c928jon

Thanks for that. I'm trying to enjoy it as best I can:-) It's strange how a car that is so similar can feel so different, I guess it's like you old jeans, they fit great because you've worn them in:-)

Hi all, I've just said goodbye to my 1998 c2, a sad day considering quite a lot of me went with it (fingernails, knuckles and hair) after fixing and changing many things. The sad day was made better by picking up my new (to me) 2004 c4s! It's quite funny, within a day I'm writing a post about newbie questions :) The exhaust tips are large and oval with a central pipe, same as std turbo I think. The center section is black, I was wondering if this black coating was a carbon build up or if the tips were painted that way as new? If it's carbon etc. then i'll polish them, if it's black then i'll paint them. Thanks

Hi The MAF will deteriorate as it ages, it can remain within parameters but still not be quite right. The signs are the rough idle and a feeling of low power at higher revs. In these cases cleaning works well, but not always! My experience was to clean the MAF and it felt like I had a new car. I then fitted a new one just to be on the safe side. John

Hi all, I'm nearing the end of a long handling saga! My 99c2 with m030 as standard was superb when I got it two years ago. I've put 60000miles on it since and the handling deteriorated to nearly unusable levels. I had hit a few holes in the road that were very harsh but nothing that you would think was out of the ordinary. I've had the car aligned on numerous occasions, it felt better for a few miles then all floaty again. The car felt loose in a straight line and when cornering would feel like a weight was shifting at the rear. Any bump or change in road surface would be awfull, the car would dive and bounce. The first thing was new dampers, then trackrod ends, then sway bar mounts and strut tops. All were a little worn and the car was stiffer afterwards, but the problems carried on. The car had been to three seperate mechanics, none could find anything wrong or loose. I was being told that it was me, even on the test drives no one could feel anything. I worry that many cars have simple problems that are thought of as being "normal" that are in fact worn components that lead to odd handling. The major problem I found was the rear link in the suspension, the one with the rear toe in adjustment. This component was moving in it's mounting, the bolt felt tight. This movement could only be felt with the damper and spring removed. Each time an alignment check was done the driving of the car onto the ramp settled the rear wheels and led the guages to show the rear tow in as being correct. Under driving conditions it was moving, changing the rear toe settings mid corner. Although not major movement, it led to increased understeer when the wheel was unloaded and very loose feelings on bumpy roads. With this major problem sorted that car handles very well in corners now, but still loose at speed. I'd taken apart each corner and checked each component in turn, everything was perfect. The only item unchecked was the steering rack, no play could be felt by the usual methods. wobbling wheels etc. I did manage to make a definate clunking noise by getting my unable assistant to turn the steering wheel, left and right, whilst pushing the rear edge of the wheel inboard. This in effect loaded the rack and showed something was wrong. I'm confident it's the mounts for the rack, i'm fitting them this week and hope that's the end of it all. My biggest concern is that cars that "don't feel right" are being dismisseed once the usual checks are done. If your car's handling has become worse with time don't put it down to "wear" Chances are something is loose somewhere, it's just very hard to find! I'm getting pretty well versed at finding things now, feel free to get a second opinion.

I've finished at last! I have had a persistent wandering problem for months now, new dampers, track rods and sway bar tie rods. It still wandered, it just didn't feel right, any slight change in road surface would make it feel awful. It felt like a large weight shifting around at the rear. I gave up after changing things and decided to strip the suspension off each corner until I found something, I just knew something was loose but I couldn't find anything and neither could three seperate dealers who I used for checking alignment after each part replacement. Tonight I have just done the last corner (why is it always the last one!) you couldn't feel any movement anywhere, i'd levered and pulled but it felt rock solid. Istripped the coil and damper out and felt some movement as soon as this was out. I tracked this to the rear link where it joined the body, at the rear camber adjuster. The bolts were tight but it still shifted, I removed the bolt and cleaned it, put it back together and it was fine! All this effort for a loose bolt, that said you'd never be able to find it without pulling the suspension apart! I guess this post is a cautionary one, don't overlook the simple things!

