MaximumNoise

a short horror story....

.....starts with beautiful blue sky and a sunny winter thursday morning in northern germany, around 120km of 3 lane autobahn ahead before i get home to hamburg. most of the autobahn has no speed limits, and i knew there would be little traffic so i was in a great mood, behind me about 20 km of country roads which had warmed the engine and myself on a rather cold morning ..4°c...with a smile on my face i accelerated onto the autobahn, taking the rev counter needle up to around 5000 before changing up (tiptronic)...still a bit wary that the mobil 1 oil (which was 2000km old btw) might not be at full operating temp. after a few high speed km i had to slow because of a short part which is limited to 120kmh listening to my V1 for any bogies ... ;)

as soon as the eagerly awaited no speed limit was in sight i went down a gear and accelerated..changing up short before the red line...a great feeling. with my foot flat on the floor i reached a speed of 279 on the digital speedo...had to slow for some twit blocking the left lane which was a great opurtunity to go down a gear again and repeat the "red lineing" once the "twit" had noticed the xenon headlights and the typical porsche silouette which causes 90% of drivers to rapidly vacate the left lane. (its not allowed to pass a car on the right) i kept the car at max speed for a few minutes before slowing again for another car (bmw) who himself was traveling at rather a high speed but was probably one of those poor "ba...rds" that has his max speed limited to 250kmh .. :P ..the process repeated itself a few times and was great fun, and i felt like a :king:

after a while i noticed my top speed was down to 270kmh which puzzled me a bit.

getting near to hamburg there are speedlimits which i kept to because its only right...

coming off the autobahn and stoping at the red light at the end of the slip road i noticed a "clanking" noise..looking around for an east european truck with a big russian worn out diesel engine i was supprised i was the only one around :oops:

i headed straight for my official porsche dealership which was only around 8km away...they diagnosed a valve problem in the right hand cylinder head...

got a call on the phone today. in cyl. 6 a piston ring has disintergrated and left bad marks in the bore and probably damaged other parts in its wake..this they diagnosed by removing the spark plug....an exchange engine is the only way to rapair it they said..12200 euros which is around 14000 USD is the price...plus fluids. (im looking for a crying smiley)

im not rich...i made a dream i have had for many years come true when i bought the car a little over 3 months ago...a 99 carrera2 with 78000km on it...now 82000. it had the big inspection at 80000. its a nightmare now......

i would be very gratefull for thoughts and views..maybe some good tips. do i really have to replace the engine? did i damage it myself just by driving it like it should be driven...i rev the **** out of my motorcycles and have never had any trouble, and they are italian!!! thanks in advance

cheers

kelvin

Kelvin, at least before blowing your engine you had some few times of glory cruising at 270!

When I blown it, I was stopped at the traffic light... the noise was exactly tha same you described (I thought to an OM Leoncino - a '50-'60 italian small truck)

This is my story http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=4501&hl=

(I don't know if the link works but in case you can search here for the title of the 3D "another (?) 996 3.4 engine broken..., is normal that a serviced 67.000 Km...".

At last I've spent 11.000 euro for engine, clutch and flywheel replacement.

Since, due to the low mileage, I claimed for extra warranty, after 6 months I had back 1K from Porsche as 30% of the only replacement engine list price (5870€ + VAT).

The "funny" think (it would be very funny to see how this would be considered in a trial...) is that the "opening the engine for failure search" - must for claiming the warranty - costed me 1K.... :censored:

I'm very very very nauseated from Porsche...

Many thanks Loren! But... what should tell this? That if I'm going to repair the engine Porsche will provide me a new modified crankcase and bearing housings (that is the correct word for those things that started to damage the engine, followed by the bearing shells..).

The point is: why they have modified the crankcase?... Anything else?

(I think customers would had been happier if P had recall this problem instead of 993cabrios...)

today I found this: http://www.alldata.com/TSB/50/99503540.html

note TSB Number 11A/0 of august 2003 "Engine - Modified Crankcase/Bearing Housing Usage" that seems exactly my problem...

and, finally, regarding the redesigning I found this on PCA web site

http://www.pca.org/tech/tech_qa_question.a...3-A86727374661}

Hi, I'm from Italy and I own an immaculate 996 C2 cabrio, built in june '99.

The car has a total of 67.000 Km (42000 miles) and it's been always serviced (last service 500 km ago).

Saturday, after a little 50 km highway ride, when I stopped at a red light near home I heard a big mechanical noise coming from the engine... but the engine was running great since i stopped.. no warning lights on the dash and strong oil pressure.

I was 500mt from home so I ride very very slow to park the car in the box... On monday I put the car on a truck and I went to my service....

He found some small copper pieces in the oil!

He first thought to valvle guides, but when he removed the crankcase oil screen he found... parts of bearing shells!

I've heard that this is a very well known problem of 3.4l engines and Porsche redesigned the entire crankcase... and the solution is: ENGINE REPLACEMENT.

The problem is that the car is out of warranty and the cost here in Italy will be about 8-9Euro (10-12K US$) for a replacement engine.

My question is: do Porsche recognize that this is a design mistake?

If my engine had 100.000 miles I'd be prepared for the replacement but not on a 40k miles engine!

I bought a Porsche, a brand whose reputation is also made with reliability... next time will I have to buy a Jap?

Someone has some previous references?

Thanks