RE: McLaren: the inside story
Discussion
I don't really blame Ron for not being more extrovert at the factory tour. Some people aren't good at that stuff and it's been clear for years that Ron is one of them. The mistake was not grooming somebody who is good at it into a leadership roll at MCL to do exactly the type of stuff Ron can't. Whitmarsh is clearly a smoother operator and would likely be better at such things but obviously he's not going to have the time. It was a big mistake lumping that sort of stuff on Ron's shoulders. In fact I can't actually think of two less alike people than Luca DiMontezemolo and Ron!
Can’t understand the constant put down of a great British company and product?
We should be proud of such a fantastic achievement for a true first McLaren “mass produced” car.
The early cars had unexpected issues, hence the stopping of production to put them right and mine has been 100% reliable and functional (bar IRIS of course).
I was at MTC a couple of weeks ago with seven other owners giving feedback over lunch on our cars to Antony Sheriff in person. Would Luca di Montezemolo give up as much time? (2 hours and not in a hurry to get rid of us either)
The issues with the sat nav and Bluetooth are because McLaren don’t want to use what is already out there, but something far better and superior. They are the first to admit that achieving this has taken far longer than they expected, but like most owners, I am more than happy to have my car now, minus IRIS, than to wait months and miss out on the incredible owner experience.
McLaren is obviously not for everyone, but I have bought into it and so far the whole pre and post ownership experience has been vastly superior to any other manufacturer that I have experienced.
We should be proud of such a fantastic achievement for a true first McLaren “mass produced” car.
The early cars had unexpected issues, hence the stopping of production to put them right and mine has been 100% reliable and functional (bar IRIS of course).
I was at MTC a couple of weeks ago with seven other owners giving feedback over lunch on our cars to Antony Sheriff in person. Would Luca di Montezemolo give up as much time? (2 hours and not in a hurry to get rid of us either)
The issues with the sat nav and Bluetooth are because McLaren don’t want to use what is already out there, but something far better and superior. They are the first to admit that achieving this has taken far longer than they expected, but like most owners, I am more than happy to have my car now, minus IRIS, than to wait months and miss out on the incredible owner experience.
McLaren is obviously not for everyone, but I have bought into it and so far the whole pre and post ownership experience has been vastly superior to any other manufacturer that I have experienced.
loose cannon said:
Is it a case of mclaren electrical issues just mirror that of Mercedes,as I would hazard a guess that most of it is the same components, bar the engine and body shell , sounds like all the same sort of issues of the noughtys that mercs had, maybe still have ?
nothing to do with Merc anymoretommy vercetti said:
Mclaren do sound and look a bit too anal, you don't expect employees to have a laugh or two there, they take everything seriously, but at the end of the day they are a business. Lovely pictures by the way.
I workeed there for two years, we had loads of giggles. We were told not to talk to one of the girls in our desk cluster once as she giggled to loud lol.I concur with Zippycar. As an owner I'm not really that bothered that the sat nav doesnt work, I just plug in my Tom Tom and I'm good. In fact I do the same in all my cars anyway as the Tom Tom has speed camera's and non of my in-built navs on my other cars do. Other than that a couple of warning lights that come on when they shouldnt doesn't really register with me. Compare this with 3 major faults on my previous 997 turbo including Turbo and gearbox failures and you can see how I think this Mclaren fault issue has been blown completely out of proportion.
Everytime I drive a new generation car, I think they just can't get any better. I remember how I first felt when I drove the R8 with Mag ride and being blown away with the way it filtered out the bumps, almost as if it was skimming the road surface and yet handled like a race car in the bends.
Then after driving the McLaren, which takes it to a whole new level let me tell you, then jumping back in the R8 which now felt "so 2007", I realised that McLaren really had moved the game on. Significantly.
Re the Ron Dennis thing, I agree it would have been nice for him to say hello, but I guess he's kinda busy right now with that little F1 thing :-) ... and when was the last time when you had an issue with something from a medium sized company and the CEO of the company called you up to discuss the problem. CEO's need to spend their time running the company as the captains of their ships, if they spent all their time discussing issues with existing customers then they would end up with a lot more dissatisfied customers in the end. Thats what staff are for.
It's a great car and McLaren are a world class engineering company of which sadly Britain has very few of these days compared with our days of yore, we should be a bit more forgiving of the odd failed sat nav when this car will hand Ferrari it's ass on a race track, quite a feat one might say.
Everytime I drive a new generation car, I think they just can't get any better. I remember how I first felt when I drove the R8 with Mag ride and being blown away with the way it filtered out the bumps, almost as if it was skimming the road surface and yet handled like a race car in the bends.
Then after driving the McLaren, which takes it to a whole new level let me tell you, then jumping back in the R8 which now felt "so 2007", I realised that McLaren really had moved the game on. Significantly.
Re the Ron Dennis thing, I agree it would have been nice for him to say hello, but I guess he's kinda busy right now with that little F1 thing :-) ... and when was the last time when you had an issue with something from a medium sized company and the CEO of the company called you up to discuss the problem. CEO's need to spend their time running the company as the captains of their ships, if they spent all their time discussing issues with existing customers then they would end up with a lot more dissatisfied customers in the end. Thats what staff are for.