Hi, My alarm did just the same thing, when the system was checked it needed a new sounder according to the dealer. It's adjacent to the battery and only takes minutes to change. Simple John

Thanks for the TSB heads up. I'd pretty much followed your thought process and just changed the sway bar drop links and strut top today. I have found something a bit odd though. If you jack the right hand corner up the wheel is solid, you can't move it an inch upwards against the resistance of the suspension. You can on the left side. I originally thought this was a failed strut top bearing but it does the same with the new one fitted. I called my local specialist who had a boxster and 996 on his ramps and he checked both of them. You couldn't move anything. All I can think of now is the spring. The damper, top bearing and sway bar link are all new. I've got to wait for the spring to come from Germany, my car has green and white marked springs which aren't in stock in the UK. So next week i'll be under the wheel arch again. The car has 18inch Turbo look wheels, all OE fitment, 245 on the front from memory.

Hi All and Happy New Year. I'm just fishing for some help, i've had some problems with the car feeling very loose at the front end. I've had the car up in the air and done the usuall, hauling around with a big bar but the set up is so hard on these things I can't find anything. I changed the dampers as it looked like the left side was soft. This helped but didn't cure the problem totally then the shock failed again after 4000 miles.I'm just doing strut top mounts today but I couldn't feel any play in them before. Does anyone know of any common problems? My best description of the problem is that it feels like the left wheel is folding under when taking right hand bends, and then loose when driving straight. Any help would be much appreciated....I'm getting a bit lost. The car has been aligned properly, four times now, as well as my local specialist having a look over and not having a clue what the problem is, but driving the car and finding the same issues. The car is a 99 c2 manual with sports pack (MO30?) Thanks in advance

Mine did something very similar, not a tt though so may not be applicable, cam cover bolts leak and dripple drops of oil onto the exhaust. This may be the problem, have someone sit behind you at a junction and check if the smoke is coming from the tail pipe or the surrounding area! The oil seperator bellows fail as well and this leads to oil being drawn into the throttle body, same results! Good luck.

I found using a plumbing fitting, 3/4" BSP taper, I think, screwed gently into the plug tube gave a nice grip to remove it.

To be certain everything was clean i'd whip off the bumper cover, if it was pretty bad where you could reach it's likely that the worst of it is still there. The bumper cover comes off very easilly, I was amazed quite how easilly! I'm sure someone with the shop manuals can post the destructions

Hi all, I have heard reports of oiled type air filters causing contamination of the MAF, I know that once upon a time MAF sensors went through a heating cycle to "burn off" any contamination. I have no idea if they still do this? If this was the case then you could easily end up with a burnt on film from an oiled filter. Now here's where I'm guessing.... If you have a significant oil leak in the engine bay, RMS or such like, drips onto the exhaust (common from valve covers) this contaminated air would be drawn into the engine and could affect the MAF in the same way as an oiled filter. So to my question..How many of you have suffered a MAF faliure soon after an oil leak? I certainly did, mu RMS was pretty bad, I regularly had oil spots all over my rear bumper! John

I wonder if there is such a thing as a hypo car driac? The condensors sit in front of the radiators, I think you can get your hand through the openings in the front PU, although it may need a small child or trained monkey if you've got big hands.

My aircon has been making odd noises from the expansion valve lately which I assumed was a loss of refrigerant. When it was checked it was indeed low, I'd hoped it was just that a top up was required however over the next 8 weeks it lost most of it's charge. By using die and UV lamp I did eventually track the leak down, in my case the drivers side condenser. When I was looking for the leak I spoke to my local Porsche dealer, they pretty much assured me it would be a condenser that had rotted through due to the build up of leaves etc. I keep my car immaculate and thought that this was impossible. When I got in there I was amazed at the amount of damp leaves that had become a compressed mulch against the end of the condenser. This had caused the condenser to rust and fail. I'll certainly be adding cleaning of this area to my maintenance schedule and I suggest everyone does to avoid premature failure of expensive bits! Sorry if it sounds preachy :-)

