Ims bearing

PDCC4S · 18 Nov 2017

Evening

As a new owner myself I checked loads of internet buff about Ims bearings some good some bad & after taking months of looking for my C4s I found one from a Porsche specialist without the Ims being updated. After a long chat with the owner of the garage I decided that I would buy the car & with a good warranty happily collected. The car had a full service oil change filters etc on collection & drives really well as it should as its a 70k car 3 owners. Anyway I again went to a couple of Porsche specialist to seek advice on the bearings & was basically told the same thing drive the car enjoy it & bring it back after another 5k but for peace of mind I had another oil change done on the car & got the guys to check the filter ( all clear ). Ive now found a fantastic specialist who looks after the car, knows his stuff very honest guy so fingers crossed happy driving, ive been informed that the bearing will make noises before its goes anyway so that's the time to stop the car & replace.

BChivs · 18 Nov 2017

PDCC4S said:
Evening

As a new owner myself I checked loads of internet buff about Ims bearings some good some bad & after taking months of looking for my C4s I found one from a Porsche specialist without the Ims being updated. After a long chat with the owner of the garage I decided that I would buy the car & with a good warranty happily collected. The car had a full service oil change filters etc on collection & drives really well as it should as its a 70k car 3 owners. Anyway I again went to a couple of Porsche specialist to seek advice on the bearings & was basically told the same thing drive the car enjoy it & bring it back after another 5k but for peace of mind I had another oil change done on the car & got the guys to check the filter ( all clear ). Ive now found a fantastic specialist who looks after the car, knows his stuff very honest guy so fingers crossed happy driving, ive been informed that the bearing will make noises before its goes anyway so that's the time to stop the car & replace.

I don't think it's as common as some believe....I had a 320d M Sport Coupe as a daily a fair few years back....At the time everyone was harping on about the N47 BMW diesel having problems with timing chains & everyone was losing their minds about it. When you actually consider how many of these cars were built compared to actuall failure numbers the percentage is low. That said I'm not so blasé about it to understand it could happen to any of our cars at any time....Oh and I think you have been misinformed....I'm certainly no expert, and I'm sure others will confirm but your IMS will not get noisey first....It just fails and screws your engine.

captain caveman · 19 Nov 2017

You wont here the ims failing :hand:
Until the bearing are rolling around smashing the inside of your engine to bits :sad:

Theres a video floating around of a guy in a Boxster who just happened to be filming as the bearing failed.
Sounds a bit like someone dropping a had full of ball bearings onto a wooden floor, By the time is already to late so save anything.

Alex · 19 Nov 2017

Forget about it. There's 1000 things that will give you more trouble with you 996. If you want to fret.......fret about them 1st.

dombo · 20 Nov 2017

My specialist said basically the same - recent oil filter showed no signs of IMS trouble at 70k miles, bring it back in 12 months (probably another 5k miles) for oil change and they'll check again.
Putting it in perspective, previous models of 911 also had problems but without internet forums in which to shout and moan, there was no way other owners could know the extent of these unless there was a general recall. The 996 of course came out just as the internet was really taking off and so any problems could be aired and shared with people around the world and, as we know, more people will post about a problem they've had than one they haven't yet.
That said, I drive mine with stereo off, listening to every little squeak and hum from that glorious flat-six, hoping my reactions will be fast enough to switch off and coast to a stop if things go pear-shaped.

Marky911 · 20 Nov 2017

You can catch a dual row bearing going if you're lucky.
You can't catch a single row. They pretty much just go bang especially if the engine is at high revs.

This vid always springs to mind.

https://youtu.be/nXWZDt4l0jA

As said it's a small risk. However it's catastrophic IF it does go.
I wanted to act upon that so have just had mine inspected. It was found to be perfect so the seal was flipped off to give it a splash feed of oil.

A lot of money for essentially no difference to anything though.
£300 labour, plus new clutch, flywheel bolts and a load of other work while the box was out such as brake pipes and AOS.
The above along with a full service, aircon pipe plus re-gas, waterpump and LTT and I'm looking at a £1500 bill.

Hopefully the next couple of years will just be minor services though.

Alex · 20 Nov 2017

Money well spent. Each of those jobs individually would've racked up to triple that.

cobrars · 20 Nov 2017

:yeah:

JS1500 · 20 Nov 2017

alex yates said:
Money well spent. Each of those jobs individually would've racked up to triple that.

And if it was an Aston V8 Vantage you'd have paid £3.5k+ just for the clutch change! (engines are bulletproof though!)

Edit: oh, and you're lucky if you get more than 20k miles out of each clutch in the Vantage.

Black-Adder · 20 Nov 2017

I had an IMS fail on a previous car 3 years ago and it just went bang with no warnings at 70 ish, the only thing it had was an erratic idle which I was informed could of be an indication that's it's about to go. I only had the car for a day so dealer gave me a full refund.

deMort · 20 Nov 2017

Many years ago one of my collegues was on road test with a phone fault .. he was on the phone to the Workshop controller checking it when the IMS let go .... not sure which one of them swore the loudest !

Not usually a warning shall we say but also a pretty rare occurence these days .. ive not seen one in a few years now .. seen engines going bang for other reasons though .

C4-STORM · 20 Nov 2017

Evening all.

Is IMS failure completely random?

I have heard that the earlier 3.4 models benefit from a more durable dual row bearing but I don't understand for what reason Porsche changed this on the later models to a weaker(?) single row bearing.

Do some later model 3.4's have a single row IMS?

Do all 3.6's have the same later IMS?

Are MT's or Tips more likely to give up?

:?:

BChivs · 20 Nov 2017

C4-STORM said:
Evening all.

Is IMS failure completely random?

I have heard that the earlier 3.4 models benefit from a more durable dual row bearing but I don't understand for what reason Porsche changed this on the later models to a weaker(?) single row bearing.

Do some later model 3.4's have a single row IMS?

Do all 3.6's have the same later IMS?

Are MT's or Tips more likely to give up?

:?:

From what I understand, later cars say 53 reg onwards had a bigger revised bearing but still not completely free of risk. Tiptronics are higher risk due to how the power is delivered and a more laboured acceleration.

infrasilver · 21 Nov 2017

BChivs said:
Tiptronics are higher risk due to how the power is delivered and a more laboured acceleration.

The above is attributed to bore scoring rather than an IMSB issues.

C4-STORM · 21 Nov 2017

Do the '53 reg onwards models have a bigger revised bearing then?

Slightly of topic, Infrasilver does pulling away in 2nd gear on a Tip help reduce the chances of bore score? :dont know:

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