g_j_d

In my case (above) Porsche North America have now more or less officially absolved themselves of guilt from the whole episode and are instead adopting an "out of warranty position". Contrary to what you see everywhere in the newsgroups etc, they claim that there is no systematic problem whatsoever on 996 engines. I guess they don't think it's unreasonable that the thing often dies at 50-60k miles. Their only concession - they offered me $1500 compensation but later withdrew the offer unless I took it to a "local" dealer who is 90 minutes away. Problem is that his base price for a reman engine is $2200 more than the local Porsche independent specialist and furthermore his labour rates are double. At this pont my feeling about the quality of the car and it's reliability are that it is significantly worse than even that of my Range Rover (and that was a hair raising story!). I am amazed at the attitude of Porsche burying their head in the sand and hoping the complaints will go away. I would seriously recommend anybody to think VERY carefully before getting involved in a new Porsche. It seems to be a matter of luck as to whether your period of ownership coincides with a major mechanical disaster. People who get away with it seem happy enough (I was quite happy for 4 years or so), but when something goes wrong all hell breaks loose and no-one at Porsche seems to care in the least bit. I don't know about other people, but I would definitely not touch a new 911 at the moment - at least until they solve this issue.

Hey, I have my fingers crossed and I sure hope its not but, the only time I seen light brown/orange colored oil was when my 996 had the intermix problem. When this first happen to me the Porsche dealer said it could be the oil cooler or oil/air separator. One can hope as I did. Two liters is a lot of coolant to add just for air pockets. I suggest you drain the oil and them you will know for sure. Best of luck. Got the exact same problem on my 2001 911 (63k miles bought new and regularly serviced). Now after 3 months of messing around with Porsche I got their best guess diagnosis today - complete new engine required. The most frustrating thing is that they couldn't diagnose it properly - it seems like a process of elimination by changing parts one after the other in order of expense.... $3k so far (oil cooler, compression checks, leak tests, various oil and radiator things and $13k now for the engine). Quite frankly I would definitely not recommend this car to anyone thinking of buying a sports car - just a quick Google of "996 engine problems" will show how often this problem is cropping up.

I have the exact same problem. 2001 Carrera with $63k miles on it. Flashing CEL, frothy coolant and milky oil. I bought the car new and it has been driven with extreme care - never stressed in any way and constantly dealer maintained during the warranty period, then professionally maintained by an independent Porsche specialist since then because the nearest dealer is about 90 minutes away. When the problem first cropped up I was told it could be one of three things: 1. Oil cooler 2. Head gas gasket 3 Cracked block. So we started a diagnosis (cheapest/easiest items first) at the independent shop. Up till now he has done a compression check (perfect), leak test (slightly down on passenger side), then replaced the oil cooler. But it's still not fixed and after reading that a LOT of people are having the same problem I contacted Porsche Cars North America to see what their attitude would be if it's more serious. So far I've got absolutely nowhere with them- they asked me to have it towed to the original dealer (that's fair enough so I agreed), but they also haven't been able to say what is wrong either. They just have a blanket "replace the engine" attitude for $13400 (which includes Porsche's "goodwill" payment of $1500, albeit that the same work would be $2100 less at my independent!). Given that this car was $100k frankly there's not much goodwill between Porsche and me at the moment. I already have about $3k invested in diagnosing this... That's where we stand at the moment - I'll keep you posted.