JFP in PA

In 2000, the PDF data was the spec for the car, which is what they are looking at, hence their response. The early five speeds used different lubricants, supposedly because of the alloy used in the syncro rings. The S gearbox would be a six speed, and used a different lubricant (999 917 546 00) at the time. While the five speed "brew" would be better, you can run the 999 917 546 00 if they will no longer repackage the five speed oil.

I have no idea what he is talking about; there is no difference between the S and non S manual gear box lubricants....................... :eek: I just got a confusing email from Sunset. I have a base 986 with 5MT, and requested a quote for qty. 3 of 1-liter bottles of 75W-90 Porsche gear oil, part # 999 917 564 00. Sunset told me that's ONLY for the 6MT. They said I should ONLY use Porsche part # 000 043 304 71 for my 5MT which ONLY comes in 20 liter containers for $$$$XXXX. The five speeds were using a different gear oil produced called Burmah (TAF 21) under the old part number N 052 911 C0, which comes in 20L containers. I would ask if they could fill a few liter containers for you, they have done it before. Porsche Boxster Transmission Oils.pdf

Single row Dual row

Looks like a dual row to me. LN used to have a photo comparison of the flanges on their website for comparison purposes, you might want to look that up just for your own peace of mind.

No, you ( and Loren ) are correct, I was thinking of the M96/97 layout.

Loren, do you know if it also is a combination sensor like the 996's used?

I believe the oil temp and level sensors in your car is a single unit, so I would start with checking to make sure it is plugged in (blue arrow in photo, #13 in diagram):

That could be a short coming as we see a fair number of cars who's owners are looking to reset the service indicators after a DIY oil change.

Looks very interesting. It would be interesting to force a code, say air bags, and see how it does. Can is also reset service alerts?

The gear box oil change on the PDK is the same as any manual gear box; drain and refill until it seeps out the overflow. The trick on the PDK is the clutch oil, which requires the use of a PIWIS to accomplish.

Some of the early cars came without them, no reason was ever given and you can find a correct sized bolt to put in there.

Check and make sure the brake has not picked up a small pebble or other debris which can make all kinds of noise. The larger brake ducts they put on these cars can act like a street sweeper at times. Will do. Got my Snap On QD4R600 so I can pop the wheels off tonight and have a look. This torque wrench is a MONSTER. My understanding is that you are supposed to lube the center nuts. Any old aluminum anti sieze will work? I'm sure Porsche has some ridiculously priced stuff, we use anti seize.

The owner of the C4 sheepishly took it away, only to have his next potential victim call me to set up a PPI a week later. Needless to say, that never happened. The owner of the Boxster with the cracked bulkheads protested loudly, said we did not know what we were talking about, and threatened to sue us, which never happened as we had taken photos of the damage, just incase. Word got around and he ended up shipping the car to another area of the country to sell it. There are a lot of nightmares lurking under shiny paint out there, we recently had a Boxster in that showed all the signs of a failing IMS. Later heard they traded the car in at a local dealership that had it sitting front and center on their used car lot the next day. A good PPI is your last chance to prevent a major financial loss.

Don't necessarily agree with that, we have caught some real duds being passed off as "pristine". A couple of my personal favorites was a beautiful C4 with a 2.7L Boxster engine in it, and an early Boxster that had severely cracked engine bulk heads (major structural members, hidden under new paint) from running 19" wheels on the car. Both sellers were asking top dollar for the cars.

Most of this stuff is not all the uncommon. You did not say how many miles are on the car, but the coils age on these things, then crack, and can suddenly fail with no warning. It happens, even on the best maintained cars, nothing unusual here. Your problems with the seats can easily be related to your air bag coding; again, not unusual. Door handle wear related failures are another common issue on the 986/996 cars. A quick search should give you some idea of what is involved if you want to fix this yourself. Even the best PPI won't always catch little things that are close to failure, but have not totally crapped out yet. Coils can let go at any time, door latch assemblies can fail with the next pull. We actually had a car throw a code as we were backing it out after a complete PPI. Turned out to be something small, cheap, and easy to fix, but these things happen with "pre owned" cars. PPI's are designed to catch the big stuff (wrong engine in the car, clutch or trans moments from crapping out, hidden chassis damage, etc.), as well as give the buyer some negotiation leverage based upon the car's condition. But they can't always tell you about what has not happened yet. It is also not unusual for a seller to not want to spend money fixing small but annoying issues before a sale, hoping the car won't act up until after it is sold.

