short story -- bought an 05 carrera S a few weeks ago. Last week the check engine light comes on...

P0021 -- cam timing over advanced on bank 2

Take it to my Indy...

they call today and say they won't drive it because it sounds "funny" when idling, they're recommendation is to put it on a truck and take it to a Porsche dealer. They have sold many 911's and Boxster's and have worked on many as well but they didn't want to touch my car. They used the dreaded "IMS" bearing as a possible culprit. Here's the thing, I've read the IMS threads, the horror stories, etc.etc. I've checked my engine number against the thread below and my engine number comes way after the # of the first IMS upgrade.

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...failure-5.html

I've made sure of the manufacture date (April 2005)

So.....I'm going to have it towed to a P dealer...and let them check things out (I know it's better to be safe than sorry)....but my question is this, Does a code of P0021 and a funny sounding idle point to a potential IMS bearing failure being imminent?

Some background....the car IMO drives wonderfully, very smooth and I think (I repeat "I THINK") the car has had the Gundo hack already done (cause for "funny" sound?). There is no loss of power to me (but this is my first P-car...I have no frame of reference)...I know it feels the same now as it did when it first arrived. The car is a 2005 S Cabrio with 55,700 miles.

Let's hear your thoughts! It will be a few days before I have it picked up and taken to the dealer...but I will try to update the forum on the findings. maybe somebody out here will send a prayer up that it's not the nightmare I'm trying to make it?

 

When you say "funny idle" can you be more specific? Does it sound like the car is misfiring, does it lope, are there excessive vibrations?

I had the IMS failure happen to me (author of that thread you referenced) and I had nothing out of the ordinary occur before my failure.

From what I've seen around the internet, IMS failure comes with catastrophic oil leaks, unable to hold any RPMs at idle, and metal on metal grinding (all three were present for my IMS issue).

 

Sorry don't know what the code means...so I have my fingers crossed that its not IMS...and hopefully something not too complicated or expensive. After all you just recently got the car!

 

I didn't hear what my indy heard this morning so I can't comment on that, the details I can give are based on my 3 week ownership of the car and especially the last 4-5 days, so here goes...

it idles smoothly in terms of feel...the tach generally stays pinned to 800rpm and rarely even quivers. Driving the car is also smooth, not prone to sounding off with a lot of rattles or raspy sounds. It definitely is not misfiring, loping, or given to excessive vibrations. I will say that on cold start up is has a tendency to sound a bit like an old tractor, but that's also what I remember my M3 sounding like in the cold so I haven't worried about it.

One odd thing, last Thursday I drove it in the morning for about 30minutes, then it sat for nearly 9 hours, then I drove it another 30 minutes home...all with the cel on, and it drove perfectly. I parked it at home for about an hour, then drove it again to the grocery store (about a ten minute drive). During the grocery trip at a red light, still with the cel light on...the car begins to rough idle...going intermittently from it's usual 800 rpm to about 600, back to 800 and back to 600 etc. I finished the drive to the store, got my groceries, and when I started it back up (while still warm) the cel light went out and stayed out. I drove it over the weekend, no cel light and the car continued to drive very well and smooth and strong. Yesterday the cel comes on while going to the indy to have it checked out.

That's all I've got...I've made arrangements for it to ship to my closest P dealer and it should get checked out sometime around Friday.

I'm no expert, but I'm tending toward thinking this is not an IMS problem...maybe I'm wishful thinking? Hope not. Everything I hear though is that cars with the upgraded larger IMS bearing have not failed...as long as the info on engine numbers and build dates is correct, then I have the upgraded larger IMS bearing.

thanks Jasper...I'm nervous, but not too nervous...the dealer I bought the car from is being a real stand up guy...I've been talking to him about this and he's committed to taking care of it...his cars are all sold with a limited warranty that covers everything and I'm still well within that period.

 

Just take it to the dealer, could be something very simple..overall our cars are very reliable, hence why the only major problem is the IMS

 

If the timing is off then that would explain the funny sounding idle. Any car with timing issues will idle and run poorly. Hopefully it's a simple adjustment.

 

I might be way out in left field here but could it be a cracked coil pack ? Hopefully just a simple adjustment if nothing else.

 

Have the spark plugs been changed recently?

 

I'm going to sound like a complete idiot for this, but I don't know when the plugs were changed, I didn't get that info from the dealer and didn't ask...what I was told by the dealer is that the car was completely up to date for it's services and didn't need anything.

I believe I can track down some service history though, I know where the car came from originally and who the previous owner was so I can do some digging. I'm going to wait on that though and just find out what the dealer I'm taking it to says.

 

Ill send out a prayer. ;-)

 

For your reference:

 

Thanks for the prayer!

The car has arrived at the dealer this morning around 8:30....will let everyone know.

Johnnyb -- that is great man!, thank you so much for posting this...I'm very likely to print and show the dealer when they call if they haven't figured anything out.

 

Update?

 

Good luck - lets us know the diagnosis.

 

UPDATE -

Car arrived at dealer yesterday morning, they started it, drove it, and said it felt like it should. The service manager and technician called me to talk about it yesterday afternoon. They wanted the story so I rehashed it and sent them this thread. The CEL has now gone out again and stayed out...but they did recover P0011 and P0021. One of the measurements of the timing they took showed it being over advanced by 34 degrees...can't remember which side but holy cow, that's way off!. The technician advised that he would hang on to it until he figured it out but he's leaning towards two possibilities.

1. - sensors are bad....no big deal.
2. - actuators and chains are "off" or over extended or something.... this isn't such a small operation.

I expect to hear more this afternoon in terms of what they find.