bit :hand:

Like you I am new on here, I'm a total newbie when it comes to 911's, my love affair with cars is long standing like many on here and again like you I am keen to adopt a more hands on approach to some of the maintenance undertaken on this specific vehicle, if the engine implodes or even explodes then the contingency funds kick in and at the end of the day that's what motoring is all about. 'To me at least" and by the sounds of it to you as well.

There's far too much negativity surrounding IMS, RMS, Bore scoring and ownership in general, I previously owned a Discovery 3 and spent many years on the D3 forum, to listen to some of the horror stories on there you'd never buy one, I bought mine at 18 months old in 2009 and had it 8 years as a daily driver, covered 150k in it and it never let me down once,

I've since bought something else to replace it and again it is 100% reliable, it's brand new, covered by a manufacturers warranty and gives me peace of mind ownership.

The problem with purchasing a used vehicle is pot luck, none of know whether a car was started from cold in the winter of 2008 and thrashed from cold every morning for a month from home to office, back home in the dark cold winter where oil was left in there for 20k miles. I don't know the previous owner to me let it warm up before opening it up, had I wanted that level of protection I'd have bought new, the damage inside these engines come from an inherent flaw, the rest is just to luck and judgement.

Enjoy them, drive them and if something does go pop then start wittling and worrying ?
 
That is the correct mentality for a .1, of course it is, you can enjoy the car. But at the same time you cannot ignore the many potential owners who simply would not enjoy that sort of ownership experience. They are much better being aware of the issue before they buy the car rather than after (as happened to my friend). They, as you undoubtedly did, can then make a fully informed decision. That of course would not apply if the issues where unfounded / rumor / negligible / exaggerated but they clearly are not, Hartech and every Indy I know makes a good living out of rebuilding these engines and thats a fact which cannot be igonored.

Ps I always say two things about Range Rovers (Land Rover), 1) the best all round cars I have every owned 2) I would never ever ever ever own one out of warranty and that is based on first hand experience of over £50k of warranty work over the years :nooo:
 
I'd agree, especially the bit about owning land rovers.... That's why I bought new, even then it's its like playing Russian Roulette with only one chamber empty
😬

I tried to buy as late a gen 1 as possible after the chassis number with revised RMS but even then I don't think that relates to the IMS bearing ?

I discovered all this when perusing the forums for info on the 996 which quite clearly has suffered, carried over to the 997 with a revised RMS that was done on mine under warranty a few years ago with a clutch replacement, there have been some suggestions along the path that the Manual doesn't suffer to the same extent as the PDK, this suited me fine as I'd made my mind up that it had to be manual. I've contemplated fitting the central oil cooler in the middle of the front bumper to help cool things down in relation to heat but again mitigating risk the outlay for that would outweigh the cost of a replacement engine ?

And as some one on here said recently, thanks to all this worry the 997.1 has become very affordable.
 
Somethings gone awry in the header to these messages, but reading back to Alex's post ?

Have you got the Data for the failures ? Warranty work related or total re build ? We're the causes recorded ? Model year Specific ? any help and indeed info would be much appreciated.

Thanks.
 
C4Silver said:
I'd agree, especially the bit about owning land rovers.... That's why I bought new, even then it's its like playing Russian Roulette with only one chamber empty
😬

I tried to buy as late a gen 1 as possible after the chassis number with revised RMS but even then I don't think that relates to the IMS bearing ?

I discovered all this when perusing the forums for info on the 996 which quite clearly has suffered, carried over to the 997 with a revised RMS that was done on mine under warranty a few years ago with a clutch replacement, there have been some suggestions along the path that the Manual doesn't suffer to the same extent as the PDK, this suited me fine as I'd made my mind up that it had to be manual. I've contemplated fitting the central oil cooler in the middle of the front bumper to help cool things down in relation to heat but again mitigating risk the outlay for that would outweigh the cost of a replacement engine ?

And as some one on here said recently, thanks to all this worry the 997.1 has become very affordable.

:thumb: spot on, with the right mindset the car is there to be enjoyed as Porsche actually intended in the first place :wink:
 
For what it's worth: got our '05 997 Carrera S Tiptronic as an approved used car from Bolton in January 2012 with 37,000 miles.

She's on 81,000 now and seems fine.

LTT fitted after a couple of years of ownership. Oil changed annually (using a 5/40w).

First gear manually selected for every pull-away from rest & NEVER driven over 2500rpm until the oil is warm.

The car has been used for shopping trips in town, a few trackdays, lots of trips to the 'Ring, France, Italy and Switzerland and was recently proven to be able to do 98mph by the local constabulary.

She hasn't been without fault - has had rads and condensers, several bits of suspension etc but she's loved dearly and is likely to remain 'on the fleet' for the foreseeable future.

Edited to add: tiptronic wouldn't have been my first choice, but my left leg ain't all it was so the automatic 'box makes sense for me.
 
Somethings gone awry in the header to these messages, but reading back to Alex's post ?

Have you got the Data for the failures ? Warranty work related or total re build ? We're the causes recorded ? Model year Specific ? any help and indeed info would be much appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Me or the OP?
 

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