What the failure mode is, what Porsche already did about it on the GT3, why the RS and R were excluded, what we are actually asking for, and exactly what this group does with what you send — on both the roll and the registry.
The 9A1-family flat-six in these cars uses a finger follower valvetrain: the camshaft acts on a small pivoting lever, and that lever opens the valve. The contact face of the follower carries a hard, low-friction coating. It is a design chosen for high engine speeds, and in normal service it lasts.
The failure pattern owners and independent shops have described runs in a consistent order. The coating on the follower breaks down and spalls. Debris and the now-exposed surface begin wearing the cam lobe. Valve lift falls off, which shows up first as a misfire high in the rev range, a rough top end, and check-engine codes. If it goes far enough, the follower can fail outright and drop a valve into the cylinder, at which point the engine is finished.
A misfire or rough running above roughly 7,000 rpm is the symptom worth taking seriously and worth inspecting early. Catching it at the wear stage rather than the dropped-valve stage is the difference between a repair and a new engine.
On the 991.1 GT3 the cause was attributed to material problems in the followers themselves. That is the point on which Porsche drew the line between the GT3 and the RS and R — see section 03.
991.1 GT3 owners hitting this failure organized as the Concerned Owners Group. They did not start with lawyers or with press. They collected documented cases, wrote a formal letter to Porsche, and asked for a meeting.
Porsche took the meeting. On August 3, 2017, the group met Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser at Porsche Cars North America headquarters in Atlanta. The result:
That is a good outcome, and it happened because the approach was credible. This registry is a deliberate copy of that method.
Porsche's stated position at the time was that the GT3 RS and 911 R were not affected: those cars used different finger followers, and the material inclusions blamed for the GT3 failures were not present in them.
On the information available in 2017, that was a reasonable line to draw. It is also a factual claim about hardware, and factual claims can be checked against parts that have since come out of engines.
Two cars do not establish a pattern, and this registry does not claim one. Two cars establish that the question is open and worth answering with data — which is precisely what the GT3 owners had to do in 2016 and 2017 before anyone listened.
A registry that collects only failures is not evidence — it is selection bias, and Porsche's engineers will identify it as such within a minute of seeing it. Inspected cars with no abnormal wear are recorded as control data, and they are what make the failure cases mean something.
Deliberately not a demand for a specific remedy:
The 2017 group did not ask for a 10-year / 120,000-mile warranty. They asked for clarity and a meeting, and Porsche authored the remedy itself — presented it on one slide, and got to announce it as a Porsche decision rather than a concession. Naming a remedy up front converts an open question into a specific proposal that can be specifically declined, and hands the decision to whoever owns the warranty budget instead of to engineering.
So the GT3 precedent appears here as evidence of how Porsche handles these things, not as a bill being presented. If the evidence holds, the precedent they already set is the easiest thing for them to land on.
These are firm, because the entire approach depends on them:
Join the roll regardless — it is a short form on the front page, and it does not require anything to be wrong with your car. Submit to the registry as well only if you have a confirmed failure, documented wear, a replaced engine, or a clean inspection on record. Most owners will only ever do the first, and that is exactly as intended.
No. Nothing is filed, nothing is pending, and this group is not a legal action or a precursor to one. It is a collaborative, evidence-first effort modeled on exactly what worked for the GT3 owners in 2017 — no attorneys, no press, no deadlines. That approach is the reason it worked, and it is the approach here.
It is used for two things: verifying that a submission is a real car, and making sure the same car is never counted twice. VINs are never published and never appear in the anonymized summaries posted back to the forum. Your VIN is only presented to Porsche if you check the box that says it may be.
The registry organizers. Submissions are not publicly readable, and the form can only write to the registry — it cannot read anything back out. What gets shared beyond the organizers is governed entirely by the three consent checkboxes you set, which are independent of one another.
Yes, and it is genuinely one of the more valuable things you can submit. Control data is what separates a credible registry from a complaint list. Knowing how many inspected cars show nothing — and at what mileage and what track usage — is as important to the argument as the failures are.
On goodwill: no. Keep pursuing your case with your dealer regardless — the registry is not a substitute for it, and individual cases and this effort run in parallel. If anything, a documented pattern helps the argument a dealer is making on your behalf.
On resale: your car's identity is not published. Aggregate summaries are counts, engine codes and mileage ranges — nothing that identifies a specific car. The broader point is that this failure mode is already discussed publicly at length; what is missing is not awareness, it is organized data.
It is a letter — commonly E, F or G on these engines — that forms part of the engine number and indicates the build variant. Your dealer can read it, and most independent Porsche specialists will pull it during a PPI or a service visit. If you do not know it, leave the field blank and submit anyway; it is useful but not required.
A borescope inspection of the cam lobes and follower faces is the usual first step and does not require pulling the engine. Both Porsche Centers and experienced independent specialists can do it. If you have a choice, having findings documented by a Porsche Center is worth more to both your own goodwill case and to this registry, because it is documentation Porsche produced itself.
Yes to both. Former owners of affected cars hold real evidence, particularly if the car was inspected or the engine was replaced while you had it. The 2017 GT3 warranty extension applied worldwide, so non-US cars are relevant to the ask even though PCNA is the point of contact for this group.
A small core group forms and agrees on one clean ask, then sends a formal letter to PCNA and the GT model line requesting a meeting — the same sequence the 991.1 GT3 owners followed, and they went from founding thread to a global warranty extension in 96 days. Members are kept informed as it progresses, and aggregate results are posted back to the forum along the way.
No. There is no fee, no fund, and nothing is being solicited. This is owners organizing information about their own cars.
The fastest thing you can do is join the roll — the form on the front page takes about thirty seconds and asks only for your name, email, where you are, and which car you own. If you would rather use email, send the same details to 991rscog@gmail.com and we will add you by hand.
Beyond that, the effort needs a small core group, built to a role spec rather than a headcount. Specifically:
Say so in the notes field when you submit, or email the address above.