OPC rip-off avoided

[dab996]

Hi,

I've been deliberating for a while whether to share this with the forum but a recent experience with my local OPC and Porsche UK Customer Assistance has left me with a very bad taste that I believe warrants exposure.

My ageing 996 developed a whistle that appeared to be coming from one side of the engine so fearing the worst I dropped it in to my OPC. After inspection there was NO clear diagnosis to the problem, therefore and to my absolute horror, their only recommended course of action was to strip the engine to investigate further, at great expense with no guarantees to resolving the problem.

Thankfully, I knew one of the guys in the office who strongly advised me to get a second opinion so I videoed the noise, posted it on the forum and almost immediately, the responses came back, all suggesting a loose spark plug. I subsequently, visited my Indy, who upon hearing the noise, confirmed immediately a loose plug and low and behold, problem solved within 20 minutes for the princely sum of £20.

Again, I cannot thank enough the help, advice and knowledge given by the forum members and as a result, the following is the response I got from Porsche UK together with my comments in CAPITALS:

Good afternoon Mr Beal
>
> I apologise we have not been able to speak, our calls seem to have missed
> each other. NOT ONCE DID THEY TRY AND CALL
>
> Thank you for your kind comments in relation to xxxxxxxxxxxxx. I have
> passed them onto both him and his manager.
>
> Whilst I acknowledge your disappointment and frustration that, during your
> visit to Porsche Centre, they did not diagnose the issue with your
> car. I have spoken with the Centre and confirm they did not have the
> opportunity to investigate further. THEY HAD THE CAR FOR AS LONG AS THEY NEEDED. THEY ALSO IGNORED THE FACT THAT A BUNCH OF ENTHUSIASTS WERE ABLE TO IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM FROM A VIDEO POSTED ON A FORUM WHEN THEIR SKILLED TECHNICIANS, HANDS ON COULDN'T
>
> Due to the constraints of the AA warranty you have on the vehicle, Porsche - THERE ARE NO CONSTRAINTS ON THE AA WARRANTY.
> Centre were unable to continue their investigations and be paid for
> their time spent. xxxxxxx confirmed, in order to continue to investigate
> the noise further, they would require 3 hours labour time. The 3 hours
> labour time requested, in order to further investigate the fault, is a
> reasonable time period that would allow the technician to properly
> investigate the root cause of the complaint. It would be inappropriate of
> a Porsche Centre to request only 1 hour labour and find no faults, which
> would then lead to ask for your further authorisation for additional
> labour, than it would to require 3 from the onset and only use a proportion
> of it in order to find and diagnose the problem. Porsche Centre
> are confident that should they have been given authority to continue
> investigations, they would have confirmed the issue to arise from an
> ill-fitted spark plug and confirmed the issue to you without delay. That
> said, whilst I know you had removed the vehicle from Porsche Centre
> to take it to an independent, I am pleased that the issue has been
> resolved.
>
> Reference the charge made for the use of the loan vehicle. Porsche Centre
> confirm that this forms a part of their business policy that they
> charge 15 pence per mile for the use of their loan vehicles. I appreciate
> that this value may have appeared very small, however, this is the business
> practice of Porsche Centre and is adhered to strictly regardless of
> the mileage.
>
> Clearly, it is disappointing to receive feedback such that you are
> disgusted with Porsche. In addition, it is disappointing you believe
> Porsche would operate in a way that would charge you for work which would
> not be required.
>
> I apologise you believe their service has fallen short of your expectation
> and your comments have been passed to the team at Porsche Centre. TO WHICH I HAVE NEVER RECEIVED A RESPONSE< NOT THAT I EXPECTED ONE.
>
>
> Kind regards
>
>
>
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Porsche Customer Assistance

Edited by jeremyc on Tuesday 22 October 21:12

[carparkno1]

Unfortunately they are a business, and a volume business at that now they have more cars and customers - so they are probably pushed to find the more expensive fix etc as per targets. I could be speaking out of turn here but there does seem to be an increasing trend - especially on non-OPC warrantied cars.

