Car fluids are meant to circulate while you drive. If the car sits for a long time, some fluids can settle or lose their protective film. Driving helps keep things lubricated and helps prevent problems from long storage.
If a car sits too long, the tires can get a temporary flat spot where they touch the ground. When you drive again, you may feel a vibration. Moving the car periodically helps prevent it.
A battery maintainer is a device that keeps your car battery charged while the car is parked. The discussion here is that some batteries—especially older lead-acid types—may not be happy if they stay on the maintainer for too long without any real cycling. The battery can still need some normal charging and discharging behavior.
A lead-acid battery is the common type of car battery. In this episode, they say that if a lead-acid battery sits on a charger/maintainer for a long time, the battery fluid can evaporate. If the fluid level drops too far, the battery can start to fail.
A battery has internal metal plates that are supposed to be separated. If they touch (short), the battery can basically stop working and you’ll get a dead battery when you try to start.
Voltage drop means the battery voltage dips when you try to start the car. Newer cars are more sensitive to that dip, so they may throw warnings or not start even if the battery looks okay at rest.
The Chevrolet Volt is a car that can run on electricity, and it can also use a gas engine to help keep going when the battery runs low. The conversation about volts is about the car’s battery and electrical system readings. Those numbers can help show whether the battery system is behaving normally.
Amperage is how much “push” the battery can send to the starter. You can have a battery that reads okay on a volt meter, but still not have enough power to crank the engine.
Cold cranking amps are a battery’s starting power when it’s cold. That’s why testers focus on CCA—because the real question is whether the battery can crank the engine, not just what it reads on a volt meter.
A battery tender is a device that keeps a car battery charged while the car sits. It’s meant to prevent the battery from going flat during long storage.
Idling is when the engine is running but the car isn’t moving. The hosts are saying that letting it idle for a long time can be a bad idea, especially for battery recovery and lubrication.
The starter is what uses the battery to turn the engine over when you first start the car. Because it uses a lot of power, the battery may need time to recharge after.
Catalytic converters are parts in the exhaust that clean up the engine’s fumes. When the car is cold, they need to heat up quickly so they can start cleaning the exhaust effectively.
A cold start is the first engine start after the engine and exhaust system have been sitting and cooled down. Because the engine and emissions components are not at temperature yet, the car often uses richer fueling and different control strategies to stabilize combustion and heat the exhaust quickly.
They’re saying that during cold starts, the car may add extra fuel, and some of it can end up where it shouldn’t. That can strip away the protective oil layer inside the cylinder, making wear more likely.
RPMs tell you how fast the engine is spinning. Higher RPMs usually mean more stress, so the hosts are saying to keep it lower until the engine is warm.
This is about how far the engine’s valves open. The engine can switch to a “more aggressive” valve setting at higher RPMs, and they’re saying to wait until the oil is warm before you let it do that.
A dyno chart is the graph produced by a dynamometer test, showing how power/torque (and related outputs) change with engine speed. The host describes a shape on the chart—an arc, a flat spot, then the rest of the curve—used to explain why they’d avoid certain RPM ranges.
The oil temperature gauge tells you how hot the engine oil is. Cold oil doesn’t protect as well, so they’re saying to wait until it warms up before pushing the engine.
Lugging is when you’re trying to climb or accelerate while the engine is turning too slowly. Instead of downshifting, you press the gas and the engine has to work harder at low RPM.
Bore scoring means the inside of the engine cylinders gets scratched or worn. When it gets bad enough, the engine can start misfiring, and the fix can be expensive.
The Porsche 996 is a specific generation of the 911. Here it’s mentioned because people used to learn about certain engine problems on that generation.
Direct fuel injection means the engine sprays fuel straight into the combustion area. In this episode, it’s mentioned because people expected that change to prevent a specific kind of engine problem.
IMS is a part inside some Porsche engines. People talk about an “IMS issue” when that part’s bearing can fail, and this episode contrasts that with bore scoring.
The “fingernail test” is a practical diagnostic rule used here to judge cylinder-wall damage severity: if the speaker says Porsche’s rule is that you can catch your fingernail on the scoring lines, the damage is considered beyond acceptable limits. It’s a quick way to decide whether the engine needs full teardown and replacement.
