Mijostyn

They checked the alignment. The car handles great. I can take my hands off the wheel at a buck twenty and it goes straight as an arrow. The tech has no idea. I think the original bearings were defective, maybe not hardened correctly. This one probably did not press in right, maybe the knuckle got dinged in the process? I think that is what they are thinking as they are going to replace the whole shooting match.

It gets better. The new Lt wheel bearing lasted almost three months. This time I started getting a wheel speed squeak out of the Lt rear, not the previous grumble. Now they are going to replace the bearing, the knuckle and the hub. We must be up to $15,000 in warranty repairs by now.

Just a follow up on the topic of Manifold bolts, studs or cap screws. I discussed the subject with the Porsche tech I use. Porsche does indeed use plain steel hardened cap screws on the exhaust manifold. Porsche's argument is that hardened steel will not gall in or corrode aluminum. Thus it is the safest fastener for the head. The cap screws they use have a beefier head than usual and they feel it should last as long as the exhaust manifold. The techs are advised to keep an eye on them and replace them if necessary. This tech soaks them in WD40 and lets them sit for 15-20 minutes. He tries to torque them out gently and if the screw does not want to come out easily he grinds the head off which leaves enough screw proud for a Snap On easy out tool to grab. He says he has never had to use a drill. He has only had to replace them on high mileage early Boxters and 996's. Not one 997 yet. Porsche does not recommend the use of antiseize with it's cap screws. The tech does not know why for sure but thinks that given heat cycling and vibration it may increase the risk of the screws loosening causing a leak. Automakers are very conservative with exhaust issues because of carbon monoxide. Let's give a big round a applause for the Lawyers!

racerken, I just got back from my Porsche dealer having blown wheel bearing #3!! This time they are replacing the bearing, the knuckle and the hub. Pretty soon I'll have a new car. Anyway, I talked to my favorite tech about the clamping sleeves. Porsche does not want them reused after they are loosened. Their argument is that the heat stretches them over time and once they are loosened they may not seal again correctly causing an exhaust leak. So, his advice was to shell out for new sleeves, ditch the hardware and use SS. I'm seriously considering either Fabspeed or AWE exhausts so, I figure I'll just live with the crappy hardware until then.

Hi ehostin,There is absolutely no reason to pull your wheel well apart. Go back to your fuse box and pull out the red trunk lid lug. It will pull out almost an inch exposing a copper contact. Using any high current 12 VDC source like a 12 volt motorcycle battery or the battery in another car, hook the negative post to any ground on the car. The metal door stop between the door hinges is handy. Hook the positive terminal to the red lug and give the trunk release switch a pull. BINGO. You can use any jumper cable. Get a new battery for your car. Once you deep cycle them like this they are junk.

Jl-c, water condensation may boil off because water molecules are polar. Fuel and oil are both non polar hydrocarbons. Once fuel is dissolved in the oil it will not boil off and the drop in viscosity is permanent. If you really want to know what is going on you have to have your oil analyzed. I'm sure there must be a lab in the UK but, you can always use an American lab. Polaris sends you your results online. You just establish an account with them and they will send you sample jars on demand. In regards to fuel dilution it does not matter what brand of oil you use. The most important characteristics that are attributable to the oil are the TBN and the oil's ability to maintain its viscosity with age. I could not tell you which oil is better that is what the lab is for. Don't guess, know! Test the oil every 3000 miles or so and see what it does.

Racerken, what did you do with those clamping sleeves?? Since once you loosen them they are trash I would just use a cutting wheel on a rotary tool such as a high powered Dremel cordless and cut through one tab on either side releasing the sleeve. I am concidering putting a Fabspeed exhaust system in so, I may get a pass at it soon.

Racerken, I was checking out Porsche's exhaust repair procedures. Porsche insists that you replace the clamping sleeves between the cans and the cats EVERY time you remove them. They are not reusable. That is why they are using the crappy hardware. This is a pain because in order to replace the sleeves you have to remove either the cans or the cats. At this point I would just leave them alone. When the hardware rots off you can replace them. If you do replace your exhaust manifold hardware do it one bolt at a time starting with the center 4 ending with the two at the ends. Make sure you check a few times for leaks.

