I love my Porsche... just wish Ford had built it

[browngt3]

I think we all speak as we find. I. E. from personal experience. Over my 20 years of Porsche ownership I remain highly impressed with overall quality and reliability. Apart from DME relay failure (still on the original after 32 years) on my 1985 Carrera and the odd flat battery they have all started on the key every time. Running costs over the years have been relatively low and actually not much more than run of the mill cars (and numerous vans) I have owned. Admittedly, the Porsches haven't been dailies but have been driven as intended and used in all weathers.

If you consider a Porsche unreliable, try comparing Lotus, McLaren, Aston etc. As for Ferrari, don't know about reliability but I hear the running costs can be eye watering.

I do however agree that the air-cooled era was perhaps the peak in quality. Certainly we're unlikely to see such solid, hand built Porsches again.

[Taffy66]

IIRC Porsche perceived build quality peaked with the 993 and subsequently fell with the 996..However this is true about all german car makers in the 90s, especially Mercedes..German overall quality fell to a low in the late 90s and early 00s but have since improved dramatically ..

[GT03ROB]

Ahbefive said:

GT03ROB said:

Ahbefive said:

GT03ROB said:

I've got 3 of the bloody things Paul.... I get totally where you are coming from.

Is yours an orange one with the same numberplate as your username? If so I saw you on the M40 on Sunday evening after thrashing round Rockingham. Looks lovely.

The one with same plate as username is guards red & should have been locked up in my garage on Sunday evening!!

A shame I didn't take a pic but I am 99.9% (the 0.1% doubt is only due to what you said) that that was the plate as I thought it sounded like a PH username. It was definitely orange. Look out for speeding tickets....

I think most of the orange ones were 997 RSs, so very different to mine! Still thanks for the heads up.

[jimPH]

Polome said:

Totally agree with you Paul...I ran a 996 alongside a VW..both the same age , mileage ,driver and roads driven on...over the ten years the 996 needed ..rads,condensers,exhaust clamps,springs,coffin arms,brake & hydraulic pipes and umpteen disc & pads....the VW one set pads and a timing belt! I've banged on for years about material spec used on Porsche cars
Being of poor quality...my 996 and 997 were particularly bad on underneath parts needing replacement because of premature deterioration. I've just bought a five year old 991 ,underneath looks in far better shape than my previous cars at similar milage...maybe Porsche have bucked there ideas as to longevity ......I did however get the exhaust bolts replaced prior to purchase as the nuts had already vaporised! Before changing I considered a GTR , mainly due to the above as Nissan don't have a lot of these problems . In the end the great drive that a Porsche gives won me over again...and I keep hoping Porsche have improved the bad bits...

Edited by Polome on Tuesday 23 October 11:05

GTRs rust, the brackets and sub frames are terrible, all the fasteners rust and the chassis gets it too. Mines been treated, powder coated and bolts replaced.

My 996 though, nearly double the mileage and much very condition. No rattles, rust or rot. Much better build quality.

[PaulD86]

ooid said:

Ford? Wait until you own a japanese, ideally Lexus. I've recently sold all my german cars. The build quality, reliability and driving of Lexus way beyond any big european brand. I think in general european brands left their quality engineering and more focus on marketing/styling.

My only Japanese car has been an Impreza. Come to think of it, it was a well built car. No rattles despite being on very firm adjustable AST suspension. I've only experienced the odd Lexus as passenger but they seemed beautifully built. Unfortunately there isn't any of them I'd actually want to own. My issue with many Japanese brands unfortunately. Not to say they aren't good cars, I'm sure they are. Just not my thing.

[PaulD86]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Not sure if you are referring to my original post or subsequent ones. I didn't say Porsche were unreliable. I said I think they are poorly built/use poor quality materials.

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Why? When they are failing on Porsches at a rate that anecdotally appears to be faster than other brands then yes, I think that's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to make. My Cayman has had a new horn and 2 of the 3 911s we have had have had one too. Ain't no smoke without fire. I've never known another car have a new horn come to think of it. The only 911 that didn't have a horn replaced was the 997.1, the oldest of the 3. When the dealer even says "we do a lot of these" that sort of says it all. And actually if these aren't Porsche parts that makes it even worse. It means they have knowingly fitted crap to their cars. The exhaust clamp on the back section of the Cayman exhaust, for example, was replaced 3 years ago and the new one is basically split the whole way right now. I'd a nose under the Mondeo this morning. All exhaust brackets are fine. And they have been on the car for a lot longer (since new in '13), more miles and have been outside during the Scottish winters where we use lots of salt on the road. The wheel nuts on that car are also rust free unlike the Porsche. So again, they have fitted a poorer quality part.

