Coolant Pipe Leak Month
 

I do not know what has been going on the last month but we had 3 997 turbos in the shop to get the coolant pipes changed. We never had such a rush of these jobs before.

If you are in SoCal and your car develops the coolant like issue we are more than happy to walk you through the complete process to repair it. It's an engine out repair so we can also replace any other worn part and do some preventative maintenance while we are in there.

What other incidental repairs will you do as a matter of course?

The last car received a new water pump, new O-rings and some off the other hoses were changed. We also had the injectors checked and cleaned.

We often do plugs and coils at this time as well as perform clutch jobs (this last car was a tiptronic).

We look for all worn part and replace them and we do any modifications the customer may want performed while the engine is out.

What milage do the cars your seeing have on them? Curious if there is correlation between leaks, age and milage....I have 33k on an 07 and as yet dry and tight.....I know it's not if but when....

No correlation. Has happened across a broad range of cars in terms of mileage.

I know now that Ive read this threak I will be next LOL

So what's this all about?? Any insight?

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ml#post4642598

Reading 6speed and Rennlist is fun except for now every time I start my car I know that my coolant pipes are about to blow, my camshaft is going to spin out, my rear wing's hydraulics are going to pop, and I'll snap a rod and grenade my engine. Probably all on the same drive to Target.

My '07 tt started to leak coolant during the winter storage in 2013 with about 41K miles. The next winter the same with about 48K miles so I opted to have the pipes welded. Did the clutch , a new radiator in the front drivers side, and the oil/water heat exchanger, which was leaking as well. It is amazing when the engine was out, some of the fittings that were not leaking, the mechanic showed me how he pulled them out with little effort as the epoxy Porsche used was crumbling. Epic failure was imminent.

Choked on my coffee laughing while reading this. While many are paranoid this will happen - I'm living proof many of these things "can" happen... hilarious

Not to worry, my coolant lines have blown twice even after pinning, I also spun my cam and blew a turbo! All in one summer :mad:


Just waiting for my spoiler to fail.

Wow! That's sure a worst case scenario. Any insight on what happened? Was your car just built by interns on the Friday afternoon before everyone's vacation?

No idea, the car has been pretty good otherwise. I do have 100,000km on the clock. Pretty sure my turbo blew because of a boost leak.

My car is a 2007, had around 18,000 miles when the pipe right next to the water pump decided to completely fail while doing a 160-170mph pull. Lost all of my coolant in a matter of seconds. This was almost 2 years ago, decided to get mine welded and never looked back.

Mike, who pinned your coolant lines - just wondering if we used the same shop. I'm currently going through some "issues".

That sounds like they pinned it incorrectly. There isn't a lot of pressure in the cooling system, surely not enough to blow out a pinned sleeve.


that's a bad run of luck there :( I had a lot of problems with mine when I first got it, but its all good now. terrified of the camshaft thing, now that the car is running perfectly lol

yeah I had the camshaft thing, spoiler thing, clutch slave thing, rattling window thing. Best move I made was buying the cpo warranty when I imported the car from US P dealer. Paid for itself many times over.

Ouch that's the full meal deal there. I may possibly be experiencing early slave issues. but the same as you I had most problems that are common to these cars aside from the camshaft thing. I unfortunately didn't have CPO or a warranty that was useful, so the cars cost me a ton in maintenance the first year I owned it.


Do you attend any of the rennlist meets on Saturdays ? im rarely home so its the only way I get to interact with other p car fellas.

I wasn't aware of the Rennlist Saturdays. I know a couple of guys off this forum locally. Last year did a whole house reno and this year redid the landscaping so didn't have time for meets. Next year should be different!

It would be helpful to know what year cars everyone is talking about when they relay their incident. I had a 08 Turbo cab I drove every day for 48K miles and had no problems. I now have a 2012 with 16K miles and no problems. Are we talking model year, mileage or what on the issue cars.

I have a 2008 with 118,000km (73k miles for our friends in the US) and had a hose burst around 20k km ago. I decided to pin the pipes while replacing the hose since they had to drop the engine anyway. There was no leak or indication that it was going to happen, it just did. I did a pull on the street going to my friends house and I saw white smoke temp started to rise and that was it. Drove the rest of the drive (5min) to his house and got it towed to my indy.
For those local people wondering, I took the car to Brent at Hunter Motorsports.

Hey Cubes, that's similar to my experience - I launched onto the highway and then the low coolant light came on etc...

2007 with 84000km (a little over 50k miles).

I tried to get some work done by Hunter a couple of years ago but we got off on the wrong foot so I went elsewhere. My recent repair was at MVS in Scarborough.

are these all 997.1s??
 

Curious if these are all .1s? Although this isn't internals, I thought the Metzger build was bulletproof and so much more reliable? The comment on the epoxy sent chills up my spine.

Did they change the coolant pipes with the .2 or do I get to look forward to the same in my "unreliable" DFI lol?

