Crankshaft sensor

Last summer my Boxster stalled at a traffic light after running for about 30 to 45 mins.. The engine would not restart until the engine had cooled for an extended period of time... in my case, after the flat bed arrived 2 hours later, lol. No error codes were ever recorded.
Members of the board indicated the Crankshaft sensor was bad and needed replacement.
Removal and replacement was not terribly difficult but access was a challenge. I found a small ratchet on a 5 mm hex bolt allowed me to get inside a metal wire routing holder and gave me the space to remove the sensor with the hex and ratchet.

I've test driven the car and run it for more than an hour and thirty minutes, no problems.

I'm surprised that no error message was ever sent for the severity of failure (engine cutting out).

I must admit... trusting that this resolved the problem is hard to feel confident in.

.. you didn't get any misfires and attendant codes. Typically you get a lot of misfires before it cuts out.

I'm somewhat confident that you fixed it, but only heat cycling will tell!

Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

Quote
m2
Last summer my Boxster stalled at a traffic light after running for about 30 to 45 mins.. The engine would not restart until the engine had cooled for an extended period of time... in my case, after the flat bed arrived 2 hours later, lol. No error codes were ever recorded.
Members of the board indicated the Crankshaft sensor was bad and needed replacement.
Removal and replacement was not terribly difficult but access was a challenge. I found a small ratchet on a 5 mm hex bolt allowed me to get inside a metal wire routing holder and gave me the space to remove the sensor with the hex and ratchet.

I've test driven the car and run it for more than an hour and thirty minutes, no problems.

I'm surprised that no error message was ever sent for the severity of failure (engine cutting out).

I must admit... trusting that this resolved the problem is hard to feel confident in.

A crankshaft sensor failure does not affect emissions. Thus no OBD2 error. There might be a Porsche proprietary error that possibly a Durametric could retrieve.

I can understand your lack of confidence and an hour and a half of run time with no engine cut out is not proof positive you found and fixed the problem.

Some owners -- this in attempting to deal with other problems -- for instance remove and clean the MAF and report "success". But just the act of shutting off the engine then turning it back on cures -- at least temporarily -- the problem. I recall when my Boxster's passenger side VarioCam solenoid/actuator proved to be bad just turning off the engine then restarting it had the symptoms gone. And they remained gone for the 30+ mile drive home. But the solenoid/actuator proved to be bad nonetheless.

This turning off the engine or just clearing the codes has proved to be a temporary solution a number of times with my car. From a failing AOS, to a bum converter, the aforementioned solenoid/actuator, and with my other car O2 sensor problems and misfires upon cold engine start.

But I'm with Grant. I too am somewhat confident the crankshaft position sensor was the culprit but only time will tell.

I have moved to an area that is very rural, Calaveras, CA... a lot of twisty 2 lane roads with very little shoulder, so verifying the fix is a little unnerving. On the positive side... roads made for appreciating a Boxster.

Thanks again... I will provide an update in a few weeks.

Car ran fine with no issues then stopped while running one day. It happened a couple of times, every time starting only after letting it cool. Finally I replaced the crank position sensor and have never seen the problem again. That was a couple of years ago.

However for me in a car with (at the time) 165k miles, the old crank sensor, though relatively easy to access, had basically welded itself to the car and was a lot of work to get out.