Currently reading: Fire risk 911 GT3s to all get new engines
Porsche confirms it will replace the engines in all 785 delivered 911 GT3 models; fire issues traced to loose bolts

Engines in all 785 delivered units of the new Porsche 911 GT3 will be replaced as part of a solution to potential fire issues.

A Porsche spokesman confirmed to Autocar that the problem, which has caused two engine bay fires so far, has been traced to a loose bolt in a piston connecting rod.

"Obviously customer safety is our priority," said the spokesman "We've investigated the two situations and identified that there is a potential for a fixing to become loose and therefore we're rolling out an engine with a modified component. It's much more straightforward to replace an engine than to strip down existing units."

The spokesman said the replacement programme would "undoubtedly" have a large cost attached for Porsche, but added "we don't put a price on our customer safety or vehicle integrity".

In both the reported cases, engine damage in the GT3 resulted in a fire thought to be caused by oil spilling onto hot components. Neither of the fires, which occurred in Italy and Switzerland, lead to any injuries.

GT3 customers have already been told to stop driving their cars. Porsche has confirmed it has written to owners to explain the problem, and is still deciding how best to roll out the engine replacement programme. The manufacturer wouldn't put a time scale on when it expects all GT3 models to be back on the road.

Around 100 units of the GT3 have been delivered to customers in the UK.

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Saucerer 19 March 2014

Porsche's true quality and development processes

The fact that this problem occured at all illustrates that Porsche's development is not as thorough as proper because rigourous testing and quality control would have identified these, possibly life-threatening, long before the car went on sale. This is a clear demonstration that despite all the marketing propaganda, Porsche's engineering, design and quality is not as good as we're led to believe, which is more scandalous when you consider the prices of their cars and the praise and aspiration heaped on them. And it's just not Porsche, remember the Ferrari 458. Such problems with cars on sale would never occur with the likes of McLaren, Aston Martin or Jaguar because of their stringent quality control during development and production processes. German quality is a total falicy and this have been proven in the most public and shocking manner by Porsche. Given the choice between a F-Type and a 911, it's a no brainer, it'd be the Jaguar everyday as they seemingly don't compormise people's lives with substandard quality and engineering.
bomb 19 March 2014

Saucerer wrote: Given the

Saucerer wrote:

Given the choice between a F-Type and a 911, it's a no brainer, it'd be the Jaguar everyday as they seemingly don't compormise people's lives with substandard quality and engineering.

We'd better not mention the engine that went pop on Autocar's long term F-Type then...

Citytiger 22 March 2014

bomb wrote:Saucerer

bomb wrote:
Saucerer wrote:

Given the choice between a F-Type and a 911, it's a no brainer, it'd be the Jaguar everyday as they seemingly don't compromise people's lives with substandard quality and engineering.

We'd better not mention the engine that went pop on Autocar's long term F-Type then...

Engine failure can happen to any manufacturer, the are much rarer these days, however they still do occur, but total engine failure of a whole production run causing a possible fire risk is something that should never happen to any manufacturer, whether its 1 £6k runaround or a £1m hypercar, but I suspect the chances of it happening in the cheaper vehicle are a lot lower purely because they will be using mass produced components not bespoke ones.

For a company with the pedigree of Porsche who pride themselves and are well respected for their engineering prowess it is unacceptable IMO.

bomb 25 March 2014

Citytiger wrote: Engine

Citytiger wrote:

Engine failure can happen to any manufacturer, the are much rarer these days, however they still do occur, but total engine failure of a whole production run causing a possible fire risk is something that should never happen to any manufacturer,

Autocar's long term Jag was one car, insignificant. Porsche's GT3 engine replacement was because of engine failure on TWO cars - not an entire production run. This is why posted about the Jaguar - the actual number of affected cars. Porsche chose to replace the entire batch because of the potential, not actual, failure. It's because Porsche have the pedigree you describe they've chosen to do this rather than suggest customer's were at fault.