The Porsche 356 is an older sports car made by Porsche. People talk about it because it’s from the early days of the company and is known for careful bodywork and construction. It’s often mentioned when discussing how cars were built back then.
The Porsche 911 Carrera S is a sportier version of the 911. The hosts use a 2007 example to show that even with regular tracking and preventative care, bore scoring can still show up and remain visible.
They’re using an Amsoil oil they call “550” as the starting oil for track days. The point is that it gets “thinner” after hard use, so it ends up closer to the viscosity they’re targeting.
Engine oil can get “thinner” after it’s stressed a lot, like during track driving. So the oil you start with can act more like a lighter oil later in the session.
Porsche’s “0W40” recommendation is the oil type they believe works best. In this story, they’re trying to make their track oil behavior line up with that target.
“Parts per million” is just a way to say how concentrated an additive is in the oil. Higher ppm here means more of the additive they’re trying to use.
Term
DT 40 driven motor oil
This is a specific engine oil they’re talking about, including its viscosity rating (the “40”). Viscosity affects how well the oil lubricates moving parts. The hosts are saying the oil choice lines up with good wear results.
Baselining means you set the car up so you know exactly what condition it’s in at the start. The host does this by replacing important fluids so the car starts “fresh.” Then you can track what happens later and tell whether problems are getting better or worse.
Blackstone Labs is a company that tests used engine oil to see what kind of wear is happening inside the engine. Here, they’re used as a reference point for how often a specific Porsche cylinder issue showed up in the past. It’s basically “oil test data” turned into an engine health story.
The Toyota Supra is a sports car from Toyota. It’s known for performance and for being a popular car to drive and film. In this conversation, it sounds like the focus is on how easy it is to get in and capture footage.
Ignition coils help create the electricity that makes the spark plugs fire. If you’re already removing spark plugs, it can be a good time to replace the coils too.
Term
driven oil
“Driven oil” means oil that’s already been used while the car was running. The point is that used oil can tell you more about what the engine has been doing.
LIVE
Welcome back, I'm Derek, this is 11 After 9 and I am once again joined by my good friend
Joe Finkel from FCP Euro and Joe is a master mechanic and he has been a portion mechanic
for decades and I have a whole bunch of questions, Joe, that I want to ask you and today's question
is one that I struggle with a lot because people come to me and they say, I love my
car and I don't want to use it up, I want to leave it in my garage and I only want to
take it out on Sundays and enjoy it and while that's fine and that's definitely one way
to own the car, especially older Porsches but even more current ones, sometimes if you
let them sit, you might have issues and so today's question is, are Porsches meant to
be driven hard and when you were a master mechanic at Porsche, did you see more issues
from cars that were babied and garage kept or cars that were kind of more daily driven,
you know, maybe three or four days a week where they saw constant road use?
I'm really curious about kind of your take on that from the ground.
Glad to be back. First of all, such a pleasure to be on. Yeah, I would say these cars will
sit to death, they want to be exercised. I was watching some of your previous videos
and you nailed it on the head, right? Like fluids need to be moving, that's how stuff
stays lubricated, that's how tires don't get flat spotted, right? And then a big one that
people don't actually think about too much is the vehicle battery. Your battery does
not like sitting. Even if it's on a battery maintainer, there's, you know, it wants to
actually see some sort of drain and some sort of recharge from the alternator.
Oh, really? I always thought that you put it on a maintainer and it was like putting
it in a stasis but you're saying it doesn't like to be at that level, it likes to be discharged
and recharged?
Yeah, it does. I've noticed with cars that sit on battery maintainers for a long period
of time, especially if it's a lead acid battery, you'll start to evaporate the fluid inside
of the battery. And then that level actually gets to a certain point where it's not good,
it's not good for the battery. And so you can have the, it's really just, it's the plates inside
the battery that don't like it. And that's where you could get a short, like plates can short out
to each other. And now you have a dead battery when you go to start the car.