The long oil changes are simply to cut oil utilization and maintenance cost. The no warm up deal which all the manufacturers now recommend is to cut fuel utilization. These guys are even doing this worse than stupid stop start deal! All of us know that there is no way this can be good for your car. Like I said Dustin, I am not overly impressed with either company's analysis. It was Millers who reassured me that the nickel was just a lab error. You are right in that the moly is a multi source metal, the chromium and the iron are not and unfortunately, the three go together. In my profession we say "if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it is probably a duck." Early on with a wear issue you only get microscopic particles which you will never see in your oil filter or on a magnet. This is long before your car will smoke or burn oil. That is why this is mandated by the FAA on all aircraft engines, the point being to pull the engine before it craps out. At Polaris Labs you can order a process called Analytical Ferrography on your next sample. This will tell you exactly what microscopic particles you have in your oil. This way you will know if the moly is an additive or not. I think it costs about $50. There is certainly no way I'll make it to 8k miles. I'll be lucky to make it to 5. Good luck with the Millers and please let us know how it goes!

1/2 price? How's about 1/4 price. The sensors fail usually somewhere between 6 and 7 years as their batteries run out. My car is an 06 and I just replaced mine with a tire change while the wheels were naked. These are from OE Wheels, are made in China, and as far as I can tell work great. $134 including valve stems! 0356kid turned us on to them. It is important to change all 4 at once using the same brand as slight variations in manufacture and maybe battery strength will give you slightly different readings which drives me nuts. One of mine went bad and the dealer replaced it under warranty. It always read 3 psi off from the other side even though they measured exactly the same with a manual gauge. With the 4 new ones I get equal readings exactly 2 psi lower than my manual gauge. You can certainly wait till they go bad and have your dealer swap them out free but for $134 you might save the headache and swap them out while you have the tires off. The FCC controls these devices so, it is unlikely that there are significant variations in performance and durability between brands. In EleCTriCT's pics you can see the FCC license code.

Depends what type of charger you are using. A power pack will do it but a little trickle charger will not. Not enough current to trigger the solenoid. I have a little motorcycle battery that works great. I was working on the car once with the battery disconnected and I inadvertently closed the trunk.

I just checked out gahh. They only make stuff for cars older than 1994! But, the stuff is about 1/2 Porshce price.

Hi Speedo, Just caught this thread and having done this I might be able to save you some grief. Putting new leather on a Recaro seat is like trying to put a girdle on an elephant. Forget about trying to do this with the seats in the car. Take them out and bolt them to the middle of two 8 foot 2 x 4s. Sort of like putting them on skis. Stand on the 2 x 4s when you are working. Cut the old leather off paying attention as to how the leather clips and attaches onto the seat frame. Try not to damage the foam. Put the bolsters on first. I have only done this with OEM leather so I can't speak for the aftermarket stuff but, you will have some wrinkles and loose spots. Gently heating them up with a heat gun will usually take them out. If not don't worry. A few days parked in the sun will do the job. Just the bolster on the back of a sport seat is $1000.00 from Porsche. Please let us know the cost of the aftermarket stuff and how it turns out. Oh, and Leatherique is excellent stuff. The reason for the varied opinion might be that Porsche uses two kinds of leather. The regular stuff is painted not dyed. The Natural leather is dyed not painted. The Leatherique will darken the Natural leather unevenly making it look like a splotchy mess. After about 2 weeks the leather will return to it's regular color. It does not change the color of the regular leather at all. In keeping leather supple and softening dried out leather I have not found a better product. For routine cleaning I use Griot's leather cleaner and conditioner only because I like the smell of the stuff. I do the Leatherique once a year.

You don't need that stuff. Modern head units have full digital equalization and delay capability. The end result is a much better sounding system. The only thing you loose are some trip computer functions but, you get the most important ones in your cluster. When the sales manager at my dealer saw and heard my Alpine he immediately stuck one in his car.

I'd rather drive with reckless abandon. Up here in NH with winters and all it is impossible to avoid getting a face full. Just yesterday I had to repair a chip on top on my left rear fender. The stuff bounces!

0356kid, Stainless steel is probably ok if it is T304. Otherwise stainless can corrode the crap out of aluminum. You notice that the 2nd piece on Porsches lug nuts is aluminum just for that reason. Stainless will corrode plain steel like your discs and wheel hubs even faster. Titanium is totally inert. TiKore Industries makes fabulous Ti lug bolts in both single and two piece designs. The two piece are much more expensive. Porsche uses the two piece design because they torque more consistently. Frankly, if you keep your wheels and lug bolts clean this is not an issue. In the picture to the left you see Tikore's single piece Ti lug bolts. I have driven through one Winter on them and they still shine. They have a beautiful rose hue and IMHO look much classier than chrome or SS. Ti can tarnish but you can polish them up like new with a Dremel tool till the cows come home. The only down side I know of is that Ti galls easily so, you have to use a good Hi Temp antiseize on them.