Mvs does good work
 

Good attention to detail

I like Mario and his son at MVS. I'm not sure how much experience they have with a 997 turbo but they believe they can handle it. He has backup from a Master Porsche tech. Coincidentally my other friend referred me to that same Master Porsche tech. Just in discussions now and will figure out if I'm going to get my cams pinned while the engine is down and car out of service for the winter.

They have a lot of exp with the 997tt
 

why r u dropping the motor? To recheck all the work done by bt? hope not. If so u should tell z....that aint right

yes, that's why. The burst hose was the coolant return line from the turbo. I don't think MVS could replace the whole thing without dropping the engine. At least that's what I understood. There's a temporary part in there right now which is just a short piece with clamps on both sides. Mario said he can see some of the "wrong" jubilee clamps on some of the other water hoses. Now I don't know if and when it would cause a problem because of those clamps but I think I'd rather have everything checked out and get some other stuff done too. I think it will simplify the water pump change, plug change, maybe get camshafts pinned, and the list goes on, lol.

I haven't seen the coolant level drop at all in 5 days and couple hundred kms driving so I think that means there's no head gasket damage. I want that looked at too obviously but for now I remain optimistic.

I will be getting in touch with Z about this...

How could I forget, I also had the broken gearshift cable thing. Unfortunately after the warranty expired. :mad: It was the one time (and only time :D) I let my bro drive the car alone. He had a great time and just about home when it happened. He felt bad but I told him it was a "known" thing. I put in the Numeric Racing cable which is really good and strong. It was MVS that did this for me and I was happy with my experience with them.

Couldn't agree more. CPO and then extended warranty paid for itself over many times. I've had the coolant pipe blowout, spoiler failure and tip transmission leak (replaced). I have till April till the warranty runs out. Just hoping the camshaft thing happens soon. So much for 997 turbo's being bulletproof :rolleyes: Anyone know if there's anyway you can "tease" the camshaft issue out? Joking but kind of serious too...;)

I don't think there is any way to tease it out - it usually happened when I slowed down to a stop and then came the familiar "beep" and check engine light. Always left an unsettled feeling in my stomach when it happened, although a number of times the CEL was something else.

So I did text Z about the problem I had and his first response was to bring him the car and he would check it out and take care of things, which was nice. I explained that I was thinking of having more work done while the engine was out including possibly having the camshafts taken out and sent out for pinning and for that reason I was going to get a Porsche tech to do the work. I asked if perhaps Z would be willing to give me a shop credit considering I wasn't getting him to take the engine down etc... Perhaps that was offensive to him, I don't know, but in the end he said he couldn't do that and acted like I had "attacked" him based on my online posts. I have reread my posts and don't think I "attacked" him. In any case, since there is now bad blood I guess I will cut my losses there and get the work done at either MVS or directly with the Porsche tech I was introduced to.

Boost Theory has done at least 5 or 6 pinning jobs so they certainly have some experience doing it. I don't know who else does it around here.

Up to this point (2 weeks and hundreds of kms) I haven't seen the coolant level drop so I'm hoping that there is no damage to the head gasket etc...

Most of you already know this but for those of you that don't - if you see the "check coolant level" light come on then pull over right away and don't keep driving!

My coolant has been leaking this month too!! Car is currently at the dealer getting fixed up (fingers crossed, under extended warranty)

That extended warranty is gonna come in handy for this one!

Just an update - my engine is out right now and some "issues" were pointed out to me. I debated whether or not to post about them but since I've already seemingly "burned bridges" with the last shop I will post details. Not for the sake of slagging the other shop but to remind people to do their due diligence when getting work done on the 997tt. It's worth seeking out a shop with experience because there are a lot of details. Case in point: when the previous shop dropped my engine they disconnected the hoses to the power steering pump but instead of just pulling it off it's obvious they used a vice grip and pried it off. The connections didn't leak as far as I could tell but there was clear damage. It's gonna cost me a few hundred for new cables here....
Numerous crappy style clamps on the hoses where things were taken apart in order to pin the coolant lines. In short, it was worthwhile for me to have the engine dropped and get all these things looked at. Plus, there seems to be a little oil leaking around the oil tank, probably just gaskets so I'll get that taken care of. Maybe the boxer engine wasn't drinking oil like I had thought!

Wow, sorry to hear about that. It's really all about the little details eh. Did MVS point out these issues? or you're having another Porsche Tech looking at your car now?

oh maaaaaaaan

It was MVS that pointed it out. MVS is at a convenient location for me to pop by and check on things. They always welcome me into the shop and I can ask lots of questions and go over things. I am internally scrutinizing the way they work and am satisfied that Nick and Mario are meticulous and know their way around this car.

I think that every shop probably disses any previous shops work, lol, but in this case the types of mistakes made on my car aren't acceptable. Using an oversized worm gear clamp on a hose is just messy and can potentially cause problems over time. The original shop that put my 68s on (not any of the shops listed) didn't replace the little rubber o-ring going to the turbo coolant inlet. I think they siliconed it!! No issue but not the best option. Details matter, especially with these cars and the extra heat generated from increasing the power...

Lesson learned
 

I will definitely have them look at the pinning job to see if anything needs revising. What exactly did you need to have fixed? Did the engine have to come down?