sullivas

You're right I did absolutely no research. My bad. My son was on the internet and found the car, I saw it and said 'that's the one'. I assumed a late model Porsche with lo miles would have a long life before needing serious attention given its rating and reputation. BTW I don't even know Alex.

Palmbeacher

I bought my 997 after doing what I thought was proper research. Checked the Consumer Reports reliability stats, asked every 997 owner I know, and dozens of strangers I saw getting in or out of one in a parking lot. Called every independent Porsche garage in a 100 mile radius. All gave the car glowing praise. What I didn't do was google "Porsche 997 catastrophic failures" or surf internet forums. Lots of good, reliable info on forums...but also lots of unsubstantiated bullcrap too.

I bought an '05. Why? Because it was the least-expensive way into a 997, being the oldest and therefore the most-depreciated. Bought a base C2, because all the measurebaters have to have an "S", so dealers didn't negotiate on them as much. I got mine in the color combo I really wanted, with the equipment I really wanted...and at the price I wanted, with CPO. I'm seeing cars like mine selling today for $3-5K under what I paid for mine almost 3 years ago. I had the LN IMS bearing installed (lucky my '05 has the kind that can be replaced w/out an engine teardown). After the CPO expired I bought another six-year "bumper to bumper" warranty, with better language than the Fidelity one the dealer was selling, and for about 60% of the price. So far a couple "minor" repairs (a battery/starter cable and a shifter cable) have already repaid me $1300 of the cost of the warranty, and I've got 5 1/2 more years to go on it.

For the first time in memory I actually look forward to driving. And I've owned a slew of high-end BMWs and Mercs. I'm willing to bet that by the time the warranty expires (it'll be 12 years old by then) my 997 will be worth a lot more than any other '05 car I could have bought for the same money in '09. The greatest cost of a car is depreciation. I don't really care what Porsche's business model is or will be in the future. Given how old I'll be in 6 years I'm not sure I'll be getting another one. What I am sure is, I'm not sorry I got this one. And, I'm not about to let any doomsaying trolls suck the red out of my apple.

petee1997

Since 1983,yes 1983, I have bought 6 new Porsches. None have had excessive oil consumption. My latest 911 was delivered in Dec. 2010 and put on the road in Apr11. I just had it serviced prior to putting it in storage. It has 4700kms(2900mi) at time of service. Oil was down one bar.I expect it to do better next year now that it is broken in and the rings areseated properly.

PS I follow the manufacturer's recommendations religiously during break in period. Maybe that accounts to my "good luck" with these cars.

PCC

Huh? Companies don't exist to benefit consumers .... they exist to benefit their owners (ie, shareholders) .... Google Capitalism ..... if you disagree try France

I'm not being harsh .. it's just that people forget this is a capitalist country/economy ...

rodsky

Well said. I'm not spun up about "defending" my car. I'm on my 4th Porsche and discovered early on that you have to put oil in a Porsche. Dont have to do that in an Acura have owned two of those. My 997.2 probably uses less oil than my other 3 (3.2, 964, 996 40th anniversary). Owned all of them for a minimum of 4 years each, my 997.2 for just over 2. So 18+ years of Porsche ownership.

What bothers me is when someone who doesnt own this car or know the facts, gets on the interwebs and states that some DFI owners have excessive oil useage as a matter of fact. What does that mean? is it fact? Their opinion suddenly became fact. Now if they talk about HPFP failures - thats different. Thats a fact and a known deficiency. Not an opinion.

Some people that may have bought their first Porsche with a DFI are "surprised" that these cars, require oil. Is that excessive useage? Maybe - especially if they came from an Acura or a Lexus - yes. If you RTFM it states that it could use 1 QT every 650 miles or so. So is excessive - more than that? The internet "experts" have said 'severe' or "extreme" useage. Does that mean they have observed people putting in a quart every 300 miles? What do they actually mean?

My car a 997.2 has 13,000 miles+. Its had 3 dealer oil changes and i've put in 4 quarts - fact. Since its last service around 2000+ miles ago, I have not put in a drop of oil - fact. Its 1 bar down from the max reading - took the reading yesterday. Those arent opinions - just facts. If i have to put in oil every 1000 miles - i'll do it and wont give it a minutes thought. Thats how this car was advertised when i bought it.

Fin Fever

I just don't follow why some people are so concerned about the oil use issue. I will put my car (with it's spare quart of oil in the trunk) up against most cars out there. and that is for speed, longevity, reliability comfort. With these cars doing so well in so many categories, I will personally not perseverate on the oil consumption quirk.

yossarian

Crap... I thought it was all true and we could have everything for everyone who all want something different and opposed to everyone else.

Nah just kidding. Well said.

And for the op. It's not a perfect car and the issues have become more complex or harder to repair. It's a solid tradeoff for what we drive.

Quadcammer

Any company that claims that burning 1 quart every 368 miles is acceptable in a petrol engine neither gives a **** about its customers nor deserves to call itself an engineering firm.

I won't even touch the IMS issue.

Jastx

I can empathize with the "apparent" few who own 997s with anomalous oil consumption. If my car was one of them I'd be sick about it. It would take much of the joy out of ownership for me. I think it also would for many whose cars do not exhibit this today if instead they were one of the few. I have no personal experience with it or specific facts about how Porsche handles complaints about it, but based on what I have read in these forums it seems that if it's so rare and so far outside the norm as in the quote above that it wouldn't hurt Porsche to address the issue in those few cars.

ivangene

after seeing so many owners making sure their car is "topped up" with oil, I wonder how many of those "high consumption" engines are the result of an owner pouring in oil to the point the car is choking and saying STOP PUTTING THAT MUCH IN ME

maybe they could try and run a qt low ?

just a thought...10-12 qts of oil expands a tremendous amount when hot, if the expands to the point of "too much" it has to go somewhere....how about OUT!!

Fin Fever

you may have a point there

when I try to keep my oil level at the top line, I need to add small aliquots of oil more frequently

when I run it 1 line low, I can go about 6 months without needing to add

It seems to use oil at different rates, depending on how high I fill it

this is purely anecdotal, 1 observer, 1 car, but it is interesting to me nonetheless. I wonder if anyone else has had the same experience

ADias

Precisely. Some of us have long suggested that oil should only be added when it shows a minimum of 2 bars down, for that reason. User error, compounded with short driving and moisture accumulation, may be a common pattern.

Mike in CA

I think your point is well taken. One of the wild cards in the oil consumption issue is owner behavior. I'll hazard a guess that at least some of the cases of "excessive" oil useage are due to owners who misunderstand what the level gauge is telling them and add oil inappropriately.

Minok

I disagree.

It depends on what Porsche engineered/designed the system to operate under.
IF they designed it to consume up to 1 qt per 600 (was it km or mi) then thats not an issue. If its designed to do up to that amount of consumption, then the rest of the car's systems are also designed to deal with that level of oil consumption.

Its good engineering if it matches the design envelope they product producer specified. The consumers individual expectations have no bearing on the engineering. If you don't like the way a company designs its products to perform, don't buy them. You are not the target audience of the company.


Granted, there is an issue if its burning a quart every 368 miles, because for a 2500 mile cross country journey, you would have to allocate space in the car to carry the oil you will need to get you to the next source of oil... so the question is do all filling stations carry 0w40 Mobil (or equivalent)?

avader906

the oil consumption profile of the engine will be different in stop/go traffic vs 3k rpm highway cruse vs 6k rpm track time. in my experience, stop/n/go city driving, frequent cold (re)starts and infrequent use are the primary factors in these engines. motorsport application is the other.