Hi guys, this is my first post here. I've had my 1999 911 for 8 months now and I love it. I bought it knowing the clutch was on it's way out. Finally it started slipping, which the shop said if she's slipping most likely you'll have to replace the fly wheel too. So I bought the LUK OEM clutch kit and LUK dual mass flywheel from Gripforce Clutch, they have really great prices. It was installed suppossedly without a hitch and the shop went for a test drive - all was good.

When I got the car back, it was starting very awful and when I finally got a chance to step on the throttle, there seemed to be a phantom rev limiter kicking in around 6100 rpm on the nose. The check engine light would only come on for a half second then remain off. So today I dropped if off at the shop, they said a code was being stored ( I don't have the exact code as I haven't picked it up from the shop yet ) and it was coming from the crankshaft sensor. So they replaced the sensor but the code is still coming up. Now they're saying that the fly wheel must be defective! I provided the parts so they won't cover any labour, and I'll essentially be paying for the labour job twice!!!!

How can the fly wheel be defective? Until they pull the car apart they won't be able to confirm this, but they said this is the next step to solving this problem.

Is there any other thing that could be drawing that code? Like something pluggin up the suppossed "notch" that the sensor reads from? Any ideas would be great, I really won't want to have to drop the transmission again.


Thanks!

pat

 

It's a pity to drop the transmission again, but it really isn't all that difficult if you have a hoist or a high enough trolley jack. I have no idea what could throw that code, but keep updating this post ... I'm interested to know what it is.

 

spoke to the shop, they tweaked a few things on my car that i didn't even notice, such as play in the throttle, clutch pedal sensor (for starting the car) and cleaned up some gunk by the throttle body; smoothing out the idle. these guys seems to know the 996 much better than the last shop. (even though the last shop is porsche certified)

as for the P0336 code: they retested the wiring, it seems to be in working order. they put a new crankshaft sensor on the car (one that has been confirmed to be working) and the waveform improves, but still draws the code. they inspected the flywheel teeth with the sensor removed, can't see any obvious damage or flaws.

the car is staying the night and they will resume a few more tests in the morning and that the problem is so weird, the don't want to drop the transmission just yet. though they did say, this could be the one in a million shot of a defective fly wheel magnet or equivalent.

any ideas i could forward to the guys in the morning to check?

 

well finally the mystery has been solved, albiet not cheap. 2 of the crankshaft sensor teeth were bent on the fly wheel!!! the teeth are pretty darn thick and there's really no way they could have been damaged during shipping; the box was is good condition when it arrived and i didn't open it before handing it over for install.

so that leaves two possibilities, the shop installing it either dropped it or bent them during install. the other... it was bent from the manufactuer and packaged without inspection. the latter is much less likely. so now i'm going to send photos to LUK to see if they will confirm if this is a "manufacturing defect". if it isn't (which i don't think it is, you can see blunt impact on the bent teeth), I'm going after the shop that installed it - as they should pay for the costs having to buy a 2nd flywheel and the hours of labour to swap it out.

there is a silver lining to all of this... my IMS bearing has NO PLAY!!! wooooooo hoooooo!! they also removed the dust cover on it so she'll get lube on top of that, they ran the serial number on my engine and it's a reman engine!! they can't nail down the milage of it but based on the sparkplugs there looks to be about 40-50k kilometers on it. double SWEET!

so all in all the now car drives better than i could have imagined!

does any one have any recommendations on how i should deal with getting compensation for this mess from the first shop?

 

Wow that just sounds like a bad situation. Very poor on the 1st shop if they damaged the flywheel and still installed it. I hope everything works out in your favor, something I would not like to be involved in.

 

yeah it's a pretty bad situation. even if the flywheel was somehow damaged before hand... they should have spotted the bent teeth and have aborted the install. either way, they installed a part that messed up my car and I think they should be on the hook.

 

Man, I just cant imagine them paying for their time to replace a bad part that you gave them. The best you can ask for is to pay the shop actual rates that they pay - 15-25 dollars an hour instead of the 100 they are charging. They might take pity.

 

all research so far points to the fact that the flywheel was FINE, factory fresh in a sealed box when i gave it to them. therefore THEY broke my flywheel and STILL installed it. how are they not responsible?

if i hire you to mow my lawn and you put the mower through my fence. you owe me a fence....