RE: McLaren: the inside story

[RenesisEvo]

vescaegg said:

For a company as anal as Mclaren it is surprising that despite the thousands of development hours they obviously put into the car, a few small (but obviously very annoying to owners) niggles remained in the finished items.

Every production car has its issues and niggles, I don't see how the MP4-12C is any different. I would go so far as saying every product has its niggles/issues. I would be genuinely impressed if anyone could identify something that was utterly flawless from day 1. The improvement/development process never stops, even several years into production. The difference is your average [car] manufacturer doesn't say anything about it.

[MrGRT]

Nav system does not work. Owners are still waiting.
Doors are difficult to swipe open. They had to create a device to open them remotely IIRC.
ABS and other warning lights.
Back window broke after certain speed.

[Rich_W]

Good article.

article said:

Hence the red carpet and charm offensive, our foursome arriving just in time to catch a hurried Ron Dennis leaving for the day. He ain't stopping to chat, throwing a "hope you like the cars!" over his shoulder before jumping into his Merc SL before anyone has chance to reply

Granted it could have been his kids birthday or something. But as the leader of the company, would it have kiled him to stay for a few moments to talk/apologise to the current owners? You think he'd do the same thing if the boss of Vodafone turned up? Who, like the 12C owners ultimately pays his wage.

As above, the tile thing smacks of not putting emphasis on the important things. Apart from OCDers, who ACTUALLY cares about a few cut tiles. (I have to wonder how many would have been cut to save 6 weeks?) A factory to me, needs to be efficient and churn out quality products. Not win interior design awards.

Aston


Ferrari


Lamborghini


A little pizazz is great, see the Veyron line. But that's a full on halo car.




It's not clear from the article, did the owners come away happy or annoyed or reassured after their visit? Which appeared to be just a corporate tour rather than a chance for them to address their issues personally with the company.

[jason61c]

alexpa said:

New 911 owenrs are guinea pig's. It makes me wonder how many development hours go into new 911's. I'm not expecting the MP4-12C's engine to detonate at 70K miles, like quite a few Porsche's of the last 15 years.

I don't think hte MP4's engine will either, most can't make it to 1000miles without everything else except the engine rendering the car useless.

[Rusty-C]

Good read, but the human side I was looking forward to reading about didn't materialise for me.

I can't imagine Mr Pagani shouting one sentence to his customers (who have spent a considerable amount) before breezing past, leaping into an SL and shooting off. If you didn't like the Zonda/Huayra you would do by the time he had finished enthusing on you. That kind of PR's priceless.

The distinction between the F1 team and the customer-focused firm, which needs to engage their public, is an interesting one. It makes a lot of sense. Having said that, the F1 is my all-time favourite supercar, which makes my instant dislike for the MP4-12C hard to fathom...

[GFWilliams]

Rusty-C said:

Good read, but the human side I was looking forward to reading about didn't materialise for me.

I can't imagine Mr Pagani shouting one sentence to his customers (who have spent a considerable amount) before breezing past, leaping into an SL and shooting off. If you didn't like the Zonda/Huayra you would do by the time he had finished enthusing on you. That kind of PR's priceless.

The distinction between the F1 team and the customer-focused firm, which needs to engage their public, is an interesting one. It makes a lot of sense. Having said that, the F1 is my all-time favourite supercar, which makes my instant dislike for the MP4-12C hard to fathom...

Interesting example as I know someone who was going to buy a Huayra, then met Mr Pagani and decided not to order...

Also, a little bit unfair an example considering the nature of Pagani being very very low production numbers compared to McLaren. I thought it was all a very personal experience at McLaren and we were treated well. Of course I was busy with the photography most of the time though

[DukeDickson]

RenesisEvo said:

vescaegg said:

For a company as anal as Mclaren it is surprising that despite the thousands of development hours they obviously put into the car, a few small (but obviously very annoying to owners) niggles remained in the finished items.

Every production car has its issues and niggles, I don't see how the MP4-12C is any different. I would go so far as saying every product has its niggles/issues. I would be genuinely impressed if anyone could identify something that was utterly flawless from day 1. The improvement/development process never stops, even several years into production. The difference is your average [car] manufacturer doesn't say anything about it.

