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White smoke from one pipe during start and shortly after meant a crack in a cylinder wall in my engine. Smoke didn’t show on every start up at first and seemed to depend on where the piston stopped in relation to the crack in the cylinder wall . Coolant loss was proportional with the amount of smoke I saw. I had the cylinders opposite the smoking pipe bore scoped and got the bad news. The only way to save an engine with a cracked cylinder wall is to get it right away to a shop that can resleeve and rebuild it.

It's important to see if the smoke comes from one or both pipes. My 02 C2 was a one smoke pipe and I got to know all about that situation.

At 130K on the odometer, a bearing in the Tiptronic in my 02 C2 is failing. (My Indy put a stethoscope on it to verify) I don’t live near a city that might have expertise on repairing these units so I’m thinking to replace it. Because the later Tips are so reliable, there’s many used units on the market for fraction of the cost of a new one. I wondering if there’s pitfalls I should be aware of in purchasing a used Tip. Like, will a unit from a 04 model plug and play in my 02? Any insight would be much appreciated.

I know what you are talking about wildbilly32.The State of California where I live, is strapped for road maintenance funds and at least on the fun two lane roads, is patching instead of repaving. This is shaking rattles in my 02 Cab and generating harsh ride complaints from my wife. Lowering the tire pressure helps a bit but in my case, new Bilsteins while renewing the handling but didn’t seem to make much difference in the ride. I’ve been thinking about coil-overs because I feel the 996 looks better at the European ride height or a little less. Maybe those with adjustable dampening can be set to cope with our worn our paving.

Thank you Ahsai, I pretty sure the former owner of our car didn't follow you guidance in your first reply. Hence our engine failure. Your advice to keep the revs up is particularly good for anyone with a Triptonic transmission. The Tip will default to shift at ridiculously low RPM when operated in automatic mode. You can teach it to act more sensibly but that takes a warm engine and a place to use full throttle. Because of this, we always operate in the manual mode and shift with the steering wheel buttons. Thanks again

My wife's 02, Tipronic, Cab had a cracked cylinder engine failure a couple of years ago. I don't know what caused the problem outside of the former owner not being at all car savvy and all that implies. We surely don't want this to happen again so do all the little things to maintain and operate the car as it should. I've been wondering if a low temperature thermostat would help but delayed so as not to jeopardize Porsche's two year warranty on the new engine. My question is; how much coolant should I have on hand to replace that drained out during the thermostat R and R process? Thanks for any help and also to all that contribute to this extraordinary forum.

I believe the Bilstein HD replaces the OEM units and the Sport is for lowed cars.

Your suspension noises could be Rear Stabilizer Drop Links. Also, are you happy with your cars ride height? Many think the car looks better at the European height or slightly lower. The time to do something about it is when you're replacing struts anyway. I have and 02 also and wish I'd gone with a coil over system like the Bilstein PSS9 or PSS10 though others like Porsche's M030 RoW kit.

Porsche furnishes different rear springs for different weight models but aftermarket springs seem to come in as one fits all. The lowering Eiboch springs I chose dropped the front almost the one inch I was looking for but as my wife’s car is a heavier Cab with Tipronic, the rear came down much more. Not only does a tail heavy 996 look wrong but it bottoms its exhaust tips on innocent looking swales and ramps and worse, has alignment problems. So I had to have the stock rear springs reinstalled but with Koni shocks rather than Bilstien. The Konis are a low pressure type and don’t add ride height. The rear is still a bit higher than I would like but after two trips to the shop and two rear end alignments I’m calling it close enough.

I just masked the caps with a couple of layers of tape and had at it.

For some time I’ve had a loud growling noise when adjusting my 02 Cab’s power seats fore and aft. This has come up on this forum before and there is a factory service bulletin on the subject. Porsche calls for the seat be removed to start the repair but dealing with all the electrical connectors is kind of daunting as so often they have little tricks that you have to know to disconnect them. So, instead here’s what’s worked for me: Run the seat as far forwards and as high as it will go. Look under from the rear and you’ll see two motors at one side. The rear motor drives one rail and has a cross shaft to drive the other. On the side away from the motor, the cross shaft has a plastic bushing hidden under a rubber dust cover. Pry the dust cover off with a screw driver. Spray the bushing with WD40. The groaning is now gone now and if it ever returns, its just a quick squirt to fix.

