So I just had my CTT in for some warranty work and upon picking it up i was told that I had a "small coolant" leak at the rear of the engine. I cringed but then relaxed because, hey it is under warranty! Well, no.

I was told that this leak was coming from a RUBBER hose near the rear coolant manifold and per Porsche's CPO they do not cover ANY rubber...

I was told the leak wasn't bad and that I'd be fine but "these things always go..." so I'm a little hesitant to take that explanation as fact and run with it (especially with the $900+ estimate I was given).

Has anybody run into this before? I know the coolant lines and the T-lines are VERY common issues but I haven't seen much at all with the rubber lines back there rupturing.

Thanks!

-05 CTT w/75k

 

So it sounds a lot like the rubber "tee" pipe in the turbos, that connect to the coolant/heater pipes that get replaced with aluminum. The right-most pipe of the top three feeds into a rubber tee that drops down and back to the right. This tee has compression fittings that fail. I know when I replaced mine at 80K, it had crusty coolant residue at the joints.

I was told when I did my coolant pipes that these additional tees go bad on Turbos, and you'll be replacing them one way or another - so do them when you do the aluminum coolant pipes. In fact "T2" who just put 200,000 miles on his CTT had the plastic pipes replaced at roughly 100K, and now this tee separately at 200K.

It's all the same work to take apart and get to as the replacing the coolant pipes. part is probably $30-ish, so the rest is labor. But that rate seems high.

Are you a DIY kind of guy? I did mine myself.

 

Thanks for the thorough response!

I am definitely a DIY guy and have no qualms digging into the engine but timing right now isn't good. In between moving and starting a new job and my temp relocation doesn't have a garage...

I don't mind doing the job but the truck is currently under warranty and they're trying to say that this is a "rubber" issue when it sounds like it is not. Do you know of any TSB's or specific links I can give them? I'm up against the end of my warranty (2 weeks left!) so I'd like to convince them to do it or at least present enough evidence that when it does get fixed I can prove that it wasn't the rubber and get reimbursed.

Seems like this is a known issue correct?

 

This is the big (1" diameter or so, bigger of the 3 hoses that attach to the rear coolant pipes) L shaped hose on back of the motor. I just replaced coolant pipes on an S this weekend, and you should also replace that hose when doing the pipes because it is known to fail. It took me 1.5-2 hours (obviously in the middle of the coolant pipe labor) to get the lower end of it off the hardpipe. It was like that SOB was glued on to the pipe. I had to scrape with a razor blade to get all the old hose off the pipe....and there is very little access back there.

 

+1 on it being a pain to replace. I also thought mine was glued on - sliced it length-wise with a blade and flooded it with lubricants, but it still held fast. Flat head screwdriver and elbow grease got it finally. Clearance is exactly hand width plus a quarter inch.
Impossible to see what I was doing. Good times, other than that.

Re: CPO problem, the connector I replaced is definitely rubber. I can post a picture of mine if that helps.

 

Thanks for the heads up. They mentioned they might be able to do it that way they simply weren't sure. "By the book" it is a drop the engine process but they were going to try NOT to do that if possible to help me out.

Was the issue with the RUBBER or the fittings? I might be able to argue into it being covered by my CPO if the later.

Got it thanks for the heads up. A picture would be HUGE as I'm taking her in tomorrow for some other work and want to talk with them about it. If it is ALL rubber that is one thing but if it is a pressed fitting then I might be able to argue that the glued or whatever is failing and NOT the rubber. Tricky, tricky