It's amazing to me, Joe, like how sensitive more modern portions are to voltage drops.
Even I have a GMC truck and it was throwing all kinds of crazy codes, but it was still
showing like 11.8 volts on a 12 volt battery. But you would have thought that I had put in an
eight volt battery into it. And so maybe to your point, right? They're designed to run at a certain
level. Yeah. And also checking the fluid level, right? You can add distilled water,
you can pull the caps off, and there's little levels in there where you could see the water
needs to be up to, and you can add distilled water to your battery to keep it healthy at a
healthy fluid level. That way it's not, you know, running on empty, no fluid. Another common misconception
I see with batteries now that you mentioned is a lot of people will put a volt meter on the battery
and go, Oh yeah, I've got 12 and a half volts. Like why isn't this thing cranking over? Well,
you need amperage. Amperage is what gets the voltage to the starter. So it's almost like having
a water tower full of water, but nothing's actually moving that water to the faucet in your house.
So you need that amperage to push the energy out to the actual starter. And so that's why you see
actual testers, they'll look for cold cranking amps to test the battery versus voltage because
the amps are where it's at. All right, so let me ask you this, because when I think about batteries
on battery tenders, I think about cars sitting, I think about New England, and I think about the
northern states, and I think about the colder climates around the world, where we put our cars
under a blanket for between three and six months, lately in New Hampshire, it's more like feels like
12 months. So my cars went away, but you know, the common thing was, well, you know, every month
I back it out and I run it for 10 or 15 minutes in my driveway and warm it up and get the fluids
going and then I pull it back in. Whereas other people are like, Nope, when it's away, it's away,
leave it away, keep it on a tender. What do you think as a mechanic? If I was going to take
one over the other, Porsche actually has some information on storing a car. And then we have
the things that we've, you know, kind of figured out over time for ourselves, what's good practices
and what's not. So your first one, taking the car out, letting it idle, you will also idle that car
to death. What does that mean? Well, so we'll stay on the battery topic, right? And if you
start your car, it actually takes 20 minutes of driving for the battery to recover from you
starting the car. So really? So yeah, so the person who starts their car up and lets it idle in
their garage for 10 minutes or whatever, it's actually not charging that battery. It's still
recovering from when you turn the key and started the car. There's a lot of draw from the starter
when you start your car for the first time. So yeah, 20 minutes of driving to get that battery
back to a healthy state. And then we'll talk about the idling part, letting your car sit there and
warm up idling is probably the worst. Obviously, you know, there's that nasty B word that's floating
around the forums, you know, bore scoring for those of you who are new, that is definitely one way to
increase your chances of bore scoring. Porsche's design model for getting the catalytic converters
up to 10 quickly is to actually dump a little bit of extra fuel in on cold start. And that unburnt
fuel makes it down into the cats, where it then blows up and gets your cats up to 10 super quick.
Now, stop it, you bomb your cats to warm them up. Do you really? Yeah. And so with that, it sort of
causes cylinder, what am I thinking? Wash out. Yeah, you have gas like running down the sides of your
cylinder washing off that oil protective layer. And I would imagine that leads to the bore scoring.
Yeah. And if you have had your car stored for six months, and the first thing that you do is fire
it up and let it idle. I mean, oil doesn't stay attached to everything forever, right? If it sits
long enough, it'll drain down into the oil pan. So now you have, let's say a completely dry cylinder
with no, you know, no protection layer, because it's all in the pan, and then you fire it up,
and you've got extra fuel dumping in the cylinders, there's nothing. You've basically
have a dry cylinder. So let's go back to it then. So in the winter, you don't want to start up your
car and let it idle, and then put it back away, because you're going to cause that damage over
and over again over the course of the winter. But in also, it probably leads to the advice I hear
quite often is like, let it idle for 30 seconds, and then literally get on the road and put a load
on it. But keep it under, what would you say, for RPMs? 3,500 RPMs is where the engine goes from
low lift to high lift. That's, you know, if you could see it on a dyno chart, if you ever see a
dyno chart, you see a nice arc, and then it kind of flat spots, and then you see the rest of the arc
kind of take over. I would stay under that. I would say 3 grand is probably good. I wouldn't
really go into high lift until the oil temp gauge is at dead center. And if you're someone who's
monitors engine oil by temperature, it's going to be 90C or 194 degrees Fahrenheit.
