2008 Boxster ISM Bearing Fix - Follow Up Service

[Budman]

You need to do more research on IMS bearings and the new, more robust IMS bearing Porsche put in 2008 and 2009 cars. They really don't fail all that much compared to the older, pre 2007 and earlier engines. In fact the failure rate is reported to be less than 1% compared to an estimated 10% on pre 2008. I have a 2008 and wouldn't consider the procedure you've had done. Sounds to me like a real money maker for your mechanic. Even very experienced race car builders haven't seen the problem in 2008 and 2009 cars. It's why our M97 engines were excluded form the IMS bearing class action law suite that Porsche settled. One source in particular, who has developed a way to remove the 2008-2009 IMS without spliting the engine apart (older version IMS bearings could be removed just by removing the trans only) says he wouldn't even worry about it until somewhere around 125,000 miles, and then just maybe worry. Of the thousands of blog participants who own Boxsters and Caymans at Planet 9 blog, there have been 2-3 reported and confirmed IMS failures. It's an excellent statistical sampling with a less the a half percent failure rate. Doing anything on our motors is sort of like having a heart transplant to prevent a maybe heart attack somewhere in the future. Will it help? Maybe, more likely not. Probably won't make a difference one way or the other. Good luck with whatever path you decide.