2008porsche

is the IMS bearing failure a common problem on 2008 911 or was it more of a problem in earlier 997.1 models?

Hella-Buggin'

I've only heard of it being a problem on 05 cars and very few 06 cars. The weak bearing was changed out in the spring of 05. Don't worry about it.

That being said, I do send in oil samples to be analyzed but thus far all signs point to a health engine.

2008porsche

Thanks for the information. That makes me feel better.

Ynot

It's a problem with low mileage 05's so start driving it and not let it sit in the garage. There shouldn't be an issue.

sandwedge

-07 and -08 cars aren't completely immune.


07 997 C2S, daily driver, no track time, 1 quart oil per 3K miles, ~75,000 miles IMS failure, engine rattle prior to failure. Traded car in for 2010 997 GTS.

https://rennlist.com/forums/8924078-post110.html

3or so weeks so a friend of mine with a 07 Carrera S IMS failed and engine and block is beyond repair. He use to post on here sometimes but it's been awhile. He changed oil a lot, looked at filter for tell tail signs...nothing...then Boom one day.

https://rennlist.com/forums/9677220-post217.html

A friend of mine, who now drives a 2011 997 Turbo S, had the IMS failure in his 2008 997 S at 5500 miles, the engine was changed on warranty, but not everything is web paranoia regarding upgraded IMS failures

http://www.planet-9.com/987-cayman-b...tml#post664215

USMC_DS1

This is the best complilation I've seen to date re failures with the newer bearing design. But I wonder if this really shows how over blown this issue really is...

The 1st reference is a posting by dadeo. That was his 1st and only posting since signing on RL in 2007. A bit suspect. The other two postings are 3rd person... my friend's car, yada yada, blamed on failed IMSB. Compare these three postings to the highly documented and widely available postings from numerous members on multiple forums re IMSB engine failures with the older bearing design. Clearly night and day especially if you dig back into the 996 and associated Boxsters, etc with the older bearing design...

It would be instructive to understand the conditions under which the about three failures occurred. Was the car tracked heavily and in hot climates? Did the IMSB actually fail or was it something else within the engine that caused it to fail like over heating, a lack of oil pressure under high G's, a failed engine bolt under repeated stress... Just not that much substance behind those three posting for me to point definitively to IMSB as the cause.

I used to perform root cause analysis on complex aviation equipment and then notebook to servers systems in the IT industry. It was common to see troubleshooting via "guilt through association" by fairly well educated techs and engineers... Human nature: it was just that much easier to assign blame towards a system failure based on the one well documented case of failure on another system whether or not the cause of the failure was the same and/or the design was even the same...

I have an '08 C2S so like others I've been watching this potential issue. But IMHO there are other issues much more well documented with much higher failure rates well beyond the incidences we've seen with the new IMSB... Yet this one topic gets the "lighting rod" effect due to it's prior brethren design. One example... we've see numerous posting of water pumps failures. Enough that Excellence Magazine published an article re the WP issue and consideration towards it's replacement by the 40-50K mile mark. Now a coolant failure could/would lead towards the destruction of a engine block as well. Reference the engine rebuilder... Hartech. http://hartech.org/docs/buyers%20gui...20part%205.pdf A coolant failure is not as spectacular/kinetic as an IMSB failure but it's just as costly to replace the engine block... BTW, that same WP is used across multiple generations of Porsche cars as well.

Frankly, there are riskier things to worry about in life as is witnessed everyday on the news. I'm keeping an academic eye on the IMSB issue but have focused my energies instead on proper and pre-emptive maintenance... much more real and better bang for my mental buck. So to the OP you should enjoy the car like you stole it.. in the upper RPM range. It's pure therapy for the soul.

BTW, if you've read/made it to this point on this (yet another IMSB) thread... STOP already. Move on with your life. Have a great day folks!

Luxter

+1 Start worrying about D-chunks and bore scoring issues.

chris.hanle

Well put USMC.

cvtbenhogan

It's the water pump stupid.

Hate the D chunk.