Bad news when picking car up from service today
Discussion
'Ah yes Mr. Loonycat, take a seat.'
'Sure' I said thinking here was a chance to stare at the lovely receptionist at West London a little while longer while paying for my £360 oil change.
'I'm afraid Mr. Loonycat we've discovered oil seeping from your rear main seal. Do you have a warranty?'
(Small pause here while Loony is speechless. Rage, disbelief and spontaneous drooling all take place).
'I thought the RMS issue was fixed on the late model 996s'?
' Errr no Mr. Loonycat but we have a new tool from Porsche head office to help fix it'
And bonus points here for yet another example of the word 'tool' and 'Porsche head office' being used successfully in a sentence
Fortunately Loony has himself one of them Porsche UK warranties so wont be paying a penny to fix this but it is yet another 996 with an RMS issue. This is the last of the C4S 996s from 2004 and has had a very easy life so proof it can happen to anyone. The the car needs to go back for 2 days to be fixed which means some more logistical inconvenience but hopefully nothing more than that. If ever you were considering owning one of these without a warranty here's another example of why this is a bad idea.
'Sure' I said thinking here was a chance to stare at the lovely receptionist at West London a little while longer while paying for my £360 oil change.
'I'm afraid Mr. Loonycat we've discovered oil seeping from your rear main seal. Do you have a warranty?'
(Small pause here while Loony is speechless. Rage, disbelief and spontaneous drooling all take place). 'I thought the RMS issue was fixed on the late model 996s'?
' Errr no Mr. Loonycat but we have a new tool from Porsche head office to help fix it'
And bonus points here for yet another example of the word 'tool' and 'Porsche head office' being used successfully in a sentence
Fortunately Loony has himself one of them Porsche UK warranties so wont be paying a penny to fix this but it is yet another 996 with an RMS issue. This is the last of the C4S 996s from 2004 and has had a very easy life so proof it can happen to anyone. The the car needs to go back for 2 days to be fixed which means some more logistical inconvenience but hopefully nothing more than that. If ever you were considering owning one of these without a warranty here's another example of why this is a bad idea.
Nice earner for the garage. Couple of quid for a seal and a shitload of labour all paid by warranty.
Wonder if the techs are on a bonus? When I was working for a Ford dealer the techs where changing RMS's on anything that had a smidge of a leak. You'd get 8hrs for a Mondeo but you can do it in 4 easy. 2 of them per day and your earning 16hrs a day. Thats 800 quid a week if you're on a tenner an hour..
Wonder if the techs are on a bonus? When I was working for a Ford dealer the techs where changing RMS's on anything that had a smidge of a leak. You'd get 8hrs for a Mondeo but you can do it in 4 easy. 2 of them per day and your earning 16hrs a day. Thats 800 quid a week if you're on a tenner an hour..
DucatiGary said:
I think he means a service, which at OPC is basically an oil change
o and a stamp in your book
Correct. £120 of that was Mobil 1 oil!
I've no doubt that the techs will do an RMS at the first sniff of oil around the seal - it is a proven fault with the cars and Porsche will pay out the warranty every time. Take that issue out of it and I wonder by what percentage would an OPC's annual service revenue reduce by?
BTW - is it just me or do most of the punters in an OPC showroom look like complete to*sers? The showroom seemed full of early 30 something geezers pouncing around and preening to make sure everyone could see they were about to buy a Porsche. I expect I looked the same when buying mine (but clearly more handsome...) but good grief people, get a grip. 911mot said:
Nice earner for the garage. Couple of quid for a seal and a shitload of labour all paid by warranty.
Wonder if the techs are on a bonus? When I was working for a Ford dealer the techs where changing RMS's on anything that had a smidge of a leak. You'd get 8hrs for a Mondeo but you can do it in 4 easy. 2 of them per day and your earning 16hrs a day. Thats 800 quid a week if you're on a tenner an hour..
Wonder if the techs are on a bonus? When I was working for a Ford dealer the techs where changing RMS's on anything that had a smidge of a leak. You'd get 8hrs for a Mondeo but you can do it in 4 easy. 2 of them per day and your earning 16hrs a day. Thats 800 quid a week if you're on a tenner an hour..
I knew that Porker labour rates were expensive - but I can't believe that Ford's rates are 'a tenner an hour'...!
francisb said:
is there an option just to slam your cock in the door a few times ? someone remind me never to buy a porsche with a waranty!
