IMS and tiptronic

[dmcummins]

I have a 2000 boxster S that has around 95,000 on her. Ive started reading all the IMS post and I'm starting to get worried. It seams that some just change this out during a clutch job, but what about the auto's? I just had the transmission oil changed and I hope that's all I need for a while. I change the oil around 5,000 miles and have had very few problems with the car. I did just replace the water pump and it needs a new sensor, but other than normal wear item's, that's it.

Am I on borrowed time? Should I start looking to get the IMS bearing replaced? Should I just hope I get another 50k miles on the car? I'm actually thinking that I may just sell the car this spring since I have the 73 911. But the Boxster is a great car, and it has A/C. It use to be my wifes DD, but she got a new car and now I drive the boxster to the golf club most of the time. I figure it's only worth around 10k-12k so not a big deal.

Just how much does it cost to get the IMS replaced? How much are used S boxster motors going for these day's?

[ronster]

Originally Posted by dmcummins

I have a 2000 boxster S that has around 95,000 on her. Ive started reading all the IMS post and I'm starting to get worried. It seams that some just change this out during a clutch job, but what about the auto's? I just had the transmission oil changed and I hope that's all I need for a while. I change the oil around 5,000 miles and have had very few problems with the car. I did just replace the water pump and it needs a new sensor, but other than normal wear item's, that's it.

Am I on borrowed time? Should I start looking to get the IMS bearing replaced? Should I just hope I get another 50k miles on the car? I'm actually thinking that I may just sell the car this spring since I have the 73 911. But the Boxster is a great car, and it has A/C. It use to be my wifes DD, but she got a new car and now I drive the boxster to the golf club most of the time. I figure it's only worth around 10k-12k so not a big deal.

Just how much does it cost to get the IMS replaced? How much are used S boxster motors going for these day's?

Unfortunatley your question regarding IMS longevity is a question that has as many answers as there are Boxster owners. There have been reports of IMS failure in a few thousand miles to a hundred plus thousand miles and up to the 2006 year when the whole IMS part of the motor was changed it seems to be a crap shoot.
When I first got my '99 Boxster Tip it was eleven years old with 74K miles and I was told by one mechanic the IMS and RMS needed to be changed due to a small amount of oil on the bottom of the case.
I drove the car for another year and made a decision to keep it and invested $1,800 to have an LN Engineering ceramic bearing and new RMS seal installed. This involved pulling the Tiptronic tranny which is more labor intensive but does not involve the cost of clutch replacement which most do at the time.
A new 2.5L with Porsche 2 year warranty is around $12K and with labor to install is around $15K. My reasoning was to spend $1,800 to extend the life of the existing motor than to risk having to make the decision to either dump the car or replace the motor if it blew at $15K. Since ceramic IMS's outlast OEM IMS's 5:1 it was a decision I was comfortable with.
When the trans was pulled neither the IMS or the RMS was leaking at 80K miles but when the IMS retaining bolt was removed very foul smelling dark oil seeped out indicating that the seal had broken and the bearing was being lubricated with motor oil. Would it have failed? Hard to say, but since I AX and track the odds for it failing where probably greater.
My Boxster is the most fun car I've ever owned and I plan on driving it for many more years so the decision I made was affected by a personal feeling first and an economic decision second. You have to do whatever makes sense for you.

[mikefocke]

My guess is you have around a 1% chance of IMS failure this year. You can improve those chances somewhat by driving the car more often, warming it up and then driving it in auto-manual to 5Krpm+, etc. Nothing short of an IMSR would increase the odds on the IMS and there are 20+ other identified failure modes.

An IMSR on a TIP is probably $2-3k plus because the trans and the engine have to come out as a unit, then be separated. (The $1.8k above for a TIP is very low compared to other quotes I've seen.)

A used engine...anywhere from $4k to $30k depending...with just used and no labor being the low end, a completely rebuilt and much much more powerful engine installed at the high end.

Any car/make/brand could fail. Yours has been good. Why think it will be otherwise? Just drive it and enjoy.

