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Many of us here enjoy the sincere pleasure of piloting an automobile. But very few love driving their personal vehicle quite the same way that Tom Thalmann loves driving his Porsche 911 Turbo. Since new, he’s put more than 676,000 miles (1,087,916 km) on it between daily driving it and tracking it over the years.
Porsche on its own is generally known for better reliability than some of its main rivals. The 911 is perhaps the flagship of that reliable reputation as it’s often cited as one of the least likely to leave a person stranded. The 996 911 Turbo wasn’t one of the cars that contributed to that standard though.
There are countless stories of owners of these cars with failing IMS bearings that ultimately destroy the engine. For Thalmann, those reports seem to be overblown as his engine has only ever come out of the car once in its long life, and even then it was for a preventative maintenance procedure more than anything.
Read: Watch This Slantnose 996 Porsche 911 Finally Come To Life
- Update as of 11/21/2022: 676,854 miles
- Update as of 11/21/2021: 659,701 miles
- Update as of 11/21/2020: 645,340 miles
When it came out he was originally intending to fix some oil leaks. As the mechanics took the engine apart they found that it was still in excellent shape. Despite that, they went to the trouble of overhauling a number of components. Thalmann’s friend, Eric Kaul, broke down the pseudo-rebuild.
“They removed the engine at 383,000 to fix minor oil leaks and replace turbos, decided to break it down to look at internals, there were maybe two bearings with very light shadowing, rest if the engine was flawless, it was not what we expected to find but were glad when we did! These engines are well built and well engineered. Every valve was mic’d and met factory spec in every dimension, couldn’t believe it,” he said.
That’s a stunning result after years of daily driving such a high-performance machine. In case that wasn’t impressive enough, he does that driving in the far Northeast where the weather isn’t well-known for being kind to sports cars. Thalmann also tracks the car regularly and has no plans of getting rid of it. Let it never be said that you can’t daily drive your heroes.