Hi Just a quick though, has anyone in the Uk got an old bumper cover (front) for a 99 C2, possibly leftover after an upgrade? I was driving to the Goodwood festival of speed yesterday following one of our Max Power hooded bretheren that had decided to lower his unknown jellymold spaceship (going boom diddy boom) so far that when loaded up with a detention center day trip full, it scrapped on the ground. Not normally a problem however it ripped off the heatshield from his cat and sent it like a missile through the front nose of my car.... then clattering over the bonnet etc. F%^$ing Little Pr*&k !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for the rant! John

To be honest, now it's all finished I kinda wished i'd taken photos, on saturday it was positively the last thing on my mind:-) I am lucky enough to have access to a friends four post ramp so could get the car way off the ground, in some respects this made things a little harder as your quite right that gearbox is ermm quite heavy!!!!! and it was a long way down! Had it been about a foot off the ground a trolley jack under the casing would have been much easier...at one point I tried to bribe my victim (willing helper) to go and buy a gearbox lift..no joy though. It is heavy but if you've ever done a similar procedure on a golf or other fwd car it is soooo much easier, lots of room around the box, it just slipped back and down. And in good old haynes speak, installation is the reverse of removal, now all you have to do is find a way of reversing gravity! We put another steel across the ramps to rest it on once disengaged, this worked well putting it back in, brute force to lift it up, rest it on the steel, then lift and pack with scrap timber until level then wiggle and wiggle and wiggle, I think it engaged third wiggle. It's obviously critical to align the clutch plate correctly, there is a special tool, we had a commercially available universal clutch centering kit which was exactly the same. One thing that was interesting, whilst working in the area I could smell gearbox Oil, for some reason it makes me want to vomit so there is no mistaking it for me. When the box was off, a little gear oil had passed the seal, it seemed strange as there is no pressure here and I didn't expect this to leak, fear took hold that the oil leak was infact gearbox oil and I'd been running the box dry since the last service (If it has ever been checked!!! I'm loosing faith in dealer servicing daily!) I took the drain plug out and it was like a coke bottle, full of pressure, it turns out the small breather on top of the box had been blocked with road crud, if you're ever up there give it a spin! This allowed the box to pressurise and force a little oil past the seal. The workshop manual is pretty good at the technical detail, I think what I may do is utilise this and add my practical comments to it, enhancing comments like install clutch slave cylinder to: 1, take mind altering chemical substances (I wish I had!) 2, spend two hours re re re re installing clutch slave cylinder. 3, wash up and get changed 4, attempt ot drive off 5, experience the sinking feeling of clutch peddle dropping to the floor 6, Fish various bits of fluid soaked clutch cylinder out and rebuild 7, Whilst rebuilding explain to recently aquired 24yr old female that dinner is off, suggest use of text message, swear words aren't in predictive text so hopefully she won't bother typing them. 8, re re re re re install clutch slave cylinder 9, bleed clutch system, using lots of tubing and aid of gravity as helper has long since given in to the call of his other half 10, check prior to getting changed as you don't expect it to work 11, get changed and wipe off greasy hand prints caused by your lack of faith! 12, test drive c/w oil guage paranoia 13 return home, slide a piece of white card under the car so you can show everyone what a smarty pants you are in the morning 14 consume too much red wine 9, check before getting changed this time 10