(I'm in the same situation with a 58K '01S TIP and that is what I do. I try not to baby it too much and I take it out and enjoy it. If it breaks, I'll deal with it then. Until then, I'm enjoying it and not worrying a bit. Could it fail tomorrow? No..it's too cold for me to take it out of storage. But the first day it is warm enough....)

[Steve986]

Don't worry about it. Life's too short and your car is not valuable enough to justify the expense. If it makes you too anxious, sell it now and buy something you don't need to worry about... an S2000 or something.

Most of us here are in the same boat. I have decided not to worry about it... to enjoy the car... and change my oil every 5,000 miles.

Steve

[Wayne 962]

Good input from everyone here. If you are a do-it-yourself person, and you're planning to keep the car, I would probably do it sometime this year. If you're going to pay someone to remove the transmission and just replace it just to do it, then maybe not. It's the same situation with my wife's car, which is a Tip as well. We're not sure if we're going to keep the car, so putting a lot of time into replacing the IMS may not be worth it. Then again, a lot of people seem to be asking about removing the Tip transmissions, so I think we may tackle it so that we can do a tech article on it.

-Wayne

[dmcummins]

Thanks for the input. If Wayne does a tech article on it I may give it a shot. But I'm not going to pay someone $2-3K for the job. If I could even find someone in St. Louis to do it. Its not a DD anymore so if it goes down its not the end of the world. I was just thinking that if I was going to sell it, it may be easier before it goes over 100k.

Also its freezing outside now and I'll probably put it out of my mind in the spring.

[BrianC9379]

I have a 2003 Boxster S with a tip. I've had it since new, and I've watched it depreciate from $55,000 to maybe $20,000 at best. The majority of the depreciation hit is behind me. I intend to keep it until I can't get out of it. I went for the IMS retrofit for the peace of mind instead of the nagging worry of a potential engine replacement. The cost was about $2,200.

[Wayne 962]

Originally Posted by dmcummins

If Wayne does a tech article on it I may give it a shot.

It probably makes sense to do one, I'll take a look into it...

-Wayne

[Dale_K]

Originally Posted by ronster

Here's a link to the video I made of the IMS and RMS replacement on my '99 if you are interested. It is trimmed down from 35 minutes to 20 minutes to meet UTube requirements but has the essential steps in it.
YouTube - Flintworks IMS Bearing Replacement

That video is very cool but I have a question. It looks like the engine is still in the car but another poster said the engine and transmission need to come out together in the tiptronic cars. Did you remove the transmission without removing the entire powerplant?

[ronster]

Originally Posted by Dale_K

That video is very cool but I have a question. It looks like the engine is still in the car but another poster said the engine and transmission need to come out together in the tiptronic cars. Did you remove the transmission without removing the entire powerplant?

The Tip trans was removed and the motor was left in the car. I've heard some later Boxster motors had to be removed because the case had to be opened to install the IMS bearing but I'm not certain at what year that started so perhaps someone more knowledgeable can help you with that.

[Wayne 962]

Originally Posted by ronster

Here's a link to the video I made of the IMS and RMS replacement on my '99 if you are interested. It is trimmed down from 35 minutes to 20 minutes to meet UTube requirements but has the essential steps in it.
YouTube - Flintworks IMS Bearing Replacement

It doesn't appear like they locked the cams or loosened the chain tensioners, but I can't tell for sure. They knocked the center bolt into the shaft for some reason (drain the oil maybe - at 1:17 into the video)? I don't recommend that, as you need a magnetic tool to then grab it and get it centered in the bearing again.

The video is a nice approximation of what needs to be done, but in order to safely perform this install, you need to follow the instructions very carefully. I have them documented here: Pelican Technical Article: Boxster Intermediate Shaft Bearing Replacement and Upgrade (IMS) - 986 Boxster (1997-04) - 987 Boxster (2005-06)

-Wayne

[ronster]

Originally Posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts

It doesn't appear like they locked the cams or loosened the chain tensioners, but I can't tell for sure. They knocked the center bolt into the shaft for some reason (drain the oil maybe - at 1:17 into the video)? I don't recommend that, as you need a magnetic tool to then grab it and get it centered in the bearing again.