However, McLaren say a decent amount about their anal perfection (in a non-obvious way) & if not delivering, perhaps they ought to spend a little more time on the cars and not on tiles, dust and the like.
Probably just me though as I've never been able to get my head around the lack of reliability and butt-clenching costs of the more expensive end of the market. A 20k car being somewhat more trustworthy than a 120k one is always slightly confusing to my simple mind.

[graeme4130]

I was lucky enough to get a tour around the road car factory and met some of the lower end management team
They were like an army of little Ron's and seemed to consider themselves the top of their game - I'm not sure that mindset or ethos accepts criticism well

[chunder]

Good article as from a different angle than the normal motoring press would manage but not exactly the inside story.

Hopefully this car will sell in numbers (being patriotic) but I fear a 911 / Aston level car will be needed to reach 4500 units pa.

[anonymous-user]

I think it's worth remembering just how big a task it is to create a whole new car from scratch. People like Porsche etc, have the last model on which to build. They can do evolution, rather than revolution. This makes a massive difference! You have a team of engineers at MCL, that have never worked together, have come from a varied background from across the automotive arena (and from outside in fact), and you have a single product that must be perfect first time. Take the Sat Nav, for example. Again, for someone like Porsche, they have had sat nav's integrated into their cars for 10 years, the engineers know the system, they have fallen into all the obvious mistakes already and corrected them. MCL have come into this fresh, without any experience of actually delivering a fully completed modern car. You only have to walk around the electronics/wiring system dept of any modern OEM to see that this dept is now by far the largest in the company!

If MCL are to "blame", and they certainly underestimated the timescale to deliver the complete package, then it maybe is a blame of focusing too much on the core competencies (ride&handling/perfrormance etc) and letting the Electronic Feature Content part fall behind schedule.

Further to all that, some of the delays are due to sourcing issues. After the last recession, and then due to the Tsunami, it became very very difficult indeed to source some electronic componentry. As a small volume user, you get stuck to the "back of the queue" compared to the big players. Significant delays existied on the 12c simply because the parts were not availible.


Every modern new platform car has "teething" issues. They are complicated interconnected systems, and the first buyers are always (and will always be) testers to some extent.


Personally the 12c isn't the car for me, but i think we should applaud MCL for delivering a nearly world beating car (if the 458 didn't exist it would be world beating!) form scratch in a relatively short time ;-)

[lazystudent]

Good article, enjoyed that, and the pictures were great! Looks like a top experience for the PH guys and hopefully the owners learnt something they didn't know!

As others have said before however, unless you've over-egged the story about RD shooting off without a word, then that's pretty poor IMHO!

[jonm01]

I really like the car but every time I see it I hear RD from the press conference stating "here at McLaren we are..passionate about what we do" in the most dreary, monotone, completely lacking in passion tone of voice. They should put someone else in charge.

[Rich_W]

Max_Torque said:

I think it's worth remembering just how big a task it is to create a whole new car from scratch. People like Porsche etc, have the last model on which to build. They can do evolution, rather than revolution. This makes a massive difference! You have a team of engineers at MCL, that have never worked together, have come from a varied background from across the automotive arena (and from outside in fact), and you have a single product that must be perfect first time. Take the Sat Nav, for example. Again, for someone like Porsche, they have had sat nav's integrated into their cars for 10 years, the engineers know the system, they have fallen into all the obvious mistakes already and corrected them. MCL have come into this fresh, without any experience of actually delivering a fully completed modern car. You only have to walk around the electronics/wiring system dept of any modern OEM to see that this dept is now by far the largest in the company!

Not a dig at you. Just a couple points.

Bold Part 1
There are a significant number ofpeople there who worked on the F1 (McLaren Cars) all those years ago. And a sizeable percentage that were there during SLR. (McLaren Automotive) The PR people at McLaren have tried to make out this is a brand new company, but it really is just an evolution of an existing one.

