Engien failure!

[romfordray]

Bad bad news :(

I've had problems for the past few months with an intermittent miss fire on cyclinder no.1. plugs were changed, coils changed, leads swapped, injectors swapped but still got occasional miss fire. Then I started to lose water and miss fire become much worse.

A specialist diagnoised a blown head gasket. Head was removed and the problem was found to be caused by a cylinder sleeve having slipped down by about 1mm. This allowed water to seap into the cylinder causing the miss fire, the problem got worse over time as the sleeve moved further and caused the head gasket seal to become more unstable.

Was advised that a new engine was needed, £6,500 inc tax! with a 12month warranty or a second hand engine for £2,995! but no history unknown and only a 30 day warranty. Both options will incur additional labour charge of around £1,000 from the specialist (£45/hour inc tax).

As an alternative a rebuild was suggested, apparantly it is possible to have the sleeve bored out and a replacement fitted, this will cost around £950 inc tax for all 6 cylinders to be re-sleved or £500 for the 1 cylinder which is known to be damaged. The engine will have a 12month/12000mile warranty after the rebuild. Specialist labour charge will still apply.

I understand the cylinder sleeve slipping was a common problem on Boxsters from 97-98. Has anyone else had this problem and had a rebuild or know of a Boxster engine having a rebuild before?

[Tool Pants]

It was 1998/99 window period, not 1997. What month and year was your car made. The build date is on a sticker.

Take pictures of the cylinders and post them or send them to me.

This is a pic of a sleeved motor. You can see the sleeve in the middle cylinder has been pulled down when it got caught by the piston rings, thereby causing the top of the piston to break off.

[romfordray]

The model year was June 98.

As far as I can tell at the moment the piston is'nt damaged.

Have u heard of a reapir being made before?

[Tool Pants]

Need to see pictures of the sleeve to see if it really is sleeved. How many miles.

Yours was made just before the window period, but the period is a guess since Porsche has never acknowledged they took defective blocks and sleeved them.

Porsche has a list of the sleeved engines. If yours is sleeved I would raise heck with Porsche. The engine was not designed to be sleeved.

[romfordray]

I've found out that rebuilds are possible, there are at least 2 specialists in the UK who do this. The problem with a slipped sleeve is how much damage has been done, it can make the rebuild uneconomic. The other big problem appears to be the availability of parts.

I was going to get mine rebuilt but there was another 3 week wait before I could get someone to look at it. Luckily one of the specialists had a rebuilt engine already and did an exchange plus cash for mine.

Hopefully I'll be back on the road next week!

[adsach]

I've found out that rebuilds are possible, there are at least 2 specialists in the UK who do this. The problem with a slipped sleeve is how much damage has been done, it can make the rebuild uneconomic.  The other big problem appears to be the availability of parts.

I was going to get mine rebuilt but there was another 3 week wait before I could get someone to look at it. Luckily one of the specialists had a rebuilt engine already and did an exchange plus cash for mine.

Hopefully I'll be back on the road next week!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

room...

If I were you, I'd try to get those pictures of your engine before it goes away. Of course, I'd also have a conversation with Porsche before I started laying out my money for an engine solution.

If you have a sleeved engine, you didn't get the same engine that Porsche advertised and that most other Boxster's received. It doesn't really matter who was the original owner, a case can be made that your car "wasn't right" from the factory.