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Two of a Kind

Your August 2026 “Shifting Gears” column (p. 24) poked me in the heart. The photo of your 996 Carrera C4S looks exactly like mine.

I had the lovely experience of ordering a car to my specifications. What I ordered looked just like your car, except with a 6-speed manual. The Arctic Silver paint was gorgeous, as you say, and really shows off the sexy shape.

Silly me, I decided not to get the Turbo because I did not want the added complexity (and potential turbo lag). I assumed the Turbo was just a turbocharged version of the same engine I was getting. Little did I know that the Mezger engine in the Turbo was entirely different than the M96 engine in the 4S.

I had the car serviced at Beverly Hills Porsche from new. After a while I began to hear about potential issues regarding the IMS bearing. When I would take the car in for regular service, I would ask and I was assured that I was taking perfect care of the car and that I should not worry.

Lo and behold, at a tick over 27,000 miles, while driving home from the Festival of Speed at Fontana, the pin came out of the grenade and my IMS bearing failed.

The dealership that had serviced the car from new offered to get me a replacement engine at a 10% discount, but with the same kind of IMS bearing.

I instead had the engine rebuilt by Porsche specialist Callas Rennsport in Torrance, to the tune of almost $35k. The displacement was increased to 3.8 liters and lots of good components added.

Flash forward to January 2025, and my car was destroyed as a result of the horrendous Pacific Palisades fire. So when I saw the picture in your article, it made me miss mine. As the song goes, you don’t know what you have ’til it’s gone.

Anyway, I hope you have better IMS luck than I did. If I had it to do over, I would have addressed the issue before it failed. — Mark Stankevich, via email

SCM Publisher Keith Martin responds: We both agree the C4S in Arctic Silver is breathtakingly beautiful. I had a 996 Turbo Tiptronic before my stroke and stupidly sold it, as it wasn’t a manual. Now, I would have it back in a second.

Part of me wishes I had been more patient and waited for a car that already had the IMS bearing addressed. But this one was just 180 miles from me. From the end of the auction to the car being in my driveway was 72 hours. Immediate gratification has its allure.

Thanks for your very thoughtful letter. Sorry to hear about your sad and expensive experience. Let’s hope nothing like that happens to you again.

Bearing Up

As a longtime Porsche owner and a current owner of a 2001 Boxster S Tiptronic, I read with interest Keith Martin’s balanced musings regarding his concerns around the IMS bearing in his 2005 911 C4S.

In the class-action lawsuit around the IMS bearing failures (Eisen vs. Porsche Cars North America), Porsche had to disclose data on bearing failures under warranty. For the most troublesome years, 2000–05, the failure rate was 8%–10%. There are no reliable data for IMS failures beyond the warranty period. The failure rates under warranty for other years in the 2000–08 period were 1%–2%.

Does the fact that an IMS bearing did not fail under warranty (four years of driving) mean the chances of failure are reduced as the car ages? No one seems to know. But I find it instructive that Porsche service people that I have talked to seem to suggest that I have no reason to be concerned about my Boxster at 55,000 miles. On the other hand, there is lots of hysteria on the internet about the IMS issue.

I have decided that it would be a waste of money to undertake an expensive repair on my 2001 Boxster S when the data suggest that odds seem to be at least 90% that such a repair is unneeded.

However, for those looking for some comfort on the IMS issue, I suggest sending an oil sample to Blackstone Laboratories, requesting a check for metal. This would seem to be much neater and more definitive than ripping open an oil filter. In examining the filter, the naked eye could miss the early stages of metal contamination. — Ed McKeever, North Venice, FL

Four-Seater Ferraris

I’m happy SCM is showing some love to the Ferrari 308 GT4 (July 2026, Italian Profile, p. 54) and Mondial (August 2026, “Affordable Classic,” p. 44). My parents had a 308 GT4 and I owned a Mondial 3.2 cabriolet. They were fantastic cars. But in California’s hot Central Valley, ineffective air conditioning made them impractical.

The sweet spot is the 3.2; Ferrari sold nearly 10,000 of these engines. The extra horsepower and parts availability are worth it. Skip ABS and the “T,” as they add unnecessary complexity. Unlike in a Porsche 996, in a Mondial, four adults with luggage can travel in relative comfort for an hour or two — and get excited stares from onlookers the whole time. — Michael Brown, Lathrop, CA