Is the mash to throttle, you know, have fun temperature? 194. Okay. All right. So if I'm
looking at 200 on my gauge, then I know I'm safe to drive. Yeah, you're super safe. All right.
Yeah, it's funny on these cold mornings, I actually dropped my son off this morning to school in my
997 and limped it along at 2500 RPM waiting for that oil gauge, which in 28 degrees did not want
to get off the bottom until I literally dropped him off and then I was almost back home. So
and then it was like ready to go. I'm like, yeah, but that's great advice. So, so really it's,
I always wondered about that when it came to what causes the washout on the cylinder walls.
Yeah, that's, I think it's a culmination of things. Another one that I heard of, which I believe is
also true is lugging your engine. So lugging your engine is going to be, you're going up a slight
hill and maybe you're in sixth gear and instead of downshifting to get up the hill, you just kind
of give it more throttle, right? Yeah. And what the engine is going to do is it's going to go,
okay, I'll give you more throttle and it's going to dump more gas in so it can make a bigger explosion
so that you can accelerate and make it up this hill. Same principle, right? It's dumping more
fuel in to do what it needs to do so that the engine RPM stop going down, they start going back
up and you pick up speed. So lugging your engine. So if I had to assign like an RPM, I'd say like,
if you're a 2,500, 3,000 RPM up a slight hill and you've watched and you start seeing those
RPMs creep down because the hill's a little steeper instead of, you know, madding it and trying to
push past it to drive through, downshift, go in the fifth, fourth, get the revs up,
you know, 3,500, 4,000 RPM, get the revs up, get up the hill, get yourself out of that fuel
injection strategy where it's going to dump more gas in. All right. Well, then I'm going to go ahead
and ask a question that probably will open up a can of worms here, but I would love to know,
we're talking about bore score and we're taught in, you know, 996, 997, when Porsche went to 997.2
and they changed the engine architecture to direct fuel injection, DFI, the, everyone thought you
were safe because you didn't have the IMS issue anymore and the bore scoring, they thought that
that wasn't an issue in your world. Did you see 997.2s with this issue? And bonus question,
did you see 991s, the following generation with any kind of issues with bore scoring?
Yes and yes. Unfortunately, I want to, you know, I want to say no, but yes, I have scoped 997.2s,
so that's going to put you at the MA01 engine. Yeah, definitely saw it, definitely replaced
engine at the dealership for it, which was not something I anticipated at all, right? You think,
okay, bore scoring happens well down the road, 80, 90,000 miles when it starts to actually become a
problem where you'll see a misfire, but I think this car had maybe 40,000 miles on it. It was
still under a new vehicle warranty and had a had a hard misfire, put a bore scope down the cylinder
and it looked as worse as you can imagine where, you know, you can, you can see all the lines,
you can see where material was removed. And Porsche had us go the extra step where we pull
the engine, fully disassemble, and their rule is if you can catch your fingernail on one of those
lines, it's definitely toast, right? That was their rule. So I guess that's, that's so German
and so un-German. I'm thinking like back in the 356 one, like when they're like making panels
with like wooden hammers and making, making sure like, so it's like, yeah, use your fingernail
and if it gets caught, then it's a bad engine. But then again, with, with modern Porsche,
you think that they have some kind of crazy laser tool that like scans the cylinder walls
and it knows to the micron, like how deep those things are, but not so much. No, not with that
one. It was, uh, uh, yeah, it was the fingernail was the, was the test there. Oh my God, that's
awesome. Did now, was there any special rules in the, in the handbook that you can have cut your
fingernail for two weeks to make sure it's of a certain length? No, I'm just kidding. No, no, no,
but you did have to have a video and it was actually easier to do a video with a guitar pick.
Guitar pick stuck a little bit better than, than the fingernail. And, you know, some people, if you're
one of those people who don't like fingernails on a chalkboard, it could kind of feel like that.
