McLaren GT

[runner911]

Hello Folks !
I'm brand new to this forum , so please bear with me .
I currently run a Lamborghini LP610-4 .
I have enjoyed owning the car although servicing costs have been a bit eye watering .
The best way I can describe the car is that it is raw . In Sport and Corsa modes , there is virtually no give in the suspension , and its like driving a noisy go kart .
Ideal for the track , although I've never tracked it .
The car is plush inside with alcantara seats , roof lining etc . and build qiality is first class .
I am now 78 ( ouch ! ) and have reached the stage where the attractions of the Lamborghini have begun to fade .
What I am looking for is something of equal performance , but more civilised , not so noisy and bone jarring .
The McLaren GT appears to fit the bill.
I am however a tiny bit reluctant to go down the McLaren route owing to various horror stories about build quality and reliability .
I've looked at the videos that John Thorn has loaded on You tube .
What basically I am looking for is opinions of McLaren owners and in particular those who have GT's ?
Anyone care to comment please ?

[davek_964]

99% of scare stories are from people who never owned them - but their girlfriends hairdressers brothers dog had one and it was crap.

Many actual owners become serial McLaren owners (myself included).

If you like the GT then that's great, but be aware that pretty much all of the McLaren range make very good / comfortable cars that can be used daily if you wish. Like most modern cars, they have different modes if you want more fun - but my 650 is ridiculously easy and comfortable to drive.

[andysv]

I have come from 25 years with Lamborghini so I can tell you how it worked out for me whilst trying not to go too far off topic. I didn’t own a Huracan but I did have an LP670 amongst others, like you I loved the brand but it seemed to have changed over the years also I always had a lingering McLaren itch that would need scratching one day. To me McLaren looked like the new “dark side” and I wanted to go there but I was also aware of the rumoured problems reading online and that had put me off.
Sorry to drag my story on! So I had been two years without a supercar happily buzzing around in a Tesla (no noise but f…. quick) then I spotted a 570 Spider at auction, it was cheap so I bought it and really liked it, much quicker than I thought and felt really good but someone else with a bag of cash wanted it so it was sold leaving me without a supercar but not for long, a trader friend called up he had found a 720 coupe at a Trade only specialist auction that may cheap, I bought it with a view to selling on for profit but this thing got under my skin big time, it punches really hard, rides like a dream and looks special and now I can’t part with it. Nothing has gone wrong in 3 years ok I replaced the accumulators but they wear out anyway. A specialist near Stevenage looks after it and servicing is cheaper than Lamborghini. Mine is a 2019 with plenty of miles on the clock and I will admit some things particularly inside the car feel flimsy but nothing has fallen off. Sorry I can’t help with the GT I haven’t driven one but I will say you should seriously consider changing brands you will not regret it.

[andysv]

I should also say don’t write off a 720, the ride is adjustable and sublime for a supercar, it will tootle to the shops if you want and only goes loopy when you really poke it, it’s Jekyll and Hyde in a brilliant way.

[samoht]

Huracan, nice! There was a bright green Huracan Spider at Romans St Albans when I collected my 570GT, it looked awesome.

I think you're broadly correct that McLarens are relatively comfortable and thus useable. My wife and I have done a couple of long Euro tours in our 570GT (Munich, Stockholm) and been pretty happy in it; it's definitely a road-trippable car, not just an A-to-A one. Check that you're comfortable in the seats of the specific car you buy first, but they're fairly accommodating.

As well as the GT(S) I'd consider the earlier 570GT it evolved from, as well as the 650S and 720S which being Super Series cars have the interconnected suspension which permits even better ride comfort.

I don't think quality and reliability are that bad. They're low volume cars so not always perfect, but if serviced annually by someone who knows what they're doing, they're likely to be ok most of the time and not ruinously expensive. If you start by buying a car that's done a few miles and been well cared for, hopefully the first owner will have debugged the initial problems leaving you to enjoy.

Personally I was driven to distraction by my local McLaren dealer before I'd even bought my car, and have thus taken it only to V Engineering, who have been excellent at keeping it working really well for reasonable cost. I believe the franchised dealers are the biggest cause of unhappy customers, and finding a good indie is likely to lead to a happy ownership experience.

[AB]

I read recently that the GT has been pretty much made redundant by the Artura - it does everything the GT does, just better.

[Pistaaah]

samoht said:

I believe the franchised dealers are the biggest cause of unhappy customers, and finding a good indie is likely to lead to a happy ownership experience.

Have to disagree with this - I've been a McLaren owner for 7 years, first a 570 spider then a 720S and the service has been top notch from McLaren Birmingham. Reliability has been really pretty good and I keep the warranty extended, which is worth it. If you want to chat this through with someone who is not annoying, ask for Gary or Charlie at McBirmingham. I have no ties to them other than the fact that I've bought 6 cars from them and they just get it!

[ChrisW.]