Citytiger 26 March 2014

bomb wrote:Citytiger

bomb wrote:
Citytiger wrote:

Engine failure can happen to any manufacturer, the are much rarer these days, however they still do occur, but total engine failure of a whole production run causing a possible fire risk is something that should never happen to any manufacturer,

Autocar's long term Jag was one car, insignificant. Porsche's GT3 engine replacement was because of engine failure on TWO cars - not an entire production run. This is why posted about the Jaguar - the actual number of affected cars. Porsche chose to replace the entire batch because of the potential, not actual, failure. It's because Porsche have the pedigree you describe they've chosen to do this rather than suggest customer's were at fault.

Jaguar have built considerably more cars than Porsche have built GT3s, the GT3 is the halo model of the 911 range and as such should have been correctly tested in the first place, did Autocars long term Jag catch fire? I am not familiar with the story, can you please enlighten me with further information, also the majority of Jags on sale are diesel engined, the engines are produced for them by PSA/Ford, and are used in numerous applications and far greater quantities, are you suggesting that Porsche would have replaced every single diesel engine if the fires had happened in a Cayenne or that Ford/PSA and JLR should do likewise because one of their engines failed?

bomb 27 March 2014

Citytiger wrote:bomb

Citytiger wrote:
bomb wrote:
Citytiger wrote:

Engine failure can happen to any manufacturer, the are much rarer these days, however they still do occur, but total engine failure of a whole production run causing a possible fire risk is something that should never happen to any manufacturer,

Autocar's long term Jag was one car, insignificant. Porsche's GT3 engine replacement was because of engine failure on TWO cars - not an entire production run. This is why posted about the Jaguar - the actual number of affected cars. Porsche chose to replace the entire batch because of the potential, not actual, failure. It's because Porsche have the pedigree you describe they've chosen to do this rather than suggest customer's were at fault.

Jaguar have built considerably more cars than Porsche have built GT3s, the GT3 is the halo model of the 911 range and as such should have been correctly tested in the first place, did Autocars long term Jag catch fire? I am not familiar with the story, can you please enlighten me with further information, also the majority of Jags on sale are diesel engined, the engines are produced for them by PSA/Ford, and are used in numerous applications and far greater quantities, are you suggesting that Porsche would have replaced every single diesel engine if the fires had happened in a Cayenne or that Ford/PSA and JLR should do likewise because one of their engines failed?

Autocar's long-term car failure was on the F-Type V6 S they are running, so a Jaguar engine. It had a suspected head-gasket failure. The point I'm trying to make is that Jaguar has one engine failure and it's a one-off, Porsche has a 'two-off' engine failure and it's suddenly doom and gloom. One thing I'm fairly certain Porsche do is test thoroughly, when something arises that didn't occur during development they do something about it. Same thing happened to Ferrari with the early 458 fires, but that's OK because they're Italian.

Citytiger 28 March 2014

bomb wrote: Autocar's

bomb wrote:

Autocar's long-term car failure was on the F-Type V6 S they are running, so a Jaguar engine. It had a suspected head-gasket failure. The point I'm trying to make is that Jaguar has one engine failure and it's a one-off, Porsche has a 'two-off' engine failure and it's suddenly doom and gloom. One thing I'm fairly certain Porsche do is test thoroughly, when something arises that didn't occur during development they do something about it. Same thing happened to Ferrari with the early 458 fires, but that's OK because they're Italian.

Head gasket failure is a completely different kettle of fish to spontaneous combustion. I also suspect the Autocar longterm F-Type has been thoroughly abused for "testing" purposes..

27Canuck 18 March 2014

Build traceability

I wonder if the guy who builds these motors signs them like AMG?
That would be kind of embarrassing :-)
Hans!!!!
jer 18 March 2014

They dont do small problems

or is it small and big problems. Seems to be trashed engines. IT does put me off the idea of a Porsche out of warranty. Also shows how efficient mfer process is for it to be cheaper to exchange rather than rebuild.