Here's how the thought process went: £800 for a mechanic to change the RMS, £10 for the parts! Is a day of my time worth £800.....HELL YES! Even if it only lasts 5000miles I can change it 80 times, that's 400000miles!!!! If you've got the manuals or alldatadiy and the tsb's its all pretty straightforward. Obviously I was lacking the specialist service tools, but had a ramp. A piece of steel across the ramps with a bit of threaded bar and an old bit of axle stand reproduces the engine restraining bar nicely. My main worry was inserting the new seal without damage to the micro sealing lip and ensuring it was aligned correctly. To be honest if I have to do this again I'll buy or beg the installation tool. I used the old seal (flat face to flat face) and turned down and old timing wheel and drilled it to suit three flywheel bolts. My main concern was starting the seal squarely and sliding the lip over the crank journal. To be honest when I offered it up it slipped over so readilly I wasn't concerned. I then wound it in turn by turn checking with a tyre depth guage that all was square, I started with verniers but the tyre guage was good to .25mm and so much easier to use. I'd been advised to push the seal 2mm past flush, so that's what I did. When chatting with the local main dealer he said "the installation tool is a faff! We just drift them in with a bit of copper" I wonder why these keep failing??? :unsure: My car is a C2 and removal of the gearbox and clutch was very simple, there was loads of room and I didn't even have to drop the engine by the 25mm recommended, I guess I have long arms! The only two areas that are a little tricky are the removal of the clutch retaining pins, soft allen key heads and the clutch slave cylinder. A gentle shock to the pins eases removal. The clutch slave cylinder is a swine, I missed the location on the first attempt and had a ***** getting it all in, If anyone has any ideas of a good way to install this let me know. I'll keep a note of mileage and if the car stays dry, if anyone want's a diy let me know. Have fun

Hi Ticking/groaning/whistling from dash that goes away when AC is turned off = low refrigerant, if your lucky just a top up but i'd expect that you have an aircon leak. Groaning moaning is a possible front sway bar bush or link. As for tt engine probs i'm afraid I'm clueless,

Hi, mine did the same thing, an occasional cloud of smoke when under hard acceleration. In my case it was the bellows tube connecting the crankcase to the oil separator, that would give you your CEL as well as "vacuuming" oil through the separator until it was overwhelmed and sending a slug of oil through the intake. Hence the smoke cloud. Changing just the bellows is fairly straightforward, I changed the separator to be on the safe side. I suggest if you want to do a DIY that you start a serious workout programme on your thumb and forefinger, they will be in for some seriously hard work on hose clamps etc. It is also worth checking the flexible pipe between the oil filler cap and the crankcase, these split giving similar problems. John

Hi Peter.. My 99 C2 Coupe is doing exactly the same thing, no sign of the strikers ever having moved or replaced but some rust blisters between the striker and the door seal. Good Luck!

I thought I'd do a quick post on Sunroofs, if I ever find myself ordering a new car there is no way I'd ever tick the rattle roof option, a Targa or cabriolet maybe but not a device designed to blind you and suck your eardrums out :) Unfortunately the previous owner did tick the box and so I'm left with the rattles. I decided to regrease the rails to see if that would help the situation, it's never used so it had got quite stiff. Now follows a word of warning.....I greased the rails and then ran the roof through open and closed a few times to distribute the grease. Each time I opened the roof it went a little further back, assuming this was due to the grease helping it achieve full travel I held the button down.....welcome to "teach mode" the roof disappeared back never to be seen again, jammed solid and would under no circumstances come forward.. A great situation in April in England, how I managed to get 48hrs of dry weather at the same time I'll never know :) I tried the manual override but it was stuck solid, I'd have only broken something by trying. Sooo...headlining out, sunroof frame out and sat in the lounge with it on the floor surrounded by trim. I took the motor off, plugged it in on it's own and took the roof to a closed position to fool the settings. Manually reset the roof panel to closed and it was ready to reinstall. Just a quick point..that took 25 seconds to type and 6 hrs to do :) While it was all apart I thought I may as well sort any rattles out so it wasn't a wholly wasted day. In my case the prongs which connect the main carriage to the interior trim panel were hitting the main roof panel, this was obvious from the chaffing marks in the paint. Two pieces of felt placed between these and the roof panel and silence :D I know Porsche sell some felt tape, but not on a Sunday Afternoon..The felt pads sold for putting under pottery work just as well and available from DIY shops! I hadn't realised how much more solid the car appears without the noise from this area, well worth doing.. The good bit is that this can be done in minutes without removing anything if you are suffering from the same thing. Open the roof about 80mm, if you look at the leading edge you will see two clips between the roof and trim panel. If you push the trim panel back and ease these clips you can push the trim panel back by 30mm or so. Now you should be able to see these two prongs and the likely area of impact, with some manual dexterity you should be able to stick a felt pad in between the two and kill an annoying rattle. In my case the TSB had been performed however the pads fitted by my OPC had worn through allowing the rattle to return. If only I'd known that on Saturday my weekend would have been so much more pleasant..At least I know how to take the headlining out now..another box ticked <_<