Bold Part2
Invariably VW/Porsche/Ford whoever go to Blaupunkt/Sony/Alpine/Bose/Harmon and say "We'd like a system please thats this size and does X,Y and Z. It's efficient outsourcing to get those companies to do what they are good at. If McLaren chose not to do that and try and go it alone they did kind of make a rod for their own back. Again it's the little details like this that are curious choices, made by management that should really know better. Especially since for the F1 they went direct to Kenwood and said "build us a lightweight good system"

[anonymous-user]

I agree with your points to a degree, but i think we can discount the F1 in anyway whatso ever:

1) it was a long time ago
2) it is actually a very simple car by modern stds (especially when comparing EFC)
3) it was super low volume, custom built for individual owners
4) at £1M a pop, it sat in the rarified atmosphere of the "Hypercar" where you can actually make a "recall" into an event the owner wants to take part in (get the latest factory upgrade etc)

The SLR is a much closer cousin however, but one that had the full weight of Mercedes behind it, and when it comes to EFC and signoff that's a huge burden off MCL !


The 12c sits in the middle market, ok, not quite a boggo 911, but not an F1 either. People buying that car want it to just work, and will actually be driving it day to day. Lossing your F1 for a couple of weeks was unlikely to be an issue, but recalling a 12c is a different matter


Re: MCL personel. Having be involved with MCL for a number of years, it's safe to say the number of "new faces" at MCT has sky rocketed in the last 4 years. Getting a much larger team to integrate and work together, when they have differing backgrounds and experience of procedures, standards and signoff / quality management criteria is not to be underestimated!

It's a similar story regarding Teir1 and 2 support of your vehicle systems. Go to your systems supplier as Porsche (with the full VAG group purchasing power on your shoulder) and say " i want a new SatNav, and they will bend over backwards to help. Go in as MCL, saying "I want a new SatNav, but i only want 1000 a year" and you'll be politely shown the door!
It certainly is not unheard of for OEM's to use blackmail effectively to get the Tier1 to develop low it's volume stuff (for example, naming no names, but the "you currently supply >1M brake modules a year for our mainstream stuff, how do you fancy developing a very limited run(<200 a year) for a "hypercar" system, but we want them for the same as we pay for our normal parts, and by the way, if you want to continue to supply us, the answer we are looking for is yes"........... ;-)

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 8th April 13:54

[AdYa]

GFWilliams said:

Jezz172 said:

Great pics too.
But what else would we expect lol

Thanks

Seeing as the first shot got chopped a little:

Brilliant use of negative space in that shot.....but the building is still chopped on the left. No way around it?
Great photo though! What are you using to light the car?

[speedy_thrills]

People who compare them to Porsche on reliability are being unfair because McLaren just can't afford the same quality control and testing over fewer units, they just aren't anywhere nearly as far down the experience curve.

They can the ownership of something very bold, unique and exclusive however. They did this well with the Mercedes SLR so I have no reason to doubt they can use the same formula to build super cars in the future. I suppose it's just difficult for a company that's strong suit is technical design to adapt to building a car that has to be a well rounded package to compete against other, more established, companies.

They can learn from the MP<thingy>-<thingy>C, go back to the drawing board and in a year or two they'll really take the fight to Ferrari/Lamborghini by building a more desirable all-round car concentrating on their areas of weakness. Also they couldn't have know Ferrari would ratchet up the pressure so much with the 458 Italia being a much bigger step than the 355 to 360 to 430, if it had been pitched against an evolution of the 430 it would probably have looked more competitive.

[someday]

Merc SL? I suppose an important man like that needs a reliable car.

[jeremyc]

Max_Torque said:

I think it's worth remembering just how big a task it is to create a whole new car from scratch. People like Porsche etc, have the last model on which to build. They can do evolution, rather than revolution. This makes a massive difference! You have a team of engineers at MCL, that have never worked together, have come from a varied background from across the automotive arena (and from outside in fact), and you have a single product that must be perfect first time. Take the Sat Nav, for example. Again, for someone like Porsche, they have had sat nav's integrated into their cars for 10 years, the engineers know the system, they have fallen into all the obvious mistakes already and corrected them. MCL have come into this fresh, without any experience of actually delivering a fully completed modern car. You only have to walk around the electronics/wiring system dept of any modern OEM to see that this dept is now by far the largest in the company!

If MCL are to "blame", and they certainly underestimated the timescale to deliver the complete package, then it maybe is a blame of focusing too much on the core competencies (ride&handling/perfrormance etc) and letting the Electronic Feature Content part fall behind schedule.