And I could see, you know, some people. Yeah, no squeamish Porsche mechanics. Yeah, exactly.
That's, that's awesome. So, all right, so that's an obvious and extreme case, but in your, in your
general, um, world knowledge and you talking with fellow Porsche techs and, you know, I assume that
you guys have big, big Porsche mechanic retreats where you guys go to Germany and hang out in the
hills and drink beer together. Do you, I mean, was this a topic of conversation amongst of you
guys like, Oh my God, these 997.2s, these 991.1s, they haven't escaped the bore scoring issue.
No, as crazy as that sounds. Do I feel bore scoring's overhyped a little bit? You know,
I think it's something to be aware of. I think, uh, you know, educate yourself a little bit,
be knowledgeable, know what it looks like, know what to look for, but don't let it deter you from
buying a 997 or a 996 or a 991. Just know the signs, know how to look for it.
And know that things can be prevented. There's preventative techniques where it may not be a
thing. You know, you just picked up a 102,000 mile 997 and I saw your pictures of the bore scope
and I was like, that's, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
You know just the things to say, Joe. Thank you.
But at the same time, I have a buddy who has a 07 Carrera S and he tracks that car twice a year.
So it gets flogged properly and he has one line down the center of cylinder five. I think it is.
He bought this car three years ago, I think, and we bore scoped it recently, still the single line,
Yeah. And again, taking preventative steps. So, you know, everyone's got their own,
I don't know, magic formula, secret formula, whatever you want to call it.
And ours just happens to be Amsoil 550 with a can and a half of Lickl Mali MOS2.
And that's what you landed on. So your, your cure, and I'm going to say cure,
your, your way to hold bore scoring at bay is a 550 weight.
Yeah. And the 550 for us was because at the track, oil will actually shear down. So,
what does that mean? So you'll start the weekend at a 5W50, but as the oil starts to break down
from high, higher temperatures, we'll say. Yeah. You know, higher demand,
higher temperatures on that oil at track, you know, track usage, track temperatures.
It'll actually go from a 550 and it'll become a 540 by the end of the weekend.
Okay. And, and so it's kind of starting out aiming high. So that way,
when it, it shears down, it's what the manufacturer is looking for a recommend,
Porsche recommends 0W40. That's where it's happiest. And that's just one of the things
that we learned. And so we kind of prepare for that oil to actually shear down to a 5W40.
And then the MLS2 gets your molybdenum, which is the core ingredient in the MLS2.
Okay. It gets those values up higher. Normal off the shelf motor oils will have like
80 parts per million. And we are looking for somewhere around three to 400 parts per million.
And so it just turns out that a can and a half of MLS2 puts us right at that
300, 400 parts per million. So if you have someone that might be a little bit more,
I'm going to use the word mundane or I'm going to say the word pedestrian like myself,
who might not be quite the mad scientist of being able to mix the correct parts per million of
additive to oil. Is there, is there anything out there that you would be like, no,
that's a smoking gun. Like you should definitely use that in your car to try to get the same result.
Yeah. So two things, right? They go hand in hand driven has already figured it out. They offer a 540.
Believe it's DT 540 is what they offer. I've also, I also have a buddy who uses that in his track
car. Same thing tracks twice a year. He sends, well, we joke with him, he actually changes his oil
every time it gets up to temperature. He changes his oil before and after the track and he sends
out samples and we've Bore Scope those cylinders and same thing. It doesn't move. The parts per
million are perfect, right? Where they need to be the test results come back beautiful. So DT
40 driven motor oil, they've definitely, they figured it out. You don't have to be a mad scientist.
And the good thing for you is that we offer an SCP Euro so you can use it, send it back, and then
it's got that lifetime guarantee. You're speaking my language, man. That's great. I didn't know you
could get it through you because I do, I'm a firm believer of baselining my cars. And by that,
I mean if I get a car and I don't quite know the history of its service, in my mind, I think an
old airplane mechanic taught me this. You want to start from ground zero where you know from a
baseline where everything is in your car. And so he was always a big proponent of transmission
fluid, engine oil, all of the things that you can do, brake fluid, coolant, change everything out.
