IMS sealing ring replaced on C4S tiptronic MY06

[brendel]

Hi Everyone,

My car is a 2006 C4S tiptronic purchased at a Porsche dealer at 75KMiles with 1 year guarantee, I have the car for 1 month, the engine is a M97.01

A couple of days after the purchase I noticed an slight oil sweat between the engine and the gearbox, it was probably there when Porsche sold it to me ( Porsche Approved by the way)

My car was this week at Porsche for repairing this issue under the guarantee and they called me to say that it is just the sealing ring of the IMS that failed, I find it hard to believe that the sealing ring start to leak by itself knowing the IMS bearing issues these cars have

What is your opinion, could it be just this simple sealing ring? would porsche be ignoring a potential bearing failure? do they systematically check camshaft deviation? I know that these engine required the crankcase to be opened to change the IMS bearing which would mean for Porsche a new engine since they have no time to do play around in the workshops, could they have done a quickfix to avoid changing the engine?

I would like to hear your experience on the M97.01 IMS bearing, I could not find a single RMS seal or IMS bearing failure on the net, so it seems that the M97.01 was really improved over the M96.05

Apart that the car got both front Strut bearings changed (rattle in the front), the front stabilizer bushing changed ( squeaking noise), they found that the main front drive shaft t had a worn out sealing and changed the whole shaft, a lot of issues...

I am getting the car back tomorrow but this IMS bearing is in my mind

Looking forward to your comments

Michel

[JFP in PA]

First, all IMS bearings, regardless of style, have some risk of failing, yours included. That is a documented fact. We have seen a couple, other shops have seen more than we have.

Now the really bad news: All M96/97 produced after 2005 (and even some 05's) carry the last revision IMS bearing which is too large in diameter to fit through the opening in the rear of the assembled cases, making it impossible to change with totally disassembling the engine. LN Engineering produces an upgraded shaft for these engines, as described on their website, but disassembly is required to install it.

Sorry about that...............

Edited June 16, 2011 by JFP in PA