speo

Had heard bad thing about german cars but fell in love with Porsche and they supposed to be one of the most reliable german cars. Did the research and found the Porsche cars have thier problems Some pretty serious too. However research shown me cars with 100,000 miles and that the PPI was your friend.

Got a 996 recently which passed the PPI with flying colors. Car looks great and I did my OWN inspection top to bottom. Looked great just tires where clearly not changed together.

Drive drove GREAT! What power and smooth shifting! Had dreams of warmer weather and some REAL driving conditions in the future. Anyway, my first drive lasted me about 30 minutes before the errors started.:

! PSM Failure/ABS failure.

Voltage spiked to 16v for a while. Later dropped to 12v and slowly fell.

Replaced battery. Voltage just barely above 12 with engine running. No effect with revs.

Heater cut in and out and radio. I turned all that stuff off. 40 minutes later battery at 10v and engine dies. Had to put it on the flatbed.

Charging battery now. Picked up jump start kit.

Is this how its gonna be with these cars?? Car is near the 55,000 mark.

kromdom

sorry about your woes may I ask who did the PPI? private party sale or dealer?

P.S. Is this how its gonna be with these cars?? NO, since there are hundreds (probably thousands) of owners who have not had your misfortune but sadly, YMMV

Imo000

Why are you replacing/changing the battery when you have a dead alternator? With a low voltage, all kinds of things can turn on and off.

TomF

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. Keep in mind that your car, whatever the miles, is now ten years old.

It sounds as though you had an alternator fail. They do fail after a period of time, not necessarily because of miles. It is also possible that the wiring for your alternator has deteriorated, which can happen for a variety of reasons. A reputable indy can easily diagnose the problem and recommend a remedy.

Keep the faith- these are fantastic cars but nevertheless have problems just like any other on occasion.


Best,
TomF

speo

Dealer purchase. I found my own ppi place. A Porsche specialty shop

speo

I hear you but a day after an extensive PPI? If I have put on like at least 500 miles with no trouble and this happened, OK...MAYBE. 30 minutes into first drive?? I have never had a new car and I've never had this kind of issues on anything but a 12+ year old dual sport bike which was not the showroom star the C2 is(apeared to be). The bike had carbeurator issues and electrical(probably caused by my work since I learned how to do repair on it). Most issues I had would have shown up on a PPI.

I know a PPI is not perfect, but this is rediculaous. How does the dealer drive the car for 2 hours to shop and an hour to PPI and has no issues, then I go less than 30 minutes and it's dead?

And again, problems on occasion is 1 thing, but this is not on occassion. This is technically every time I've driven it, since I only had it one day.

I'm trying not to let my frustration cloud my beter judgement but I think my concerns are valid. This does NOT look good.

speo

A limping car is better than a 100% dead one. Case in point. Tow truck was unable to leave car in a good spot. Only way to move it to safety now if if I can get it to run.

Also, I just paid for this battery. Leaving it completly dead is not good I'm sure. And if I try to move car to a local shop and it dies again, I need to be able to jump it. Alhough I realize that could have limited benifit with weak battery that is not charging.

perryinva

Just bad timing. Unless you pull the alternator and test it under load, there is no real way to know it is failing electrically. Relatively cheap and easy fix, for these Porsches. Buying the car is not expensive at this age. Owning it is.

Dennis C

That's not dead! It just needs a little repair work. You'll be fine. I was imagining a big puddle of oil under the car when I read the title of your post...

speo

Thats is what the optimist in me thinks. Research shows potentially a cheap fix. Regulator swap. Even if alternator, it supposed to be easy DIY replacement so still cheaper than having shop do it and not sticker shock,

speo

THERE IS OIL LEAKING TOO!! When did this happen? This is insane?



Yeah...the silver lining is that I'M perhaps being broken in...EASY. Maybe this costs me $500 total. Get me used to my new money pit so when the $4000 bill comes, I can be in less shock!

ivangene

I didnt read everything but read some:

you'll find that is more normal for me than not - then I will provide advice and opinions based on 1/2 truths

anyhow - a PPI can tell a lot and is worth the time to do, and rule out obvious issues but can never foretell the future of some parts - I mean a perfectly working part today can fail tomorrow without warning - if you stick around a while you will learn some nasty three letter acronyms that do just that --- and $4k would be a welcome repair cost by comparison

so relax - its a 10 year old car and something broke - fix it , move on - something will break again, and again, and again

but in reality these cars are very reliable and cost very little to keep going - yes, they pop up with the occasional repair bill and maintenance - and FFIW there is almost nothing cheap about a trip to the dealer so that is the value in a forum like this - you can learn to spend countless hours fretting and freezing azz cold with greasy hands on your garage floor to save huge amounts of money - I guess



hope the car treats you well from here

Dennis C

Oil leaking, or oil "sweating"? If there aren't spots on the floor, then it's a pretty minor leak. Many mechanics would call that sweating.

Welcome to Porsche ownership!

450knotOffice

SPEO, your car looks beautiful. Show us more pictures please.

As for your issues, neither sound abnormal for any car with some age. Alternators/VR's wear out eventually. They are VERY easy to replace, as are almost ALL of the components of these cars (the 996 is very DIY friendly). Along the way, you will become intimately familiar with the workings of your beauty.

During the 7 years and 105,000 miles that I've driven my 996 as a daily driver, I've been VERY happy with the car's overall reliability. I've had to replace various wear items over time, and I've actually gone through the exact same scenario you describe with your car. Pain in the butt, but easily fixable.

Renntech is an excellent DIY website/resource that details most DIY tasks: http://www.renntech.org/forums/forum...6-carrera-diy/

This website also has quite a few DIY writeups if you search around.

Oil leaks are not uncommon and do not mean certain major trouble. Oil can leak from the spark plug tubes as the O-rings age (easy to replace), for example.

Upload some pictures for us.

KrazyK

If you are serious about the 30 minute meltdown, I would check with the dealer. If they are a top notch dealer they may help you with some of this.