Cayman S engine failures anyone?

[osidak]

I hope they continue to pick up some bad press - just means I can get a Cayman sooner rather than later at an even cheaper price with fewer miles

[89911]

Originally Posted by s_wilwerding

The pre-2009 Caymans did have some issues (IMS, etc.), though most can be cured. I frequent a lot of Boxster/Cayman boards, and I have not seen much talk about piston issues, so my guess it that that is getting overblown. The IMS can be fixed with an aftermarket upgrade (which I did to my 3.4). If you take some steps, you can make older Caymans pretty reliable (as many have pointed out, I'm not sure there are a lot of car brands out there that NEVER have issues).

As for post-2009 Caymans with DFI (and no IMS), the only issues I've heard of so far are some reports of high pressure fuel pump issues, which are not catastrophic and pretty easy to fix. I have yet to hear of one of the new engines failing catastrophically - keep in mind that the Cayman, Boxster, 911, Turbo, GT3, etc. are all variants of the same engine, so they were built pretty robustly.

As for the general theme of this thread, keep in mind that it only takes one dissatisfied owner to make a big stink and blow the problem out of proportion - you don't hear from the thousands and thousands of owners who have no issues.

I think one of the bigger issues is that many higher performance car makes have their problems. BMW engines in the 90's were notorious for problems that BMW fixed at the dealer. I came across a few 740's that had dealer installed replacement engines because of oil sludging and these were out of warranty. Having an $70k car's engine fail for whatever the reason is a concern. Especially one with the tradition of Porsche.

[dtw]

Originally Posted by osidak

I hope they continue to pick up some bad press - just means I can get a Cayman sooner rather than later at an even cheaper price with fewer miles

Alex, I'll take 50K Cayman S for $12K please...

Actually screw that, how about a 997 Carrera S for $18K-22K. Only a matter of time.

[ErVikingo]

Those cars are junk and they will blow up. I offer to buy a Cayman S for $12K since I have the resources to fix the problem as a friendly gesture to an unfortunate owner.

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by don911

Disappointing. A cayman S or ideally the Cayman R is on my wish list. Guess I can't beat my old 3.2 that runs all day long at the track and never stumbles.

IIRC, 2009 and newer Cayman S cars have the DFI motor, which hasn't shown those same problems (yet). I'm assuming the Cayman R also has this motor...

Don't the 2009's and newer Cayman S's also have limited slip diffs?

All the more reason to narrow down my choices of cars to replace my 944Sw when the time comes...
-Z-man.

[artplumber]

Originally Posted by Tobra

I can see how running low rpms hurts you in the AC cars, wonder what is up with these. Wait a bit until it gets shook out I guess. When the Carrera came out with the chain tensioners, it sort of solved that issue. Maybe the thing to do would be to get a sweet running Boxster S and fix the IMS thing

Keeps the oil film intact at higher rpms?. The lower viscosity and less zddp obviously less good lubricants. One of temp solns was to remove one of ims seals to improve lube. They have beefed up ims' avail too

[450knotOffice]

Eric Oviatt of Hergesheimer runs a Boxster Spec and he absolutely flogs that 130,000+ mile engine. No problems. He's one of at least half a dozen Spec Boxster drivers in the POC, and to be honest I can't recall having seen ANY of those engines fail at the many races and Time Trials I've seen them run.

The early problems with block porosity are long gone (an early batch that was culled quickly), the slipping cylinder liner on the small bore engines seems to be gone these days, and the well known poorly designed IMS bearing and support flange can be easily replaced with a bomb proof re-design by LN Engineering.

My own 996 has quite a few track days under its belt (a few years ago) and is my daily driver with 126,000 miles on it. It has been as reliable as any car I've owned over this amount of mileage. I had the IMS bearing replaced six months ago for peace of mind and I seriously have NO worry with this car carrying on for another 100,000 miles.

By the way, my wife drives a 2007 Cayman and has nearly 60,000 trouble free miles on that sweet car.

Just sayin'

[carreraken]

IMS, VOS, Hi-g Oiling, Power Steering for Gen 1 Caymans are all 'issues' that are being discussed in the Cayman specific forums.

Yes, there are owners that have reported these issues, but compared to the number of cars on the road, the number of reports are quite small.

Unfortunately, its difficult to know the 'real concrete' numbers of actual failures.

If it happens, it happens - it will be dealt with. In the meantime, I continue to enjoy my '06 CS and have no regrets with my choice.

[Flieger]

Originally Posted by s_wilwerding

The pre-2009 Caymans did have some issues (IMS, etc.), though most can be cured. I frequent a lot of Boxster/Cayman boards, and I have not seen much talk about piston issues, so my guess it that that is getting overblown. The IMS can be fixed with an aftermarket upgrade (which I did to my 3.4). If you take some steps, you can make older Caymans pretty reliable (as many have pointed out, I'm not sure there are a lot of car brands out there that NEVER have issues).

As for post-2009 Caymans with DFI (and no IMS), the only issues I've heard of so far are some reports of high pressure fuel pump issues, which are not catastrophic and pretty easy to fix. I have yet to hear of one of the new engines failing catastrophically - keep in mind that the Cayman, Boxster, 911, Turbo, GT3, etc. are all variants of the same engine, so they were built pretty robustly.

As for the general theme of this thread, keep in mind that it only takes one dissatisfied owner to make a big stink and blow the problem out of proportion - you don't hear from the thousands and thousands of owners who have no issues.

