8th Apr 2012, 17:12

IMS failure is no hype - it's very real, enough for every Porsche blogsite to have it constantly in discussion. It's kept me from getting one second-hand, while I've been monitoring the situation for years.

All cars have their faults, but while most can be put down to either driving style or maintenance, or particular design faults that can be circumvented (say, changing a cambelt at 50,000 km instead of the recommended 120,000 km, just as an extreme example) or changing the plastic-impeller water pumps every 4-5 years to prevent catastrophic failure, the IMS can happen whether the car is babied or trashed, maintained by the book or neglected, low-mileage or not.

When you have a car that is tracked or raced, and driven to the extremes of the rev counter that has done over 100K miles and not had a problem, and you have one which has been consciously driven carefully and serviced on time, and needs the engine changed below 35K miles, at a cost of something like US$12K (and Americans get it cheaper than the rest of the world), then it is a concern.

When you spend money on a car costing that much (brand new), you expect a REASONABLE amount of durability built-in, and if it does have faults, that you can find out what can be done to prevent a problem, or that a fix is available without replacing the whole engine.