Déjà vu? Or if you're a "score keeper" you can log as 12 IMS saves in your journal, right?

Same exact post, 4 different boards...

[986forum.com]

[forums.rennlist.com]

[forums.pelicanparts.com]

[www.6speedonline.com]

Now, now, let's play nice.

You missed one. PCA Boxster Register

But who's counting.

15.

Dave - 06 987 S coupe SG/NL; gone (but still my first love): 03 986 AS/GG/BK;

10 saves and 5 unnecessary replacements, according to the posts. The IMS bearing in the 65K mile car was reported to be in fine condition.

since cars brought to the mechanic are not a normal sampling of all Boxsters running but are more probably ones exhibiting some sign that there may be a problem.

OTOH, if only 1/3 of the parts replacements were unneeded, I wonder what proportion of all the parts replaced by all mechanics turns out to be unnecessary? Is it about the same?

And unneeded at 65k can't possibly mean that there was no wear, just that it wasn't obvious yet. Since it starts small and then avalanches...who knows what the optimum point at which you replace what is a wearing part after all. All rotating parts are.

Statistics is about collecting and analyzing large volumes of numbers. Without large numbers, reports are interesting but not meaningful.

I have opened two of my 986/996 engines each after over 100k miles and disassembled and inspected the IMS bearings and neither had any appreciable wear.

Sanity in the face of hysteria is refreshing

Then why the second sentence which contains an even smaller sample?

If we insist on a certain standard for the statistics cited in favor of a proposition, shouldn't we insist on the same standard for arguments counter to the same proposition?

I'm not trying to establish the frequency of high mileage cars with minimal IMS bearing wear, merely the existence of them.

To your second point, yes I completely agree. Standards should be applied equally in both directions. I acknowledge that people are clamoring for more info on this topic but we just don't have the data. You can survey online board members all day and you still won't have enough (good) data.

What I think I know is the bearing is a wear item and all wear items have a life that is somehow limited by their lubrication and materials and use. I like to think of failures as lying on a classic bell curve. Of course that implies that some will come early in the car's life and some late. Unfortunately we don't have data on where the peak is or the shape of the curve.

We already know from Marc and Pedro that some original bearings go 190k miles or more. We have also heard of early failures.

Stuff happens.