Check and make sure the brake has not picked up a small pebble or other debris which can make all kinds of noise. The larger brake ducts they put on these cars can act like a street sweeper at times.

If you are just replacing the bearing and have not other damage, it should not be necessary.

Sounds completely normal.

Congratulations! Now try to not get too out of control......................... :eek: JFP, There is a suspension cross member which runs across the car in front of the engine. It looks Aluminum. I suspect it is in all 991s. Do you think I could use this as a center rear jack point?? If I bend it it could always be replaced not that I really want to do that. But, the only other place available is the bottom of the engine which everyone agrees is out of bounds. We have only had a handful of the 991's in the shop, and yes, that is an alloy member, so I do not know if it is designed to carry the entire weight of the back of the car. In any case. we do not lift any car with a floor jack under the center; I prefer to use the side rock box lift points using a jacking adaptor plate. The last thing I want to do is bend something on a customer's car...... Those lift points are where I normally use the floor jack with a wooden "hockey puck" The problem is that you can not get a jack stand in there with the floor jack in the way. You can lift and entire 1/2 car at the rears and get jack stands under the fronts. Now, how are you going to get the rear end up?? The rear is partially counter balanced by the car hanging out in front of the front jack stands so it is not as heavy as you would expect. That aluminum cross member is pretty beefy..... My guess is nobody will give me a direct answer not wanting to take responsibility for breaking the car. If you don't knoww the answer the answer is NO. Eventually, enough people like me will lift the cars here to be able to provide an educated answer. **** the torpedos. You can start by jacking up the rear from one side and putting a jack stand (with a rubber hockey puck) under one of the rear suspension mount points. They are already holding up the car's heft when it is sitting on the ground, so sitting on a jack stand should not be a problem for them. Once the rear is up, do something similar up front. Not as fast as picking up the entire butt at once, but functional.

Glad to hear it is finally coming together for you! :thumbup:

Obviously, I have to give that an unqualified "maybe". Electrical problems are nearly impossible to diagnose remotely. A tech should be testing the VarioCam units with a scanner (PIWIS, Durametric) while the car is idling; activation should cause both a jump in cam timing and an abrupt change in the idle as well. If they both do not respond, I would be putting a volt meter on the circuits to see if they are actually getting a signal before tearing the car apart, or you could end up with new units in the engine and still having the same problems.

When you start a dialogue like this one, it is always a good idea to include the car's year and model. That said, I find it a little odd that you suddenly get the same fault code for both banks of the engine; usually parts do not fail this way and the cause is often electrical rather than mechanical. Secondly, the VarioCam solenoids can be done on most models with the engine still in the car by removing the mufflers and the cam covers. To answer your other questions, if I had the engine out, I would recommend updating the IMS, the RMS, and the AOS while it was out. The chains on these engines are pretty durable, which is a good thing as changing them requires taking a lot of things apart to just get at them.

Congratulations! Now try to not get too out of control......................... :eek: JFP, There is a suspension cross member which runs across the car in front of the engine. It looks Aluminum. I suspect it is in all 991s. Do you think I could use this as a center rear jack point?? If I bend it it could always be replaced not that I really want to do that. But, the only other place available is the bottom of the engine which everyone agrees is out of bounds. We have only had a handful of the 991's in the shop, and yes, that is an alloy member, so I do not know if it is designed to carry the entire weight of the back of the car. In any case. we do not lift any car with a floor jack under the center; I prefer to use the side rock box lift points using a jacking adaptor plate. The last thing I want to do is bend something on a customer's car........

Yes the headlight needs to be removed. The corners are really only held in by a little pressure. Once you look at yours you will see a little lip on the bottom. Ignore that, you will need to apply a little pressure to the top part of the corner. Push from the back out and the little plastic pins will pop free, a little oil wont hurt on the pin. Careful when pushing the top pins, because if you go to fast you will crack the little shelf off which holds the bottom of the corner. If you do, don't worry, it will work with the little shelf broken.

On a 996, there are three front water drains in the battery area; left, right, and center. All can be cleaned out by using a vacuum to collect an debris on top, and then blowing compressed air thru them. Because all of them turn to one side or the other, I would not be pushing a "thin metal poker" into them as you could end up piercing the line at the bend. Use air.