McLaren Leeds also have 2 of the World’s 24 Master Technicians and have been very good for me (so far!) …

[supersport]

I’m 3 years into a 720 and it’s been brilliant. Feels pretty solidly built to me.

It’s got loads of room and super comfortable even if pootling.

I also use Leeds for servicing and it’s been fine. The indies are way too far away to consider using.

[naboo]

runner911 said:

Hello Folks !
What I am looking for is something of equal performance , but more civilised , not so noisy and bone jarring .
The McLaren GT appears to fit the bill.

I had a GT before my current Artura, both are hugely capable cars, both liveable with on a daily basis. I'd say the Artura has more theatre to it, more aggressive styling, definitely a more racey cockpit, all round it feels more focused. That said there's things I miss about my GT, it's got great road presence, certainly has a more elegant feel to it , personally I prefer the GT in the more low key colours, mine was Serpentine and got a lot of comments. The interior feels bigger, it's super comfortable yet slip it out of comfort mode and you're back in familar McLaren territory. I used to think of it as a Jekyll and Hyde car, perfect for cruising on the motorway, great ride, just a nice place to be, meanwhile over in track mode it shows what it's capable of....sounds great too! I had a couple of issues with mine, paint and door hinges but any well maintained car would've had these sorted by now. There's some very nice examples at the various dealerships, well worth a test drive... good luck!

Edited by naboo on Saturday 17th January 15:15

[runner911]

Folks , thank you for your replies which convinced me the way to go was McLaren .
To that end , I sold my Lamborghini Huracan on Thursday last and drove to Romans International in Banstead , Surrey on Friday to view a GT they had for sale .
The car was all ready for me by the time I arrived in early afternoon after a long drive from Plymouth where I live .
The car is coloured Saros , a sort of blue/grey . It has Premium Pack, Practicality Pack and Pioneer Pack .
It is on a 21 plate with just 5000 miles on the clock , full McLaren service history and I would describe it as immaculate .
There are no roads on which I could have opened the car up , but initial impressions are that it is equally as quick , if not quicker than the Lamborghini . Acceleration is phenomenal . A very different drive to the Huracan which is noisy and now uncomfortable for someone like me , with a ride as hard as a go kart .
Anyway , I bought the GT there and then . Romans are delivering it in an enclosed transporter this coming Thursday .
The car was serviced by McLaren Guildford last October and comes with Romans 12 month Platinum warranty . After that time I have to decide which way to go , official McLaren warranty , or V Engineering/Thorney Motorsport etc. I'll be looking for your guidance on that one.
To conclude , the salesman who looked after me was Ben Lacey . A perfect gentleman , not pushy in any way and was able to answer all my questions . I was very impressed with the service .
Here is a link to the car which you may/may not be able to access .
https://www.romansinternational.com/used/cars/mcla...

[naboo]

Great choice, love the colour, great spec, looks like a nice example. My GT went out of warranty, I wouldn't want to own a Mac without some sort of safety net so I extended with the official McLaren one. I'm sure someone has some real world experience of Thorney's service. I met him once a few years ago, nice chap I'm sure he's as good as his word on service. B&C have looked after my cars for a years, no complaints aside from the crazy cost of their recent change of transport company. Service is good though and excellent communication.

Enjoy!!!

[FlyingPanda]

That is lovely. Cool, understated and very stylish. An excellent choice!

[ChrisW.]

Very classy ... the GT is still a current car with the new GTS being this model successor so it will continue to have long factory support irrespective of the specialist options.

It is possible that you may have some gremlins but it's my experience that McLaren want to be the first to know and they seem determined to support anybody who may feel that they have been a beta-tester for their car !!

This is sometimes the challenge with low volume hand-built cars ... but they do contain a lot of "love" ...

My passion was classic elderly Porsche's ... it was Strasse in Leeds who made this such a fun journey because they always sorted the inevitable problems that followed re-commissioning laid up and under serviced cars ....



This is what lifts McLaren above the rest ....

Edited by ChrisW. on Sunday 18th January 13:57

[XMA Simon]

davek_964 said:

99% of scare stories are from people who never owned them - but their girlfriends hairdressers brothers dog had one and it was crap.

Many actual owners become serial McLaren owners (myself included).

This is just not true. If it were true and that almost no one got burned then McLaren residual values would not be as low as they are now. Nor would McLaren warranties cost so much.

McLaren designed incredible cars with incredibly advanced technology that ten years later the other supercar companies have not caught up with on their main higher volume product lines. Yet having done all the super hard work, they devalued it:

1) By cutting corners and cost on seemingly insignificant components. Just one example. John Thornley speaks openly about McLaren hose clips being flimsy, single use tat and he makes it a point on the cars going through his workshop to spend £50 to upgrade all the hose clips. And a failed clip can result in compete failure of a much more expensive component.

