A little background. I've owned my turbo from new and has been maintained throughout by a PC and has wanted for nothing. I've also kept the extended warranty going which has proved good value most years.
This year it came up for the major 12 year service. All was going well until day 2 when I had a phone call from the Centre informing me that two bolts holding on heat shields had snapped off. There are two heat shields that sit between the turbos and cam covers held in place by 4 M6 bolts - steel into aluminium. One on each side had snapped the head off the bolt during removal. No big deal - drill it out and retap? Sadly not that simple. The bolts that snapped sit immediately behind the turbo and it is impossible to get a drill square on to the end with the turbos in place. The original estimate to get these bolts out was £1400. However, this was subject to a lot of suppositions. Several days later I as told that the engine may have to be lowered to get access which, in turn, required the rear suspension to come off.
Fortunately, the warranty manager, ex service manager, worked out how to get enough wriggle room by disconnecting the turbo pipes and removing the exhaust manifolds which saved a lot of labour, although they did snap off all of the manifold studs in the process.
None of this work is covered by warranty as I was told this was down to corrosion, aka, wear and tear. These bolts were last off the car 4 years ago at the last plug change but were the original 12 year bolts. The cost rose to £2700 with all the extra work - £600+ just for the specialist engineer to get the snapped bolts/studs out. Of course, there were many discussions with Centre and Porsche Cars about this issue. We all know steel and aluminium have corrosion issues. These two bolts sit in a very hot and vulnerable location - these things are known. So, I posed the question "why aren't these bolts replaced every plug change"? Clearly, this would be classed as "preventative maintenance" and could save the owner a huge unexpected bill. Indeed, the service manager has now annotated my service record to say these should be checked every service in future! I never got an answer to my question but decided life is too short and wanted my car back after 4 weeks at the Centre.
In the event, and after several emails, Porsche did contribute a sum towards the extraordinary cost to replace a couple of £2 bolts but I was still left with the larger portion of the cost. That, coupled with the 12 year service, presented me with an eye-watering bill!
So, if you own one of these or a model with turbos that have heat shields close to turbos, get them checked at the next service and, I would suggest, get them renewed. It could save you a lot of money.
I'm going to get my changed every two years from now on!
This year it came up for the major 12 year service. All was going well until day 2 when I had a phone call from the Centre informing me that two bolts holding on heat shields had snapped off. There are two heat shields that sit between the turbos and cam covers held in place by 4 M6 bolts - steel into aluminium. One on each side had snapped the head off the bolt during removal. No big deal - drill it out and retap? Sadly not that simple. The bolts that snapped sit immediately behind the turbo and it is impossible to get a drill square on to the end with the turbos in place. The original estimate to get these bolts out was £1400. However, this was subject to a lot of suppositions. Several days later I as told that the engine may have to be lowered to get access which, in turn, required the rear suspension to come off.
Fortunately, the warranty manager, ex service manager, worked out how to get enough wriggle room by disconnecting the turbo pipes and removing the exhaust manifolds which saved a lot of labour, although they did snap off all of the manifold studs in the process.
None of this work is covered by warranty as I was told this was down to corrosion, aka, wear and tear. These bolts were last off the car 4 years ago at the last plug change but were the original 12 year bolts. The cost rose to £2700 with all the extra work - £600+ just for the specialist engineer to get the snapped bolts/studs out. Of course, there were many discussions with Centre and Porsche Cars about this issue. We all know steel and aluminium have corrosion issues. These two bolts sit in a very hot and vulnerable location - these things are known. So, I posed the question "why aren't these bolts replaced every plug change"? Clearly, this would be classed as "preventative maintenance" and could save the owner a huge unexpected bill. Indeed, the service manager has now annotated my service record to say these should be checked every service in future! I never got an answer to my question but decided life is too short and wanted my car back after 4 weeks at the Centre.
In the event, and after several emails, Porsche did contribute a sum towards the extraordinary cost to replace a couple of £2 bolts but I was still left with the larger portion of the cost. That, coupled with the 12 year service, presented me with an eye-watering bill!
So, if you own one of these or a model with turbos that have heat shields close to turbos, get them checked at the next service and, I would suggest, get them renewed. It could save you a lot of money.
I'm going to get my changed every two years from now on!