The video is a nice approximation of what needs to be done, but in order to safely perform this install, you need to follow the instructions very carefully. I have them documented here: Pelican Technical Article: Boxster Intermediate Shaft Bearing Replacement and Upgrade (IMS) - 986 Boxster (1997-04) - 987 Boxster (2005-06)

-Wayne

Cams were locked and chain tensioners loosened, as I explained in my post the video was shortened due to UTube's time allocation and those procedures were cut out. In the original instructions the center bolt was shown knocked out but the tool that was sent with the bearing was not the tool shown in the instructions. the bolt was retrieved with a magnet and the procedure was done according to the instructions sent with the parts. The video is there for those who want to view it otherwise it is a free country.

[clickman]

Originally Posted by ronster

There have been reports of IMS failure in a few thousand miles to a hundred plus thousand miles and up to the 2006 year when the whole IMS part of the motor was changed it seems to be a crap shoot.

The IMS portion was changed in MY06 such that you had to disassemble the engine to do the retrofit, rather than being able to do it from the outside. The basic IMS design was still the same, and still continued to fail, until the completely redesigned engine came out in around 09(?). The new engine may have its own problems - we'll see.

[clickman]

Originally Posted by ronster

The video is there for those who want to view it otherwise it is a free country.

Wayne's being careful and thorough and you're getting your back up?

Your previous post says the video covers the "essential steps". Not true. The locking of cams and easing of chain tension is absolutely essential to making sure the engine doesn't lose timing during the retrofit process.

Wayne, keep up the good work!

[ronster]

Originally Posted by clickman

Wayne's being careful and thorough and you're getting your back up?

Your previous post says the video covers the "essential steps". Not true. The locking of cams and easing of chain tension is absolutely essential to making sure the engine doesn't lose timing during the retrofit process.

Wayne, keep up the good work!

My post was not a criticism of Wayne so you are way out of line here. I posted the video in an attempt to be helpful but one of the criticisms of this site is that it is a contentious place where criticism seems to be abundant no matter what one tries to do.
FYI I support Pelican Parts by buying most of my parts here and have invested in his book.
Making an assumption that something hadn't been done, without asking first, in my opinion is out of line. I'll clear the post and refrain from being helpful here in the future.

[Wayne 962]

Sheesh, everyone needs to calm down. It's so easy to take things out of context on the Internet.

As I stated previously, the video is well executed, but there are steps that are not shown there (due to YouTube's limitations) that might cause issues for someone if they were watching it and didn't have the full instructions to go along with it.

-Wayne

[Wayne 962]

I received a PM from ronster this morning asking that I clarify my posts even further. I will do so now in detail:

- The video is well executed and a good overview of the process, but does not contain all of the important information needed to perform the IMS replacement task. I suggest you follow the instructions outlined in the tech article above.

- My comments regarding not locking the camshafts and loosening the tensioners were based solely on the fact that the scenes showing that were not included in the video. Ronster has repeatedly emphasized that the mechanic performing this job (Alden at Flintworks) did indeed perform these tasks correctly, even though they were "off-camera".

- I don't recommend popping out the center stud from the bearing because it can be difficult to get back into the bearing if you don't have the right tools. Obviously, a professional shop like Flinkworks would have the proper tools, but the average home mechanic might have difficulty getting the stud back into the bearing when performing this task. Ronster has since informed me that the instructions that were included with the LN Engineering bearing removal tool were not for the new tool, but for the expanding c-clamp puller tool that was used prior to the design of the newer tool. With the newer tool, you do not have to pop the stud out.

It's obvious that ronster is very passionate about his favorite mechanic and shop (Alden at Flinkworks). My comments on the video were posted to help guide home mechanics who might be reading this in the future and might be viewing the video without the complete information necessary to perform the job.

I trust that this clarifies my comments in detail so that there are no further misunderstandings.

-Wayne