Oh lighten up folks. It needs one service a year and otherwise I pay for fuel, tyres and insurance only. I ran a Honda Civic 15 years ago that was more expensive to service.
If you look at it as an oil change then yes it is expensive. It you look at it as an OPC stamp in the book to protect your resale as much as possible and knowing you'll get a decent job done (usually) with genuine parts and some come back if things go wrong (again, usually) then personally I wouldn't blink at £360.
Depends how much these things matter to you. Personally I've got better things to worry about!
Well to be honest this smells rotten to me - Porsche engineers aren't muppets, unless all the decent ones have been forced out by management. Porsche have had 8 years to sort out the issues surrounding the crank tolerances. If a couple of revisions of the seal and the fitting tool still result in recent cars getting out-of-true RMS leaks... then there is something the bean counters are saying 'don't fix'.
Will someone with more direct experience of how major automotive manufacturers work disabuse me of this notion? Common sense (and experience of bright engineers) suggests that the way to solve the water-cooled crank nonsense permanently would be known by Porsche *very* early on. They sold enough of the bloody things compared with the 993s to have plenty of case studies.
All I can imagine is that accountants are having the final say - the pursuit of profit over the pursuit of excellence. Bit duff all ways round IMO.
I'd love to see the detailed accounts of the warranty division as well - it could be that Porsche make more money on warranties than on sales
which would also explain it...
many apologies, shatcrutting awful day at work, bad mood and mr angry so excuse the conspiracy theories...
Will someone with more direct experience of how major automotive manufacturers work disabuse me of this notion? Common sense (and experience of bright engineers) suggests that the way to solve the water-cooled crank nonsense permanently would be known by Porsche *very* early on. They sold enough of the bloody things compared with the 993s to have plenty of case studies.
All I can imagine is that accountants are having the final say - the pursuit of profit over the pursuit of excellence. Bit duff all ways round IMO.
I'd love to see the detailed accounts of the warranty division as well - it could be that Porsche make more money on warranties than on sales
which would also explain it... many apologies, shatcrutting awful day at work, bad mood and mr angry so excuse the conspiracy theories...
cyberface said:
Well to be honest this smells rotten to me - Porsche engineers aren't muppets, unless all the decent ones have been forced out by management. Porsche have had 8 years to sort out the issues surrounding the crank tolerances. If a couple of revisions of the seal and the fitting tool still result in recent cars getting out-of-true RMS leaks... then there is something the bean counters are saying 'don't fix'.
Will someone with more direct experience of how major automotive manufacturers work disabuse me of this notion? Common sense (and experience of bright engineers) suggests that the way to solve the water-cooled crank nonsense permanently would be known by Porsche *very* early on. They sold enough of the bloody things compared with the 993s to have plenty of case studies.
All I can imagine is that accountants are having the final say - the pursuit of profit over the pursuit of excellence. Bit duff all ways round IMO.
I'd love to see the detailed accounts of the warranty division as well - it could be that Porsche make more money on warranties than on sales which would also explain it...
many apologies, shatcrutting awful day at work, bad mood and mr angry so excuse the conspiracy theories...
Will someone with more direct experience of how major automotive manufacturers work disabuse me of this notion? Common sense (and experience of bright engineers) suggests that the way to solve the water-cooled crank nonsense permanently would be known by Porsche *very* early on. They sold enough of the bloody things compared with the 993s to have plenty of case studies.
All I can imagine is that accountants are having the final say - the pursuit of profit over the pursuit of excellence. Bit duff all ways round IMO.
I'd love to see the detailed accounts of the warranty division as well - it could be that Porsche make more money on warranties than on sales
which would also explain it... many apologies, shatcrutting awful day at work, bad mood and mr angry so excuse the conspiracy theories...
I'm with cyberface on this one. Porsche are engineering their high volume models with a cynical regard to durability. I guess it doesn't help them sell new cars (or warranties) if the old ones last forever.
sjr-997 said:
out of interest how much would the RMS seal have cost to replace if you hadn't had a warranty ?
I did ask that question. As it is only leaking at this stage and they have their new tool / seal to fix it is only about £1500 (90% of which is labour so use an indy and it will be cheaper). But let things go and you'll eventually lose the engine - they're a tad more expensive....
Getting another 12 months of the warranty is about £750 I believe - given that it covers engine, suspension, gearbox etc it should be worth the money just for the peace of mind.
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