Further to all that, some of the delays are due to sourcing issues. After the last recession, and then due to the Tsunami, it became very very difficult indeed to source some electronic componentry. As a small volume user, you get stuck to the "back of the queue" compared to the big players. Significant delays existied on the 12c simply because the parts were not availible.


Every modern new platform car has "teething" issues. They are complicated interconnected systems, and the first buyers are always (and will always be) testers to some extent.


Personally the 12c isn't the car for me, but i think we should applaud MCL for delivering a nearly world beating car (if the 458 didn't exist it would be world beating!) form scratch in a relatively short time ;-)

I don't think anyone denies the task they have undertaken nor the problems they have had to overcome.

The key thing they appear to have forgotten is the impact this will have on their initial customers as effectively 'beta testers'. Had they acknowledged this up front and offered appropriate support and/or incentives for the first customers (discounted price, guaranteed buy-back, swap the car for a replacement after 12 months etc.) then I'm sure everyone would have been much happier. They probably won't know the impact of any negative publicity from the first customers until it is too late - when they are hoping to ramp up to full production sales. At this point a "don't worry we've fixed them now" message needs existing customers to confirm it.

They aren't the first low volume manufacturer to suffer from this syndrome, and they won't be the last. The hope was that Ron's attention to detail would have spotted that this was another aspect of the business that they would have to approach differently from everyone else ...

[Rusty-C]

GFWilliams said:

Rusty-C said:

Good read, but the human side I was looking forward to reading about didn't materialise for me.

I can't imagine Mr Pagani shouting one sentence to his customers (who have spent a considerable amount) before breezing past, leaping into an SL and shooting off. If you didn't like the Zonda/Huayra you would do by the time he had finished enthusing on you. That kind of PR's priceless.

The distinction between the F1 team and the customer-focused firm, which needs to engage their public, is an interesting one. It makes a lot of sense. Having said that, the F1 is my all-time favourite supercar, which makes my instant dislike for the MP4-12C hard to fathom...

Interesting example as I know someone who was going to buy a Huayra, then met Mr Pagani and decided not to order...

Also, a little bit unfair an example considering the nature of Pagani being very very low production numbers compared to McLaren. I thought it was all a very personal experience at McLaren and we were treated well. Of course I was busy with the photography most of the time though

I didn't mean to be unfair. I love McLaren as a race team, and always have done.

But I should have been clear; I was talking about the men as people rather than the companies that they front. If what is written about him is to be believed, Pagani comes across as very personable. Or maybe he's just extremely media savvy... Either way, I'm sure he's very busy despite the low volume setup. I'd be interested to know what put your friend off?

From a personal perspective, and getting back to the companies, I find it easier to connect with a setup like Pagani than the more sterile environment of McLaren.

This is one of the reasons I loved TVR. For me it's as much about where a car comes from - the ethos of the people who designed and built it - as it is about the car itself.

I fondly imagined (whether this was the case or not) TVR staff chain smoking, spilling ash over everything, shrugging their shoulders on matters like ergonomics and usability, while a dog wandered through the build area taking bites out their prototypes... Of course, people would argue that's why TVR is no longer with us.

I can understand people being objective, but that's just not me.

Great pics by the way. You've progressed considerably from hanging off gates at the side of roundabouts.

[wotnot]

Rusty-C said:

This is one of the reasons I loved TVR. For me it's as much about where a car comes from - the ethos of the people who designed and built it - as it is about the car itself.

A very good point.
People buy TVRs to this day knowing full well that they can never serve as daily drivers; they're simply too unreliable (apologies for my generalisation if you are one of the lucky owners of a perfectly reliable example).
This also used to be the case with most supercars - it was a given that they simply wouldn't function correctly on a daily basis for any number of reasons. However, most manufacturers have now either got their act together or are now owned my multi-nationals who won't put up with that nonsense any longer.
In McLaren's case, not only have they made much of RD's OCD filtering down through the company but they have painted the MP4-12C as the car designed to be a step above 'lesser engineered' examples of the supercar breed. This means their car HAS to be virtually faultless in order to live up to the hype.
The fact that it isn't means that their PR machine really needs to step up to the mark at this point and engage with their customers if they are to salvage McLaren's reputation for engineering excellence.
As for the boss, it sounds like he could do with a lesson in how to treat valuable customers with a modicum of respect. Did he not know why they were actually there?