Rms/ ims seal 996

[jahead]

Hi y'all , had my car 4 years and had a leaking seal for 4 years , engine is smooth never overheated just a small stain on garage floor , told its 1500 squid to fix but not sure if it's gonna make any difference , will it do damage if I leave it , honestly runs perfectly now , there are stories of repeat fixes on here , appreciate your feedback cheers

[mollytherocker]

RMS is a non issue and wont cause problems unless it is truly pissing oil.

IMS is something else. Why do you believe it needs replacing?

MTR

[jahead]

sorry its the rms seal , inclined to agree as its not any better or worse over all that time , car works fine , just wanted to know if it could be doing damage ,

[mollytherocker]

jahead said:

sorry its the rms seal , inclined to agree as its not any better or worse over all that time , car works fine , just wanted to know if it could be doing damage ,

No damage at all, as long as your oil level is correct.

MTR

[jahead]

thanks , you seem to know your onions ,

[mollytherocker]

jahead said:

thanks , you seem to know your onions ,

Well, I may have had a couple of Whiskys, so a second opinion would be wise! Anyone?

MTR

[David911RSR]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Agreed and 1,500 sounds very high. Most change the RMS seal whilst renewing the clutch. I believe the total cost should be in the region of 600-800 quid.

[systech]

I agree with the above BUT you don't know whether the casue of the oil leak is the RMS or the IMS until you've actually removed the flywheel. Mostly it's the RMS which I agree you can leave untl you renew the clutch but if it's the IMS bearing this could be an early sign of a failing IMS bearing which could lead to catastrophic engine failure.

[D900SP]

The upper seal is for the crankshaft or RMS, the lower is the intermediate shaft bearing housing or IMS.

No real connection between them.

[Johnfrancis]

If its been the same for 4 years it's the RMS, if it was the intermediate shaft bearing, it would have failed by now.I wouldn't rush to get it done, the replacement will probably fail as well.

[jahead]

Thanks guys so wait for clutch to go then is the cocensus , so what's the life expectancy on that then , mines done 20,000 miles btw its aturbo

[davek_964]

jahead said:

...btw its aturbo

That's a fairly significant addition. The turbo engine is totally different from the n/a 996s - and they don't usually suffer with RMS / IMS problems.

That's not to say they can't leak from RMS - but are you sure that is where yours is leaking from, or did you just assume it was because of the known 996 RMS issue?

[David911RSR]

Both the Turbo and GT3 engines do suffer from leaking RMS.

[davek_964]

David911RSR said:

Both the Turbo and GT3 engines do suffer from leaking RMS.

I accept they "can" - but it's not the same issue as the N/A engines, and I've never heard it mentioned as a known / common problem for them?

[Magic919]

RMS is a common enough failure on 996 GT3 from what I've read on here. 997.1 GT3 seems particularly prone.

[D900SP]

GT3 has completely different design of seal and importantly, the breather system.
Lack of use is one of the reasons for GT3 RMS leak.