Until the DFI engine came out, the Turbo, GT3, and GT2 continued to use the GT1 derived engine which was based on the basic architechture of the Mezger air cooled engine but adapted to water cooling. That is why a GT3 crank fits an SC. Then the Turbo got the DFI engine and the GT3 and GT2 were the only ones with the Mezger motor. Now with the GT3RS 4.0 it looks like the Mezger motor will be resigned to Cup cars only until they finally phase in a new engine in that to make it more consistent with the road car.

[Flieger]

Originally Posted by 450knotOffice

Eric Oviatt of Hergesheimer runs a Boxster Spec and he absolutely flogs that 130,000+ mile engine. No problems. He's one of at least half a dozen Spec Boxster drivers in the POC, and to be honest I can't recall having seen ANY of those engines fail at the many races and Time Trials I've seen them run.

The early problems with block porosity are long gone (an early batch that was culled quickly), the slipping cylinder liner on the small bore engines seems to be gone these days, and the well known poorly designed IMS bearing and support flange can be easily replaced with a bomb proof re-design by LN Engineering.

My own 996 has quite a few track days under its belt (a few years ago) and is my daily driver with 126,000 miles on it. It has been as reliable as any car I've owned over this amount of mileage. I had the IMS bearing replaced six months ago for peace of mind and I seriously have NO worry with this car carrying on for another 100,000 miles.

By the way, my wife drives a 2007 Cayman and has nearly 60,000 trouble free miles on that sweet car.

Just sayin'

I am pretty sure he has the LN Engineering fixes like the intermediate shaft bearing upgrade.

[450knotOffice]

Originally Posted by Flieger

I am pretty sure he has the LN Engineering fixes like the intermediate shaft bearing upgrade.

He sure does. Those are easy to replace and worth the effort for peace of mind. He loves the basic M96/M97 engine btw.

[Joe Bob]

Sounds like Renegade will be doing a LOT of V8 conversions.....

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by Joe Bob

Sounds like Renegade will be doing a LOT of V8 conversions.....

Always a silver lining, eh?

[pwd72s]

Bump...just to lat ya know that folks who buy other makes suffer as well...here's a cut & paste from the Mustang world...this guy not happy with his 2011 5.0.

"I was so mad at the ford dealer the other day, I left there and went across the street to the chevy dealer and bought a brand new chev silverado truck just to show them that I didn't need them, but that they needed me. screw it, had had enough. runaround constantly with the trans grinding issues. The big was while driving it into my driveway the other day the steering quit, nearly drove over my fence. Discovered that it had a blown circut breaker. Not wanting to take it to ford I looked around and found the breaker. My mistake was that I took it out and brought it to ford thinking that they would give me one so I could drive it to them. NOT. This clown in service said that I probably voided the warranty because I touched it. He wanted ford to tow the car to their shop.

It went on when I mentioned the grinding again. Ya know it just dosen't end with these people. "

So, reading all the enthusiast magazines, giving glowing reviews to both the Cayman & the new 5.0 Mustang?

Well...the writers get a greater percentage of their paycheck from advertising than they do from subscriptions.

Something to keep in mind.

[sc_rufctr]

It must be a real problem because there are a lot of people earning a living fixing these engines. The 996 and Boxter engine problems are well documented.
Am I surprised the newer cars are having similar issues? Actually no I'm not surprised. Even the Cayeen has had catastrophic engine failures.

I can't help but feel Porsche are not the company they used to be.
Especially considering how reliable Japanese and even a Korean cars are.

Aren't they as a company embarrassed about this? Especially considering how they have always tried to build an image of bullet proof reliability and build quality.
You'd think it would be worth their while to fix the "small percentage" that do go wrong instead of making owners pay for the repairs.

There is nothing good about this. I could never knowingly buy a car with a reputation of being unreliable.
I thought my VW Golf was bad but this is ridiculous.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

I can't help but feel Porsche are not the company they used to be.

Agreed....

[Brando]

Wow, more late-model engine failures? It looks like Porsche has developed a solution to the reliability of their older models. My car has north of 214k miles, my dad's 964 is breaking the 110k mile mark, my 944 had well over 285k miles and my 914 had close to 176k miles. All original engines with regular maintenance done.

[Flieger]

Seems that the main problem with the Mustang is the gearbox. They put all the effort into the engines (V6 and V8) and then had the gearbox built in China.

Too much power????

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by Flieger

Seems that the main problem with the Mustang is the gearbox. They put all the effort into the engines (V6 and V8) and then had the gearbox built in China.

Too much power????

Nobody knows for sure. The same company (Getrag design) builds BMW transmissions. So far, it seems to be hit or miss....some with zero complaints, others have shifting problems from the onset. Kind of like with the Cayman engine?

At first I was upset, buying an '09 with the old 5 speed after knowing about the new hotter 5.0's with the new 6 speed. Now I'm thinking I may have lucked out?

Maybe the old saying is true about not buying a new model until the bugs have been worked out?

In defense of the car makers? Irregardless of price, cars are more complicated today than they were 4 decades ago. More stuff to go wrong, therefore increasing the odds of unhappy owners.

Still, one would hope that car companies would become more concerned about customer relations.

[Flieger]

Can the old gearbox and new engines be hooked together?

I knew Getrag designed it but it is built in China, no? That could explain the hit-or-miss. Good design, poor manufacturing (quality control).