The Rubber bushings in the transmission mount in my 02 were totally shot at 90k miles. IA new carrier is an easy installation and my local Indy only charged me $75. My only trouble was that there are two little rubber-like tabs that Porsche calls Trans Carrier Stops that were also bad. They did not come with the carrier assembly so I had to reorder and get them installed later (again $75). Pelican Parts furnished everything.

Earlier this month I posted: A few weeks ago, our 02 Cab started losing a bit coolant. At first I thought that I had one of the common leaks or just needed a new coolant tank cap. No such luck. Now, on cool starts, I’m seeing an obvious plum of vapor coming from only the left exhaust pipe. There’s no sign of intermix of either type and no CEL though. With any other car, I would be thinking "head gasket" but Jake Raby of LN engineering has said on the Rennlist Forum that it is never the case. Does this sound like a cracked head or can it be anything else? The car has nearly 90K miles on it but has recently had the IMS retrofit and other preventive work done so it would be a real shame to have to replace the engine. To follow up: I had my engine's cooling system pressure tested and the engine bore scoped. Bad news! They found cracks in #4and #5 cylinder walls. I thought cylinder cracking was only a problem in the early 996. Now I find that that's not so and my mark II engine is not immune. Apparently the M96 engine block has issues with torsional rigidity and overtime can crack cylinder walls. Unfortunately, unlike the air cooled cars, the M96 has cylinders that are integral with the block and can't be just popped on and off. So, I have a major problem. I see only two remedies; either replace the engine in total or have it torn down and its cylinders resleeved. Needless to say, either is expensive Why this happened to our car is a mystery. It's a much loved and maintained Tiptronic "daily driver"and its engine never unduly stressed in any way. I guess its just another of those 996 zingers and like I said before, it looks like it's my turn.

Thanks for the replies Loren and JFP. Loren, There no sign of coolant in the oil or oil in the coolant. JFP, Looks like I need to find a P shop with experience in water cooled engine failures and do some testing.

A few weeks ago, our 02 Cab started losing a bit coolant. At first I thought that I had one of the common leaks or just needed a new coolant tank cap. No such luck. Now, on cool starts, I’m seeing an obvious plum of vapor coming from only the left exhaust pipe. There’s no sign of intermix of either type and no CEL though. With any other car, I would be thinking "head gasket" but Jake Raby of LN engineering has said on the Rennlist Forum that it is never the case. Does this sound like a cracked head or can it be anything else? The car has nearly 90K miles on it but has recently had the IMS retrofit and other preventive work done so it would be a real shame to have to replace the engine. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks You’re helped me a lot. I’m thinking to try lubricating before I replace parts. Does anyone know how I should go about this?

Our 02 Cab. is the first Porsche we’ve owned with power seats. I use the word "we" because my 5'1" wife loves the car and drives it a much as I. As you can guess, when its my turn at the wheel, the driver’s seat is always in a for forward position. Its then that the seat memory function really comes in handy. The trouble with this rosy picture is that rearward seat movement is always accompanied by a loud groaning noise. Up, down, tilt - fine. Just moving back. I’d live with it but its embarrassing that such a wonderful car would make such awful noises in public. I’ve checked for rubbing upholstery or anything extraneous under or around the seat and lubed the seat rails and gear track but still the same groaning. There’s three small motors under the seat to do all the adjusting. One has what looks like a sheathed drive cable on one end which seams suspicious to me. You can reach under the seat and hold outer casing on this cable while running the seat back and forth and I did that but couldn’t feel anything unusual. So now I"m thinking it may not be this cable and even if it just required lubrication, I wouldn’t know how to as it looks like its sealed. Has anyone had this or have an idea how to fix it? Thanks for this great forum and all the contribute to it. You’ve taught me a lot and gave me the information and confidence to tackle various small repairs.

[/img]On my 02 996, the return fuel line is leaking at its connection with the fuel tank sending unit. I can see it ooze gas but don’t see a way to tighten the connection. Seems like a small thing to take to a shop so any help anyone can give to fix it myself would be much appreciated. Since the above post, I'm now sure the little connector that shows in my photo is the culprit. How does it release and is there any repair other than replacing it?

My situation is a bit different from the other forum questions I’ve seen. My Ignition Key doesn’t want to lock or unlock the steering wheel. Yesterday the key wouldn’t begin to turn in the ignition and today the steering column lock wouldn’t engage and let me remove the key. Both times moving the steering wheel back and forth quite a number of times let me either start the car or get the key released. All the electrical functions ofr the Ignition Switch work fine. Is the Lock Barrel at fault? If it so, can it be lubricated or do I need to replace the entire assembly? Any help would be much appreciated.