Wow, check out that exhaust hardware in racerken's pictures at the beginning of the thread. That is what happens when you use plain steel hardware on a stainless steel part. Plain steel and stainless are at opposite ends of the galvanic chart. I can't believe Porsche did that! Everyone should check out their exhaust hardware and anything that is rusting should be changed over to 18-8 (T304) hardware as soon as possible. Even if you do not live in the rust belt. Just above notice the cap screws fastening the exhaust header. They are rusting at about the same rate as the header. That is because both are stainless. Both could also be plain steel. Stainless rusts, just at a slower rate than plain steel. The cap screws on the headers should be replaced probably about every five years because they are subject to stress corrosion cracking. Because the cap screw is under tension, at points of surface corrosion a stress raiser develops initiating a crack. A little torque and the head snaps right off. Big headache. Others in our group have reported broken cap screws. It is so common that Pelican Parts sells a broken exhaust bolt removal jig for...$325. Much cheaper to replace the cap screws now and again.

I am particularly fond of bikinis. Go figure.

I would think if the throttle actuator control motor was not working correctly strange things would happen when you step on the gas. No ZOom. As Ahsai says, clear the code and see if it comes back.

Yes, TBN stands for total base number and it is an indicator of your oils ability to neutralize acids which are a byproduct of combustion. As your oil ages the TBN will drop. At 3 it is time to change the oil. At 3000 miles my TBN was still above 5. Dustin's oil was below 2 at 8000 miles but different manufacturer's oils will differ depending on the additive package. On TBN alone I should have easily been able to run my oil to 6000 miles. Interestingly, Dustin should probably have changed his oil somewhere around 6000 miles. So much for Porsche's 10,000 mile oil change interval!!

If the engine seems to run well just drive it a bit and it may reset itself. If it does't then you will have to plug it up to a PIWIS or Durametric to see what gives.

This is fun!!. Dustin, There is a very important pattern in your sample. Iron, molybdenum and chromium are all high. Anyone here heard of Chromoly steel?? As in piston rings?? Your TBN is too low. Acids eat metal faster than anything. You do not want to run a TBN lower than 3. Your viscocity is also dropping but you do not have any fuel dilution which means your oil is deteriorating. If it were my car I would change oil brands and retest the oil at 5000 miles by dropping the oil filter. If the oil is OK then run it to 8000 miles. Post the results here. 0365kid Why no TBN?? That is perhaps the most important value in an otherwise healthy car. I would quiz Blackstone on this as it should have been done. As with Polaris I am not overly impressed with Blackstones analysis.

Copper is in the middle of the galvanic chart with plain steel at the anodic end and stainless at the cathodic end. The cathode always corrodes the anode. So, if the headers are stainless the copper plating will simply corrode turning that nice shade of green eventually exposing the base metal. Copper will protect a stainless nut but corrode a plain steel nut. If the headers are plain steel the copper will accelerate corrosion on the header. Ideally you want to match anode to anode and cathode to cathode. Aluminum and plain steel are right together at the anodic end of the scale. There are special circumstances like 304 stainless which just does not like to pass electrons even though it is at the far cathodic end of the scale. With stainless headers you could use 18-8 (18% chromium, 8% nickel) stainless studs with copper plated stainless nuts and washers. This might extend the life of the nuts a couple of weeks. You would never use copper plated studs in aluminum.

The holes are blind. I also forgot something. Maurice, the headers are stainless steel, yes?? Even stainless will rust eventually particularly in high temp, salty environments. Stainless is very cathodic while plain steel is highly anodic. You never want to put the two in contact with each other which means you are basically stuck with stainless nuts washers and studs or cap screws. Studs are fine but I'm not sure where they get you. The issue of stress corrosion cracking is the same if they are torqued equally. If they break you have the same situation getting them out.

Hi Maurice, This ones a bit of give and take. 18-8 stainless also known as type 304 is an austenitic, passive alloy which in the absence of an electrolyte will not corrode aluminum. The copper antiseize is just insurance. But, You are right in that some stainless steels like type 410 will corrode the crap out of aluminum. The cap screws are failing because of stress corrosion cracking. Plain steel is more likely to do this than 18-8. Stress corrosion cracking is not galvanic. Yes, plain steel and aluminum have almost the same anodic activity and are less likely to cause galvanic corrosion in contact with each other. Brass, bronze and copper are much more cathodic than steel thus in the presence of an electrolyte the steel will melt away not to mention the ongoing stress corrosion cracking. You are better off using galvanized steel nuts and washers and changing them when they start corroding. The bottom line is that no matter what you use you are going to have to replace the parts once in a while, sooner better then later. No where is this more important than with exhaust headers where the difficult high temperature environment puts expensive cylinder heads at risk.