I had a grumbling in the front of the car and thought at first it was a transfer case issue. I read where wheel bearing failure is quite common, even at as low as 30,000 or even 40,000 miles.

As I drove the car I listened and the sound seemed to be coming from the right front. I purchased a new *** bearing which is a vendor supplier for Porsche. Porsche also recommends a new nut to be installed as well which I purchased.

The Tech replaced both and told me that the new bearing is an upgrade to the previous unit. He also explained that the bearing will eventually fail because of the heat breaking down the seal.

When your 996TT sits moisture will enter causing corrosion causing bearing failure. He opened mine and you could visually see areas of the race (outer I believe) where deposits ate away at the race.

It was shinny from the ball bearings eating away at the corrosion. It's unreal that so much vibration and noise could come from what I viewed. I just wanted to give everyone a quick FYI on the issue as the 6'r has been very good to me!

Blessings All ~ Rick

Mine is in right now having both front wheel bearings replaced, 2005, 22,000 miles. This must be a real poor design along with the coolant pipes, clutch and various other systems that one would think should be bulletproof on a $170,000 car.

i had one go bad. it's a gnarly sound. i agree it's a nuisance but "parts is parts" and they fail over time is how i look at it.

Generally speaking a car that sits will experience more bearing wear than one that is driven daily. Condensation is the killer and inside of each bearing assembly there is air along with some grease rollers or ***** and races. While sitting during day to night temperature changes, condensation will occur inside the bearing and water droplets will form. They fall to the bottom of the race and pool around the rollers or ***** and eventually etch the metal the acidic water contacts. This is the start of bearing failure. The hardness is compromised where the metal was etched and will start to pit, run rough and eventually need replacement. A simple way to prevent this is move the car more often. Even rolling it a few feet will coat the bearings with grease. Do it often enough and you won't have this problem. A car driven daily should get 200K miles or much more out of the bearings.

Don, loving the shifter, Thanks!

right...thats what i always say.

bulletproof except. except, etc etc.

in its defense, it was more like $140 and its not bad compared to lamb/ferrari.

Here's the reality of it. Our Turbo is my wifes spare car and is rarely washed, never in rain, in a climate controlled garage and far from abused yet there is something always failing. Christ, I have 2 1,200 HP motors in my boat that ran over 300 hours at 7,200 RPM without a single issue. Our car stickered at $167,000 and I believe that it is a fair expectation that a vehicle that is "supposedly" one of the best engineered vehicles on the planet would be bulletproof in the areas it should be, it should not have glued coolant pipes, clutches that will barely hold the power the motor puts out, stupid things like the rear spoiler failing, accumulator, PSM, crappy stereo, terrible unsupported GPS and the list goes on. I have cars in my collection that are 40/50 years old that will sit for years on end and when I decide to drive it, starts and runs like new.


That all said, fun car to drive, few like it, but not worth the headaches.