My point was that if the car isn't driven as much as say a Camry, of course the car will be more reliable to a certain degree. I like for every Porsche owner to daily drive their cars for 15k+ miles per year and see where we net out.

Once again, I don't think the 996 are not reliable or even ticking time bombs. I just have an issue with CR stating that Porsche being one of the most reliable and misleading some people in the process.

 

Well, I will find out. I love the car. I am going 2, and do, drive it every day and I check the oil everyday, look at pretty closely and drive it hard enuff - but I'm not going to "track" it. I go to the store in it. And work. And that's what it will be for the next 10 years - bc no one has talked abt how long they were planning on keeping it. It's not the Titantic and it's not a state of the art nuclear submerine. It a Porsche. And this one is MINE. I bought it instead of a GM Big Block. I think I made the intelligent choice. I didn't want a turbo - or an s - actually I didn't need a C4 but ok - In a few years ANY car - except that small Toyota pick I see in 3 world countries w ppl carrying full autos and little else - would need a rebuild - an overhall - a something. If you track the car - well you were planning on dumping some righteous jack into that - or mods I can see my next set of rims (maybe). It is what it is - it ain't what it ain't. I'll let you know how it works out for me - since I'll be learning to work on it my own damn self, I should be on here or Renn pretty often. It's at 37k miles today w it's 2nd owner. And I'm going to rap it out on the highway and baby it in the garage. I'm a girl we understand these concepts as heuristic criterion. Machbx out ~~~;}

 

Quick question, does the IMS failure occur mainly on the non turbo 996's?

 

That's my understanding, yes.

 

The Turbo does'nt have this worry,it has no IMS..

 

In the 996 Turbo, you have a complete different engine. It is derived directly from the mighty GT1 engine created to race, complete with dry sump and lots of horse... no ponies!!!

 

Haha good to know thanks

 

From their annual survey of subscribers / readers. I haven't done the survey yet in 2012, and when I just logged on to their forum I received this message:

Did you complete the Annual Questionnaire yet?

I've reported my vehicles several times, I use an independant mechanic (for the Boxster), and I have not had any drivetrain issues in the...3 years?...I've owned the car. My mechanic cuts open the oil filter and shows me the results - so far they've been clean. So while by myself I'm a "one rat study", taken in the aggregate I have some faith in the CR numbers, and the numbers become more reliable when the sample size increases. CR doesn't report Ferrari & Maserati numbers, and some years for some models are omitted because the sample size isn't large enough, but the Reliability History for Boxsters (986 and 987) all have "Better" ratings for engine and drive system (except 2006, which is "Neutral").

I haven't looked at very many ratings, but the ratings for Lexus (and Miata - I used to have one) vehicles are all "Better", and Jeeps are "Worse" - which also supports my experience and expectations. Honestly, I think the CR data is probably the single best source of aggregate long term reliability data.

 

Wait, just so I'm clear on this, CR only comes up with these ratings based soley on CR consumer survey's? To me that would dramatically reduce the sample size and seem even more flawed. Especially among the Porsche crowd as most do not read CR or subscribe to it. Not to stereotype but I would think there would be more subscribers to something like The Robb Report over CR among the Porsche owners. (I kid, partially...)

 

For Reliability History, they say:Nobody trusts the dealerships to give straight info, the manufacturer isn't saying, Jake (with a huge vested interest) is keeping his data private, and I think it's common knowledge that grovelling an internet forum is a poor way to gather statistical data. I have not had a failure. My mechanic, a long-time Porsche specialist who has done routine service on approximately 100 Boxsters (I didn't ask how many Carreras) has never seen an IMS failure. But those are, again, annecdotal. So I ask you, who would be more representative than a collection of current owners who have no obvious incentive to mis-report their experiences?

 

I have no doubt that the Porsche owners of CR are not mis-reporting but generally people that subscribe to CR in general don't have a clue on a lot of things, hence the reason why they need some type of authoritative figure advising them on what to buy in the first place.

I have an issue with sample size and the type of people that are taking these surveys. Would it hold more weight if the survey respondents were subscribers of Road and Track magazine? Absolutely as they are more likely hardcore enthusiasts that would know what things to look for and their driving styles might be more representative of the way you should be driving these things.

This goes back to my theory of usage as well. If 90 out of 100 people only drive it on Sundays, what are the chances it will break down frequently? Less usage can correlate to higher reliability hence the skewed figures again.

FWIW, I would rather believe the forum owners and reliability trends on there over CR's ratings any day.

 

Um, I'd like to think I "have a clue on a lot of things", but I still find CR handy for things like major appliances without having to become a denizen of some appliance forum somewhere on the Internet.

Of course you're free to believe whomever you want to believe. Heck, maybe the German government's annual TÜV-Report of the 8 million cars in Germany is also not credible to you. The 2011 report of 10-11 year old cars (i.e. 2000 and 2001) had the Porsche 911 ranked number 1 with 9.5% complaints, just ahead of the Toyota Rav4 with 10% complaints: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...s/#more-421764."The Porsche 911 also takes top billing in 6-7 years and 8-9 years."

Let me guess - now you're going to say those sneaky Germans shipped all of the grenade-prone cars out of the country and targeted them not at the average Joe who reads CR, but into the hands of the enthusiasts who specifically frequent this forum! Wow...there must be some brilliant conspiracy in there somewhere that isn't apparent to me.

 

Oh crap, I forgot, JD Power also said that "Porsche has the best long-term reliability of any brand": http://content.usatoday.com/communit...-dependable-/1

Oops, there's another one - Warranty Direct included the Boxster in their list of "Top 100 Most Reliable Used Cars of the Past Decade" (albeit at position 100!).http://www.gizmag.com/the-100-most-r...in-order/5657/.

Wait, here's another - the "Identifix Reliability Ratings" on www.carfax.com for my 2003 Boxster S shows "Infrequent problems reported, all with low repair costs " for Engine and Transmission & Driveline. "Identifix is the nation's largest technical support service for the aftermarket auto repair industry".

So fine - CR, the German government, Warranty Direct, Identifix, and JD Power are all wrong, and a few cranky-pants on this forum know "the real truth" that 10% to 15% of these cars have engines that explode. Yeah, that just has to be the answer.

 

Just had my IMS replaced with an upgraded LN Engineering version. The old bearing looked clean and had no signs of wear, and this was at 61k miles. Granted this is a 997 but I figure the design for my 05' is similar if not the same to the 996.

 

Keep in mind, 70% of all Porsches are still on the road...