What's great is that it was fixed for such a cheap price. hard to let go the way OPC were but I would encourage you to just move on and enjoy your fruity-fresh 996

[lotus211]

I had very similar experience 18 months back and contacting Porsche UK got me absolutely nowhere. Needless to say i didnt replace my OPC supplied car with another OPC car and im not buying into their warranty either.
Enough said

[mrdemon]

this story comes and goes, seen it a lot the loose spark plug issue where opc cannot fix.

[Younez]

Would AA warranty even cover their hourly rate?

[dab996]

When I first bought the car it was still under warranty so always used the OPC and continued to do so in it's early life before gradually switching to an Indy as it got older. Therefore it will come as no surprise to anyone when I say that the OPC's level of commitment and service has diminished by the same degree as my frequency of visits over the years.

In fact, a recent visit to use their plug in diagnostic tool, which they always offered free of charge, was this time going to cost me £55 + VAT for all of 2 minutes. When I challenged this, they bluntly told me that the charge was because I don't spend much with them anymore.

[Output Flange]

Do the invoices from OPC show their Registered Charity number on the bottom?

Edited by jeremyc on Tuesday 22 October 21:13

[Budweiser]

In fact, a recent visit to use their plug in diagnostic tool, which they always offered free of charge, was this time going to cost me £55 + VAT for all of 2 minutes. When I challenged this, they bluntly told me that the charge was because I don't spend much with them anymore.

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me, they are a business, how did you expect them to react?

[giltranator]

I have always found Porsche Centre one of the best OPC's in the country in terms of sales and aftersales. I have always had my Boxster S 986 serviced by them and any jobs that I could not do at home I would give it to them to do. I have visited both other independents in the area and whilst one of them didn't seem too bad but was more expensive than Porsche Centre, the other was terrible. I remember the owner telling me that the thin 5 spoke wheels on his 996 turbo were lightweight gt2 wheels

However, the last time I used Porsche Centre was when my car broke down on the motorway and I had it recovered there, when the car got there I was told it sounded like a camshaft sensor. I had a call to say that they had found metal in the oil after removing the oil filter. They said the best course of action would be to have the engine exchanged or buy a complete new one…..

After getting the car brought back to my home, the engine is currently being stripped, there is absolutely no metal in the oil whatsoever, not even in the filter as said. After speaking to a specialist in Devon, he thinks it could be a sensor as Porsche originally said. The thing I don’t get is that to check this, the car just needs to be plugged in to the Porsche diagnostics to check, which I assume was something that was not done.

I was still pleased with the service however as I did not have to pay for it and the car was there for over a month, although this doesn’t really make up for the fact that they misdiagnosed the problem which could have cost me thousands!!!

I would happily use them again though due to the lack of good specialists in the area and the usual good service that I receive.

Edited by jeremyc on Tuesday 22 October 21:14

[davek_964]

dab996 said:

> Due to the constraints of the AA warranty you have on the vehicle, Porsche - THERE ARE NO CONSTRAINTS ON THE AA WARRANTY.

Younez said:

Would AA warranty even cover their hourly rate?

When I bought my car it had an AA warranty. The hourly rate was quite limited on mine - but more specifically, the warranty did not cover investigation and diagnosis of a fault - it only covered the actual repair. So to me, it does sound like their statement would be true - the warranty would not cover 3 hours of diagnostics - unless your AA warranty T&Cs are different than mine were (and even so, I'd assume there must still be SOME constraints - if not, where do I buy!).

[Martian O]

giltranator said:

...I would happily use them again though due to the lack of good specialists in the area and the usual good service that I receive.

Or nip across the Severn to try www.chrisdenningsportscars.com

[Dr S]

In my experience there is massive variance in service quality between OPCs.

Some years back I had dent in the rear boot lid of my 986. The first OPC I showed it to told me that they would need to repair and repaint the lid as there was no other way to get the lid to fit evenly with the rest of the panels again. When I suggested to just lower the lid on the dented side by a few mm they told me that this was impossible to do.

I went straight to the next OPC and they told me that lowering the lid was easily done. It took them five minutes to do so and they charged me zero for it.

Easy to guess whose customer I have been over the last fourteen years...