It's a great car and McLaren are a world class engineering company of which sadly Britain has very few of these days compared with our days of yore, we should be a bit more forgiving of the odd failed sat nav when this car will hand Ferrari it's ass on a race track, quite a feat one might say.
I'm a bit of a Mc fan too and joined their supporter's club. I didn't repeat the mistake the next year. The magazine was just very glossy and much too slick without any character - it was like reading a series of very PC adverts; Or watching a party political broadcast. There was no point in joining the competitions for special experiences as you knew you'd get just the same again. A great outfit and I wish them well, but they need to very much rethink their PR.
Edited by UnderTheRadar on Tuesday 10th April 07:00
graeme4130 said:
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
Interesting insight. I've been there and chatted to the Chief Engineer and the Design Manager, both of whom have worked there for years, they struck me as pretty down to earth guys who are very excited about what's coming up next. Re the design of the MTC, I thought the production room was a fantastic workplace but I was less sure about the overall flow of the premises. The transitions between sections seem unduly long, like walking to the Gatwick terminal building from a satellite stand. I was a bit surprised employees weren't given access to Segways or bicycles to get around. 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
paul0843 said:
If Ron worries about tile cuts then IMO he doesn't have time to worry about his real business of making cars.
I have been to his house on a few occasions while my company was carrying out works there and I can tell
You there's lots of cut tiles in that..
Perhaps you've never worked for someone who has a complete grip on his company like a Ron Dennis or a Steve Jobs. It's precisely because they do this kind of thing that means they create these kind of companies.I have been to his house on a few occasions while my company was carrying out works there and I can tell
You there's lots of cut tiles in that..
A certain Mr Tiefenbrun I worked for was much the same.
dlist said:
I concur with Zippycar. As an owner I'm not really that bothered that the sat nav doesnt work, I just plug in my Tom Tom and I'm good. In fact I do the same in all my cars anyway as the Tom Tom has speed camera's and non of my in-built navs on my other cars do. Other than that a couple of warning lights that come on when they shouldnt doesn't really register with me. Compare this with 3 major faults on my previous 997 turbo including Turbo and gearbox failures and you can see how I think this Mclaren fault issue has been blown completely out of proportion.
Does it really not bother you? I freely admit that the McLarens maybe a factor of 10 outside of my price range but if I bought a new car I'd expect everything to work. They're considerably bigger than the 'man in a shed' scale operation where I'd cut them some slack.paul0843 said:
If Ron worries about tile cuts then IMO he doesn't have time to worry about his real business of making cars.
On the contrary - if it's best to move into a new building ASAP, then you do that by eliminating or reducing things on the critical path, and if there's a big six-week item on there called "cutting up tiles to lay the floor" then you surely do the obvious thing there...I have just read this article and i don't understand why the Mclaren Issues are such a big deal. At least they fix there problems opposed to Ferrari who don't give a s
t heres some examples
F355 manifolds melt and need to be replaced.
F430 engine vibrated due to unsuitable engine mounts and caused the exhaust tips to break.
The only reason 458 was recalled was because the cars were burning.
Pretty much all Ferraris have issues that don't get sorted but you don't see anybody complaining because that what we expect from an Italian brand.
But a British brand must be perfect which i think is quite unfair after all were not German.
t heres some examplesF355 manifolds melt and need to be replaced.
F430 engine vibrated due to unsuitable engine mounts and caused the exhaust tips to break.
The only reason 458 was recalled was because the cars were burning.
Pretty much all Ferraris have issues that don't get sorted but you don't see anybody complaining because that what we expect from an Italian brand.
But a British brand must be perfect which i think is quite unfair after all were not German.
hairykrishna said:
Does it really not bother you? I freely admit that the McLarens maybe a factor of 10 outside of my price range but if I bought a new car I'd expect everything to work. They're considerably bigger than the 'man in a shed' scale operation where I'd cut them some slack.
I agree with the article in that many owners tend to expect only the very best, as its a virtue of their relentless drive for only the best that has gotten them to the purchase point in the first place. However, at the end of the day the Sat Nav system was not something I thought about when I spent many many hours deliberating (as we on the website all do), on the purchase of this vehicle.The first 90% of my decision making criteria is the same for this as most of us PH'ers I would imagine.
Is it fast - Check
Does it look cool/beautiful/mean/different/interesting - Check
Will it get my adrenalin pumping - Check
Do I like the brand - Check
Will it sound good or can I make it sound good - Check
Can I afford it or get it past the missus (
)- CheckAfter the check list is done, the rest is just the detail. You're not a Piston Head if you buy for mpg, reliability or boot space, you're a Car magazine reader (or worse Which magazine!).
So in summary as long as the car still fulfils the 90% and doesn't leave me at the side of the road like a TVR then I'm good. (appologies TVR owners!).
On top of that the after sales service has been fantastic and they really have lived up to their promise of not being like the other players in that respect. I guess if I drove the car everyday and if I didn't have another car to drive when they put it on the truck to take it for an update then maybe I would have got upset, but I can't imagine more than a few percent of owners are actually in that position, if any at all.
Most of the exotics I've been fortunate to own have either let me down at some point or cost me a fortune when I've ripped off the front spoiler on some speed bump, but thats soon forgotten the next sunny day when you crank down the window, drop a few gears and tear off towards the horizon.
Edited by dlist on Tuesday 10th April 16:36
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