You know what's fresh? You start from ground zero and then that way you can monitor time and or
distance and miles. And then so a long story short is while I was told that my 997 that I got
had just been serviced, you can't believe it. And so I will be ordering that from you guys.
So thanks for that. I'll definitely do that. Yep. Absolutely. To wrap up, this is why I love these
discussions. This went from, you know, do you put your car up for the winter to battery maintenance,
to bore scoring, to how to prevent bore scoring. This is great. Ultimately, what I'm getting from
you is bore scoring happens. It doesn't happen as much as people think. It does happen to 997.2s
and it does happen to 991s. And speaking with another Joe from Blackstone Labs, you know, he
talked about how the bore scoring events in the early 997 motors were under 4%. I think it was
like 2.8 or 3.8%. I could believe that. Yeah. Yeah. And so while it does happen, it doesn't
happen a lot or as much as people think. And to your point, Joe, there's a way to check for that.
And so you can take the car to the doctor before you own the patient and figure that out. I will
ask you one more question. And this is super geeky, but this again, that's what this is about.
There's two ways to check for bore scoring in a motor. You can check from the top by going in
through the spark plug holes and you use your camera and take a look at the cylinder walls.
Unfortunately, the piston sits at the bottom of the cylinder in that respect and so therefore is
hiding the bottom part of the cylinder. And so the other way to go is through the bottom of the
motor and you go in through the sump and you check the cylinder from the bottom where I understand
and I might be wrong that bore scoring starts at the bottom first and at least the earlier motors.
Would you have one way that you like more than another? Tops the easiest, right? That's an easy,
you know, get in there with a camera. Hopefully that camera has like a 90 degree function so that
you can get a good straight on view to it. It's something that you can also pair with replacing
your spark plugs, ignition coils while you're in there. So you can kind of like incorporate a
bunch of things. But yeah, I would say for true peace of mind, going through the bottom is going
to be the ultimate, hey, I know this thing top to bottom every cylinder is good because you do get
a different wear pattern at the base of the cylinder than you do towards the top. Okay, got it,
got it. And you've just bought yourself or you've bought the current owner of free oil change at
that point? Yeah, yeah, exactly. More or less with driven oil, hopefully. With driven oil.
Awesome, Joe, thank you. This very quick topic turned into its own podcast and which is super
awesome. Thanks as always for being my guest. I appreciate you and I appreciate the audience out
there at 11 after nine. You guys are fantastic. And I appreciate you following along as geeky as
we get. I definitely, my whole thing with this YouTube channel and with the podcast and with
everything I try to do is I just want to make great evergreen content that people can refer to
if they're in situations where this information can be beneficial. And so thank you for being part
of that, Joe, as always. And I'm excited to see you on the next one. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
About this episode
Porsches don’t do well left to “sit to death”—the hosts connect garage storage to battery and tire problems, and explain why a maintainer isn’t always enough. They also dig into battery testing, stressing that “amperage”/cold-cranking-amps matter more than voltage. Short starts in winter can leave the battery undercharged and add wear risk via cold-start fueling that washes oil off cylinder walls. The conversation then pivots to bore scoring: learn the signs, use a bore scope, and even pair inspections with oil strategy and ignition service.
We think we’re protecting our Porsches by keeping them tucked away, but we might actually be accelerating their demise. In this episode of ElevenAfterNine, I’m joined by Porsche Master Mechanic Joe Finkel from FCP Euro to debunk the myths of "garage queen" ownership.
From the "stasis" trap of battery maintainers to the hidden dangers of winter idling, we break down exactly why these cars need to be exercised—and how to do it without causing catastrophic engine damage.
In this episode, we cover:
The Battery Myth: Why "floating" your battery might be killing the plates.
The "B-Word": Does Bore Scoring actually affect the 997.2 and 991 generations?
Cold Start Danger: Why idling in your driveway is the worst thing you can do for your cylinder walls.
The 194° Rule: The specific temperature you MUST see before driving hard.
The "Secret Sauce": Joe’s specific oil and additive cocktail to keep bore scoring at bay.
