It's been almost eight months now since I initially took delivery of my 2003 996tt. It had issues right from the beginning, as it wouldn't even fire-up to drive it off the truck. Turns out that the shop out in Washington state had left the engine ground cable loose after working on the car. Oh well, **** happens. Don't get me wrong, the car has been strong since I first drove it. It has always pulled like a mule, as evidenced by this trip to the dragstrip. It's just had problem after problem since it first arrived in Virginia. There's been the wing failure, oil pressure sensor failure, torn coolant hose, failed fuel pump, PSS9s bouncing off the bumpstops, and this persisting problem that's been getting worse since I first drove the car in VA.

This problem would only manifest itself after the car was turned on, and only under low RPM and low load. When the car was stopped and in neutral, for instance, if you blipped the throttle, the engine would stutter and hesitate a bit; the revs would not raise linearly as you would expect them to. This problem got worse and worse and seemed to come to a head when the fuel pump failed. After the pump was replaced, however, the problem was still present.

Frustrated, I took the car to Intersport in Mclean, VA. My friend recommended them to me, so I figured I would just give them a shot and see how they handled this issue. I had already dealt with Ivan at IMA Motorsports and received great service from him, but I like to sample more than one shop so I can compare and see which is the best. Let me tell you that I had a less-than-pleasant experience at Intersport. They didn't even attempt to address the problem that I asked them to fix. Instead, they told me that my water pump was leaking and it needed to be replaced. When I asked them to hold off until I could come look at the car, they rushed me. When I did get into the shop to look at it, it was obvious that the water pump was not leaking. They tried to point out some some old, dried-up coolant stains that were near my water pump, insisting that I needed a new pump and pulley assembly. This was going to run me $1800. HAHAHAH, yeah right. I told them that I couldn't swing an $1800 bill and asked them to get my car off the lift for me to drive it home. They seemed very surprised, but obliged and gave me no hassle. I ended up being charged the minimum, which was just over $100. To be honest, checking out of that place was the most pleasurable part of the entire experience. I was sure that I was going to get gouged, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I drove the car back home and thought about the situation a bit. I tried changing the MAF, with no luck. I tried some Gumout to clean the fuel system, but that didn't help either. In fact, shortly after the Gumout was put into the fuel tank, I got my first check engine light. I plugged an OBDII scanner into the car and pulled some codes:

bank 1 running lean
random misfires
misfire cyl 1
misfire cyl 2
misfire cyl 3

I was leaning (ha!) towards the O2 sensors, but since there were no codes for them, I wasn't sure they were the culprit. I figured I should remove the exhaust and swap the O2 sensors from one side to another to see if the codes moved over to bank 2. I removed my aftermarket exhaust and found that the driver's side of the motor (bank 1) was completely black and sooty. Something was deeefinitely wrong and I became a bit worried. After all, bank 1 was the side of the motor that had relatively major work done just before I bought the car. I was becoming more and more convinced that something serious was wrong with the motor. It definitely didn't help that I came onto here and read some threads in which one bank of the motor was completely sooty and shortly after the motor grenaded. With my train of thought sidetracked by anxiety, I never got around to swapping the oxygen sensors. Instead, I towed the car to IMA Motorsports in Chantilly and had it looked at by Ivan Arzola.

Let me tell you something. Ivan is the ****ing man. That's all there is to it. Sure, your car may not be in and out of there in a day like some other places that seem to have sold-out, but it's quality over quantity at IMA. Ivan and Dan (new guy up front) are both awesome guys and took time out of their days to sit down and listen to the story of my car. You could tell that they wanted to figure out the problem as much as I did. Mind you, I towed the car, without an exhaust, straight to IMA, just before the Thanksgiving holiday. They put the stock exhaust back on for me and did some general diagnostics. In the process, they found and plugged a minor boost leak and thought that it could have possibly fixed the issue I was having. I wasn't convinced, since the issue was isolated to one bank of the motor, so I had them to look at it a bit more. Ivan asked if it was okay for him to drive my car home to his house, then back into the shop the next morning, so that he could get a more long-term feel. I said "absolutely."

I received a call from Ivan the next day saying that something was still wrong with the car. After some datalogging, it became quite apparent that the pre-cat O2 sensor on the driver's side of the car was bad. It was consistently pegged at 1V, causing the car to dump fuel in response to the eroneous lean condition. Upon further inspection, it was easy to see that the O2 sensor was dented/damaged. Something had either knocked it or it had been crimped against something when the car was jacked up. I'm guessing this happened out in Wash state, just before I took delivery of the car, because the problem has been slowly getting worse from day one. I'm not out to point fingers, but I do like to *think* I know what happened, at the very least.

Instead of immediately throwing money at the car and purchasing new oxygen sensors, Ivan suggested doing exactly what I was about to do on my own: swap the O2 sensors from one side to the other. I think that's awesome, because most shops will just throw parts and money a car instead of doing proper diagnosis. Once the O2 sensors were swapped, the codes instantly jumped to the other side of the motor, so the puzzle was solved. Ivan ordered two new pre-cat O2 sensors and everything feels great now. It's like a new car. The problem that I felt since DAY ONE is now completely gone, and I couldn't be more happy. I've almost used up an entire tank of gas driving around yesterday and today. It feels great to finally have this car back. It's almost like getting it again for the first time.

Thanks Ivan!! I highly recommend IMA Motorsports. It's so much better to deal with people who are real, instead of people who are just looking to keep the conveyor belt moving. He even brought me into his computer room to show me tons of cool data. Fuel tables, timing tables, user torque request tables, in 2D, 3D, etc etc, you name it. I could see the overlay of my EPL tune to the stock map. It was awesome.

 

Awesome story,and I'm really glad you have your problems sorted out and can start enjoying your 996TT properly. Thumbs up!

 

Very good story. Always learn something from those kind of post. Thanks for sharing. I am happy for you . Now enjoy your car!

 

Nice Turbo! I'm glad to hear you got everything fixed. It's deeply frustrating when you have an issue with the car and can't quite get it figured out.

Also your sig says stock but you mention an aftermarket exhaust and EPL tune. What are you running on your X50 these days?

 

Oops, forgot to update my sig. I currently have an EPL tune and a 911Tuning X-Design Sport exhaust with 100 cell cats. Everything else (power-wise) is stock.

P.S. Thanks for the supportive comments, guys.

 

Glad you got her sorted and that ima was able to do ya right I've heard good and bad things and everything in between about ima just as I have about intersport... Glad to hear your story and successful outcome

 

Awesome story, I really like happy endings

 

Chris

Thanks for the nice review!! I am pleased you are enjoying the car . BTW don't forget to bring that R8 by some time.

Respectfully