...kin ell

Ouch, that's bad luck Jonnysly, but not the same problem as the subject of the thread I don't think..

Lots of cars suffer cracked cylinder heads for various reasons - can be overtightening of studs, running low on coolant or oil, ignition/combustion problems, etc... However, the thread is mostly about cracked cylinder liners and/or IMS failure. I think that throwing a one-off cracked cylinder head into the mix would weaken, rather than strengthen any case against Porsche (unless lots more cracked heads now pop out of the woodwork!)

Yes, this is the case. From what Baz has said a lot of engine failures which have the same symptoms as cracked liners could have been due to cracked heads.

Because the OPCs often don't carry out a full inspection and just crate most broken engines back to Germany, we'll never know the true proportion but I think cracked heads is one of the common failure modes for the M96 engine, although Baz will certainly be able to give a more informed opinion on this than me.

As for taking action, a class action would be worth a try but it would still be a long, costly process with no guarantee of winning. I think the biggest problem would be finding enough people actually willing to fight as the majority of owners with engine issues don't have the time or motivation to fight Porsche. The Watchdog route was tried a while ago by someone else but they got cold feet as it was so difficult to come up with hard evidence/statistics to back up the claims and Porsche won't admit anything is wrong to anybody.

I will admit that I lost interest in this thread a little when I sold my 996 in March and haven't read every single post since... The cracked cylinder heads is something I had missed (and can't be bothered to read 36 pages to verify), so apologies that I hadn't kept up with this new twist.

As for being a Porsche 'apologist': I am definitely not guilty and have decided not to replace my old 996 with another one (or a 997) because I am not happy to take the risk of an engine failure. However, I remain critical of people who save a load of cash and buy and/or maintain their cars outside the official network and then whinge when it all goes tits-up and Porsche won't cough up.

I am also still not convinced that this is actually a serious design flaw as the proportion of premature failures is still too low for that.

I firmly believe that these failures are due mostly to engine abuse... OK, so not the engine abuse that most of us think of - i.e. over-revving on the downchange, running low on oil or water - but more use of excessive revs / throttle while the engine is warming up and also by not cooling down properly after a spirited run. All the symptoms I have read about in this thread sound like fatigue failures in an engine that has been producing ever increasing power outputs, over and above what is reasonable for its capacity and configuration (IMO).

The choice is lower power and greater reliability (and less sensitivity to mild abuse), or what we have in the 996 and 997 - fantastic performance, but need to be treated a bit more sensitively - especially regarding warm-up and cool-down.

Racing engines will not tolerate the sort of abuse that some 911 owners (dare I say it, usually the first non-petrol-head owner) subject their cars to... We have all seen the full throttle acceleration from cold. You can get away with that in an under-stressed engine, but not in a light alloy 100bhp per litre unit.

Anyway, I can't be bothered to argue with idiots that are still not prepared to declare there interest in this thread after 36 pages...

It seems to me that bcnrml is just a stirrer and trouble-maker who has a personal axe to grind with Porsche (it seems because he couldn't get enough discount to buy a car he probably couldn't afford, some time ago). He only ever seems to post anti-Porsche news on this site and my suggestion to him would be to get over it... No point going through the rest of your life being bitter and twisted about an organisation that upset you years ago...

Just buy something else and move on.... I did!

Thank God I didn't have much to do today as reading this thread from start to finish has taken ages!!! However, I've drawn a few conclusions. And just to clarify, I'm not a Porsche owner.

Set yourself a budget to purchase. Then keep that budget to one side and add on and extra say, £1500.00. The £1500.00 will buy you your confidence in running it as this will take care of the warranty. I would say a warranty is a must as unfortunately, the damned thing may, and I say may, go wrong, engine wise.

Don't be put off by this. Every car has it's faults (join several forums and find out) and the 996 looks as good in the flesh as it does in your day dreams. It'll always make you look back at it when you park up and make you feel special whilst driving it. It's not a Fiesta and will constantly remind you of that when you take it in for a service, but we're talking about a fast, good looking, responsive, genreally reliable super car here.

I'm looking around for a nice 996, C4S at the moment and I'll certainly grabbing and paying for the best after-market or ever OPC warranty available.

Sorry to have taken over this thread but thought you might like an 'outsiders' point of view.

SImon.

To all, I never meant to start an email argument between two piston head members. I added my topic as I was rightfully disapointed with Porsches Attitude during the process. A few 996 members had expressed problmes with the 996 engine as a whole on this topic/post, so if I can add any suppport or evidence (independent engineers report)then cool. Im not an expert in any way but as a hard working business man I bought into what I thought was a superior/quality/trusted brand (so Porsche advertise)and learned a hard lesson. I have other items that i have bought from superior/quality/trusted brands and they havent failed and the ones that have within reasonable time were replaced/repaired for no cost, no problem.

Thanks John

I am looking for my first porker...but this has just made me very wary....can I be clear that this is mainly on 3.4 996's or does it apply to the 3.6 facelifts?

Ridiculous position that Porsche seem to be taking, they are burying their head in the sand, clearly there have been manufacturing changes that have seriously impacted the reliability of the engine. We are not talking about a £400 fix here...the responsibility should be with the manufacturer.

The 'mericans have an extremely litigious society, have they not taken this forward?

I'm budgetting about £18k for the car (1999-2001) and keeping £2k for any surprises...but this has totally thrown that into a cocked hat.

soo...without seeing the collated stats....if I were to purchase a 911 (2001) Reg C4 with 75k on the clock is it equally likely to go BOOOM as a 1999 C2?

ask warrantywise and take out the wear and tear option....?...are not any of the various owners clubs throughout the uk recomending any particular warranty option?...and are not the people on here numerous enough to carry any collective weight?...if these engines and rms are failing at these rates then there is a design or manufacture problem...the concerned on PH are no doubt only a fraction of people throughout the uk, europe, america, who have concerns about or have been bit by a monsterous bill for repairs to what appears to be parts that continue to be not up to the job they were sold for in very many cases...is the time right for one person to persue porsche in the courts (exposure and great advertising for porsche....ooops not great advertising after all...just the exposure) funded by all who have been, or could be shafted by any of this in the future...say £25 apiece...win or not???

Yes it's a good point, it only takes one abusive non-mechanically-sympathetic owner to potentially 'seed' a fault that could end up being someone elses failure. And cars that, let's say, don't hang about, are more likely to be driven in such an abusive manner. You also have people who are complacent with oil level and coolant checks.

With respect to driven-from-cold, I would say it's the other way round, i.e. relatively low-stressed engines would suffer more. Race engines tend to be very rigid, and with much tougher running surfaces than road engines. I believe it to be detrimental to any 996/997 non-GT1 derived engine and gearbox to be hammered from cold.