... I'm sorry to hear about your car troubles.
I'm not sure what you Aussies call the "balance shaft" in a Boxster engine.
The M96 engines have 5 shafts:
• Crankshaft (which drives all 6 pistons in and out)
• Left Bank Intake Camshaft (which drives the intake valves on the left)
• Right Bank Intake Camshaft (which drives the intake valves on the right)
• Left Bank Exhaust Camshaft (which drives the exhaust valves on the left)
• Right Bank Exhaust Camshaft (which drives the exhaust valves on the right)
• Intermediate Shaft (which as it name implies is an intermediate shaft driven by the crankshaft and in turn drives the camshafts through a system of sprockets and chains)
But from the description you gave above I would suspect that it was an intermediate shaft (IMS) bearing failure which can cause the intermediate shaft's sprockets to jump some teeth on the chains thus causing catastrophic engine damage.
Anything can fail in an engine without warning.
Probably there were no outward signs of anything wrong when you had your car serviced at 40,000 Km.
If it was the IMS bearing that failed, oil will escape the engine.
When the tow truck tilted the car backwards much more oil would have poured out as well.
On a newly installed engine, there is no other reason other than lack of quality control that would have allowed the owner to drive away with an engine low on fluids.
It also depends how much fluid the engine actually had.
If they didn't properly bleed the air out of the cooling system, this could have caused the coolant light to turn on when a bubble of air moved into the expansion chamber.
If that was the case, again, not much damage if any would have been caused.
If you didn't see the temperature go high or a temperature warning light, most likely the engine will be fine.
I would demand an explanation from the dealer and even demand an extra year of warranty if they don't replace it again.
I would also look for another dealer to take care of the car.
Good luck.
Please keep us posted.
Happy Boxstering,
Pedro
Pedro Bonilla1998 Boxster 986 - 311,000+ miles:
[www.PedrosGarage.com]
PCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)
Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"
"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti
"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2011 02:57PM by Pedro (Weston, FL).
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