As you say Ian, interesting, did you get a CEL? As for it being dangerous, i'm quite mechanically sensitive and "felt" a lean condition so drove on part throttle most of the time with occasional bursts to help diagnose. If you weren't of a similar mindset and opted for the thrash it and see if it clears approach, you could be looking at a rod through the block! My personal experience was that every now and then I'd forget it was doing it and go to overtake somewhere that only cars like this can, and then feel like i'd stopped half way past... I think my underwear suffered some serious overheating at times like that!

I thought i'd just do a quick update on the problems I was having with my 99C2. I searched the board for suggestions when trying to diagnose the problem and posted, but didn't manage to get much light thrown on the subject, so i'm trying to write this including all the key words I searched for :) The car would pull like a train sometimes, then feel flat at others, often with a hesitation at about 3500-4000 rpm. It never threw an CEL or did it store any fault codes, I guess it wasn't quite bad enough to go out of limits. I started with the simple things such as air leaks, and soon found that the oil filler tube had split, from the posts and bulletins on caps I guessed this wouldn't be helping matters. Changing the tube was quite simple, once you suss shifting the alternator. With this fixed there was an improvement but still the hesitation, whilst changing the tube I'd noticed Oil in the intake, coming from a crankcase ventilation tube. so I guessed that the external oil separator had failed, again thanks to this board and many bellows references :) Changing the separator is a bit more involved and I think any long serving Porsche mechanics must have arms like orangutans. I'll happily write up some DIY's if anyone is interested? When I eventually got the separator out, the rubber bellows section had failed, another air leak fixed :) Then came the test drive with two fairly serious leaks fixed and i'm expecting all to be well...so I warm the car up and away we go...and it hesitates just as bedly as before :censored: I've obviously read about MAF sensors failing and now I start thinking Oil mist in the intake may have contaminated the sensor. Out it comes and lashings of electrical contatct cleaner later it's refitted. It was like having a new car, it's amazing how you will drive around a problem if it's getting worse gradually. :) In hindsight my hesitation was the change from open to closed loop,the air leaks and contaminated MAF giving me a lean mixture on WOT, ok on partial throttle but no good when having fun and fine when cruising on the motorway. The main reason for my post is that I feel that the operating parameters may be different in the UK. From the posts I've read CEL's would have been lighting up like a christmas tree, but not a glimmer from mine. If i'd had a CEL, with lean condition I would almost certainly have changed the MAF, and never found the air leaks. I would have been happy with the result and considered all fixed! If that had been the case I'd never have found all the extra power and almost certainly been changing another MAF in the future. Both sources of my air leaks are easy to spot, if you know where to look, It may be worth checking these if your changing a MAF. I've had some fun with the sunroof this weekend and may have found a quick fix for a rattle, I'll put than in another post though, this ones getting a bit long!

Hi, I've owned my 99 996 C2 manual for about six months now and had my share of the usual problems, RMS, coolant header tank etc. Recently the car has seemed to loose power intermittently and no fault codes are stored anywhere! I'd had a fault with the alarm that required the battery disonnecting and had assumed the computer was re learning positions etc. I've done about 1500 miles since it was last disconnected and unless it has serious learning difficulties I guess it's something else! The car will either rev all the way through the range without hesitation but seems to be retarded or pull like a train then hang for a split second before continuing. This isn't a variocam stutter, on Saturday, whilst entertaining a spirited encounter with a integra type R it actually hung at 6000rpm as though a limiter was fitted! I have a bad smell of burning oil after a high reving excursion and although I may have imagined it I thought I saw a puff of white smoke just after the engine hesitated. It doesn't seem to exhibit a problem during warm up but of course i'm not pushing the motor! Any light that could be shed on this before I utilise my local garage for hugely expensive diagnostics would be much appreciated. John