Here is a long post and story, I wouldn't mind feed back if I really fixed my issue.
my new to me 986 has had many common failure trends that are easy fixes (for DIYers) including the horn bushings, seat belt buckles causing SRS lights and now the ignition switch.
i felt there was a little stiffness in the igniition switch and have a inexpensive ignition switch from ebay on the way. regardless I felt it was safe enough for the wife to drive 1 hour to work on friday. not the case. she called me a lunch to tell me the tumbler would not turn at all from the "0" position so the car would not move. since she was and hour away and I had I things to do at work I told her to run to the Porsche dealer and get the part while I printed the instructions I had seen posted here on this simple swap. The Porsche dealer is a two minute ride from her office in Columbus Ohio...I'll leave the dealer name out of this.
while in transit she called to tell me the porsche dealer suggested the entire $200 assembly would be the better swap (no surprise as I read about this recommended swap) and it was about 4+ hours in labor. She was told the ignition switch was most likly NOT the fix and to keep in mind the parts are not refundable. I told her that I just wanted the $44 ignition switch and even asked her to talk the staff into making a house call two minutes down the street to swap it out. since it's a 10 minute job they could charge us for an hour. Since my wife is incredibly cute and has a way of making men do things against there better judgement I thought it was a good chance to save me two hours in the car on Friday during rush hour.
The service manager said where did she get the idea this was a 10 minute job, of course. She called me to say that the Porsche service manager would offer me a job if I could do such a task in under 15 minutes as he knows for a fact it is a two hour job to get to the ignition switch. Needless to say armed only with a flash light and computer screw driver I had the switches swapped in less then 5 minutes. The hardest part was trying to get the left side of the AC duct to fit back together! I fought for that for over 15 minutes later at home that night. In defense of the Porsche dealer the job could have been more difficult of rmy little screwdriver had the paint been harder to remove. Posibly this job was done before!
Of note after pulling the wiring harness of the back of the ignition switch and wiggling things the ignition key/tumbler did turn and I did get the car started. I proceed to swap the ignition switch anyways.
She acutally made an appointment that same day to have them run error codes on our AAC that is not producing much heat. I figured even at the outragous $140+ per hour rate I could at least find out what codes my Durametric software is not showing and find an answer to which sensor or such in the AAC is faulty. Laren has suggested the PST2 could show voltage and ohm readings of servos, flaps and sensors to pin point the problem.
Here are my questions:
Does Porsche in fact show several hours to fix the ignition switch minus the tumbler and silver housing?
If so do they have some long route to removing the dash for those techs not small enough to crawl around under the vehicle...or is just a scam of sort? (dealer = stealer)
I replaced the 4A0 905 849B which the parts guy had no issues giving to my wife while the service department said it was most likly the tumbler closest to the key (maybe part 996 347 917 00 ?). Does this tumbler in fact fail often?
I also read that failure of the ignition switch is often accompanied by electrical system oddities which I had not experienced (fans, lights or stereo working intermitantly). So does the ignition key tend to turn when it fails but not allow ignition or does it fact fail to turn from a faulty ingnition switch as in our case? I'm wondering if the lock tumbler is yet to fail, it still feels a bit stiff but I'm sure I'm just parinoid.
Should I keep away from the dealer for something as simple as pulling codes and determining (not fixing) my AAC concern based on their claim of two hours to swap thw switch? I have NOT found and idie shop in Columbus yet for tasks I cannot handle. My wife said the though he said $140+ per hour for service, does this seem correct for your market? My saab indie shop still charges $70 an hour so I must be living in black hole!