2) There was a period of time when the factory was under pressure from investors to just pass cars through the factory with very rudimentary attention to quality control. The attitude seemed to be, let the mugs buying these cars do the QC for us and then we'll dump responsibility to fix the problems on our dealers.

3) Dealers were overrun with warranty claims and customers disappointed with their new cars. Some dealers gave cars back after months in the workshop only for the same problems to reoccur on the drive back home from the dealer (McLaren Ascot). Some dealers did everything in their power to fix these problems as efficiently and painlessly as possible for the client (my experience with McLaren in Bristol which has since unfortunately closed down). And that was despite being overrun with cars that needed fixing.

And once you lose trust it is very hard to win it back.

Having said all that, this story is a story of McLaren's past and not necessarily true of what the facts are now. John Thornley's comments that cars that meet the following criterion are a decent bet (albeit with maintenance bills in line with the cars' original values being £150k-£250k) seems to be well argued. Decent bets will have been:

1) have been through a first owners hands,
2) run regularly,
and 3) where the owner / workshop has kept on top of preventative maintenance requirements as soon as warning signs appear rather than reacting to outright failures.

They are fantastic cars to drive and probably to own now. (Don't own one currently, although I miss the quality of driving experience from it... just not the problems that came with mine back then).

I'm just irritated by the fan boy defence mechanism that seems to occur whenever someone attempts to make an objective, deserved criticism. These people seem to just dismiss other peoples' experiences based on their own positive experience. When someone asks for advice they probably want to hear both sides of the story, not just one side from the fan boys.

[Familymad]

Epic. The GT is lovely and is a bit of a funny car in photos. It’s a stunner in the flesh and I toyed with one before getting the 650S. You have made a great choice and V engineering or XP1 technical over Thorney.

[andysv]

Lovely car, enjoy.

[Trollbuster]

XMA Simon said:

davek_964 said:

99% of scare stories are from people who never owned them - but their girlfriends hairdressers brothers dog had one and it was crap.

Many actual owners become serial McLaren owners (myself included).

This is just not true. If it were true and that almost no one got burned then McLaren residual values would not be as low as they are now. Nor would McLaren warranties cost so much.

McLaren designed incredible cars with incredibly advanced technology that ten years later the other supercar companies have not caught up with on their main higher volume product lines. Yet having done all the super hard work, they devalued it:

1) By cutting corners and cost on seemingly insignificant components. Just one example. John Thornley speaks openly about McLaren hose clips being flimsy, single use tat and he makes it a point on the cars going through his workshop to spend £50 to upgrade all the hose clips. And a failed clip can result in compete failure of a much more expensive component.

2) There was a period of time when the factory was under pressure from investors to just pass cars through the factory with very rudimentary attention to quality control. The attitude seemed to be, let the mugs buying these cars do the QC for us and then we'll dump responsibility to fix the problems on our dealers.

3) Dealers were overrun with warranty claims and customers disappointed with their new cars. Some dealers gave cars back after months in the workshop only for the same problems to reoccur on the drive back home from the dealer (McLaren Ascot). Some dealers did everything in their power to fix these problems as efficiently and painlessly as possible for the client (my experience with McLaren in Bristol which has since unfortunately closed down). And that was despite being overrun with cars that needed fixing.

And once you lose trust it is very hard to win it back.

Having said all that, this story is a story of McLaren's past and not necessarily true of what the facts are now. John Thornley's comments that cars that meet the following criterion are a decent bet (albeit with maintenance bills in line with the cars' original values being £150k-£250k) seems to be well argued. Decent bets will have been:

1) have been through a first owners hands,
2) run regularly,
and 3) where the owner / workshop has kept on top of preventative maintenance requirements as soon as warning signs appear rather than reacting to outright failures.

They are fantastic cars to drive and probably to own now. (Don't own one currently, although I miss the quality of driving experience from it... just not the problems that came with mine back then).

I'm just irritated by the fan boy defence mechanism that seems to occur whenever someone attempts to make an objective, deserved criticism. These people seem to just dismiss other peoples' experiences based on their own positive experience. When someone asks for advice they probably want to hear both sides of the story, not just one side from the fan boys.

This is absolutely bang on, I couldn t have said it better myself.

My personal experiences with McLaren were shocking on all fronts. I tend to stay out of here as from previous readings the McLaren forum is a tad too toxic for my liking.

Edited by Trollbuster on Sunday 18th January 20:36

[renmure]

naboo said:

… mine was Serpentine and got a lot of comments.

I was in McLaren Glasgow a few months ago and they had a Serpentine Artura in the showroom under the spotlights. It’s been a long time since I last stopped to take arty photos of cars but that was a phenomenal colour.

[Spindoctor]

Familymad said:

V engineering or XP1 technical over Thorney.

Would you be willing to expand on that? Why not Thorney? Info like this is useful for those of us contemplating taking the McLaren leap, even if it’s anecdotal.