My weekend of hell.

[Rainman]

Hi Folks,

Just thought I'd share this with you .....

Got my GTO-3 it's 6000 mile service on Tuesday, cost me 500 odd quid - four hours labour at 75pph, oil, filters, plugs, bang on the VAT and bobs your mothers brother.

I'd planned to go surfing down in Newquay over the bank holiday weekend and I'd managed to blag getting all my gear down there in my mates van. I left Watford at about 6:00am to miss the bank holiday madness. Just getting off the M4 to join the M5 at Bristol and I noticed that 5th gear had developed a horrible rattle. The traffic came to a standstill and so I had to select 1st. I noticed that there was no problem (no noise) with 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th gear, so I decided to limp along in 4th to the next service station.

I got within a few hundred yards of the next exit and BANG - all hell broke loose, the car was juddering, there was an almighty racket and it sounded like the the gearbox was being dragged along the road. I couldn't believe it.

I've yet to hear from anyone regarding an ETA to fix it. I'll keep you all informed.

Phil

[Rainman]

Roadrunner said: It's just infuriating that we don't do anything properly in the uk. I don't care how much of a bargain it *might* appear on first glance, it should be thoroughly engineered. It seems the germans are the only ones to bother with this detail anymore. Hopefully they'll sort it out.

As far as I'm concerned, sometimes shit happens. You can't judge someone when it does, but you CAN judge them by how they deal with it.

I've just got off the phone with Bob Sharp at Noble, he informs me that they've had one other gearbox problem and they put that down to a manufacturing problem. Keep in mind, Noble don't make the drive-train.

Apparently, HR Owen will be whipping the gearbox out tomorrow so we should know something a little more conclusive by tomorrow afternoon. Bob also informs me that a new gearbox is no problem and they can get it shipped out pretty quickly.

As a side note, HR Owen didn't have any courtesy cars available and so the sevice manager (Brian McKenna) has loaned me his own Jeep Gran Cherokee. So at least I'm mobile. I'd like to see a Porsche dealer do something like that - from what I understand the "Porsche Support" experience is pretty scandalous.

As far as Porsche is concerned this is not a marque that I would ever consider for even half a second, buggered gearbox or otherwise. I've been in and driven many (including a GT3) and it is so obvious that we're not comparing like for like. You take your german engineering and, quite frankly, you can push it!

Phil

[Rainman]

domster said:

Interesting points. I would say that you have to pick your comparisons carefully.

If I was getting a Noble to do what a Noble does best, I would also test a Porsche 993RS back to back with it.

The whole point of this thread was to give some constructive feedback to existing and future M12 owners. Thanks for hijacking it (along with Roadrunner) with more Porsche v Noble diatribe, because this record is getting a little stuck.

Phil