2006 Porsche 911 engine problems..

[Duffergirl]

Hi,

I am new to this forum and I am hoping to get some advice on a problem I currently have with my '06 911. If I am in the wrong forum, please advise... The car has about 68,000 miles on it.

I turned the car on one morning after adding some oil and got clouds of white smoke. The car started and was driving okay but just puking white smoke… and there was some oil coming out of the right exhaust pipe. Before this the car was driving just fine.

I was out of town but I ended up getting it to a Porsche dealership that did some diagnostics. After 5k of diagnostics they still didn’t have a clear idea of what the problem is… I have pasted their summary below. They suggested further diagnostics (7,400.00) and if nothing found then opening up the engine (another 8,325.00) and if they couldn’t repair at that point then a new engine (30,000).

Their diagnostic
"We found oil dripping from the right rear tailpipe during idle and oil bellowing from the exhaust while driving your car. Through initial diagnoses, we found the oil separator testing ok. After performing a compression test, we found cylinder #1 @ 250psi, #2 @ 260 psi, #3 @ 260 psi, #4 @ 260 psi, #5 @ 255 psi, #6 @ 250 psi. During a compression test the normal range should be around 300 psi.

Through further diagnoses we performed a cylinder leak down test. We found cylinder #1 @ 40%, #2 @ 30%, #3 @ 26%, #4 @ 30%, #5 @ 31%, #6 @ 31%. The normal range during a cylinder leak down test should fall under 10%. With a borescope we can see what appears to be slight scoring at the bottom of cylinder #1. The engine would need to be disassembled for further diagnoses as to what is beginning to fail. For further diagnoses we would need to disassemble the engine. The cost of disassembly for further diagnoses will be $7400.00. If the engine case needs to be separated it would be $8,325.00."

Final comment - they offered me 15k for the car. They told me they do not rebuild engines...

Anyone have any advice for me? Does the engine need to be replaced or rebuilt? Is there the ability to rebuild this engine - my dealer tells me no - that is why I am checking in here... If there is any other forum that would be more appropriate, pls let me know....

thanks
Tammy

[Eagledriver]

This forum doesn’t deal much with later model cars such as yours. That being said, the compression numbers you post seem higher than any engine I’ve heard about. The leak down numbers are high but seem unlikely for multiple cylinders to be bad like that. If we assume the engine seems to run well and was never overheating or run out of oil, then likely you just over filled it with oil. Find a way to get the oil level correct and drive the car for a hundred miles or so to see if the oil smoke stops. Find a better shop to work on your car.

-Andy

[yelcab1]

in all my time working with engines, I have never seen 250 psi from a compression test. I have also never seen 200psi from a cylinder that was leaking 40%. It means there are some incongruent data and this needs more explanation.

As EagleDriver said above, you want another opinion on this car (I have one). Start with something simple like overfilled oil. AOS can be culprit. And then move on to something more serious.

First thing is to get your car out of that dealer.

[john walker's workshop]

5K to diagnose nothing? Was fine and you added how much oil? How did you determine how much to add? I'd go for the typical overfill diagnosis so far. Older cars would burp the oil into the intake system, then it quickly got run into the exhaust system where it slimed everything and only heat and time would clear the smoke.

[Duffergirl]

Hi there

Further to my prior message - I did get the car out of the dealership....

I put oil in the car because the oil light came on - I put in one quart... which is what I have done for the life of the car..

What I didn't mention in my post is the first thing I did was take the car to a local station. They thought I overfilled it too - they did an oil change.. and the problem persisted. They drove it and the smoke billowed out the back.... Then I took it to the local Porsche dealership....

I have been told from the dealership that these engines don't get rebuilt. So, I don't know what to do next... which is what I was looking for an opinion on.. thanks...

[yelcab1]

Oh, so you have owned this car for a while, and it was all fine until one morning you got all white smoke and oil coming out of the exhaust.

There is a difference between white smoke (water steam, a byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion, Chemistry 101), and blue smoke (incomplete burning of hydrocarbon). White smoke is normal unless it is happening all the time. Blue smoke at start up is also normal for this engine, but not normal if it is happening all the time.

Second, Porsche dealers do not rebuild engines, they only replace it with a factory rebuilt unit. The cost is quite high. Porsche 997 are getting quite in demand and that explains why they offered you $15K, hoping that they can put another $10K in their cost to fix the car and resell it for $40K.

Independent mechanics may rebuild engine, but cost is no less than $15-$20k and it can take up to 6 months. Other options are getting a used engine, or getting a short block from Porsche. It is still going to be expensive.

As for what to do next. At this time, it is either nothing (cheap) or something serious (expensive) and nothing in between. If it were I, I would just continue driving it for a few thousand miles until ...

1) it went away because the oil is burnt off.
2) it develops into something more visible to a mechanic: like a blown cylinder, a cracked head, intermixing of coolant and oil via the oil cooler heat exchanger, or something more obvious. Then I would fix that.

If you are handy with the car, or have someone that is handy with the car, I suggest continue driving it, checking coolant and oil every few days to see if they intermix, if you are losing oil or coolant, and go on from there.

my 2006 C2S smokes blue upon starting, no visual clues of bore-scoring, and runs like a champ at 105K miles. Uses one quart of oil every 4,000 miles. I am not worried.