Don't get me wrong, I love these cars to drive, but I genuinely wish they were built as well as my Mondeo. I've had 3 of them now and up to 100k miles none have needed anything above and beyond routine servicing, pads and discs, tyres and the odd bulb. Which had just reminded me, the tail light on the current 911 was replaced (whole unit!) when the car was 18 months old as a section of the LEDs failed. And they aren't replaceable.

[PaulD86]

Kawasicki said:

To the OP...what gives you the idea that your Mondeo wasn't designed to be driven hard?

I think common sense would suggest that when setting out the brief for a 2.0 diesel large family hatchback, Ford weren't envisaging the average customer of that product throwing it around on local B roads, regularly testing its limits of adhesion. I may of course be making a ridiculous assumption here and they have have planned it as a rival to the Golf R. Who knows?

[gsewell]

PaulD86 said:

I think common sense would suggest that when setting out the brief for a 2.0 diesel large family hatchback, Ford weren't envisaging the average customer of that product throwing it around on local B roads, regularly testing its limits of adhesion. I may of course be making a ridiculous assumption here and they have have planned it as a rival to the Golf R. Who knows?

Most repmobiles are designed to take massive punishment as the drivers don't own the cars and are very time poor.

[IanJ9375]

Anyone who wants to swap one of those rattle box 991 Carrera 4s or 4GTS for my 2016 Focus RS that's had a complete new sunroof as they couldn't get it aligned, a brand new transfer box due to a leak and of course the much hyped Head-gasket replacement - "Hit me up" as the kids say lol

• 5hrs later wonders why phone isn't ringing

[996TT02]

I conclude that today it matters little what you buy and how much you spend, fundamentally all cars are built to the very same standards of durability, from Peugeot to Porsche. This is because all manufacturers without exception will always choose the most cost effective way to build a car and so will all their component suppliers. If you can get it made in 5 minutes rather than 6, or for £5 rather than £6, and the component will in 99% of cases last for the duration of the warranty period and perhaps a reasonable amount longer, then that is the way it will be made. The problem of course is that if 1% fail (a fictitious figure obviously) you have 200 fail-able components then on average you will have 2 issues within warranty, or just outside. But the manufacturer will have saved far more in costs than sorting your car out will cost (if applicable) and hence sold many more vehicles in the first place at the reduced price.

"I am buying this Porsche because its starter motor is fully serviceable and its housing is screwed together rather than permanently crimped and has 19mm brushes rather than 17mm" - said no new Porsche buyer ever.

[Kawasicki]

PaulD86 said:

Kawasicki said:

To the OP...what gives you the idea that your Mondeo wasn't designed to be driven hard?

I think common sense would suggest that when setting out the brief for a 2.0 diesel large family hatchback, Ford weren't envisaging the average customer of that product throwing it around on local B roads, regularly testing its limits of adhesion. I may of course be making a ridiculous assumption here and they have have planned it as a rival to the Golf R. Who knows?

Common sense from an engineering point of view would mean that handling safety is right at the top of the list when developing a car that can be driven by millions of drivers with different skill levels. Cars are thrown around more in development than 99.9% of customers will ever experience, to ensure that the 0.01% don't die. Vans too, can't say much for trucks as I haven't been involved with their development.

The base model Golf will probably have had more development time being driven at the limit than the Golf R.

[PaulD86]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Lets take the parts that are rusting. Wheel nuts, exhaust clamps, bolts on various components. These items are turning to rust faster than equivalent items on other cars. The cheaper the steel, the quicker it corrodes by and large. So, what conclusion would you draw on what might be going on here? I agree with what 996TT02 has said, everything is built to a price. But I am disappointed that on cars costing what Porsches do, poor quality parts such as bolts are being used. And there are literally hundreds of suppliers of these components who can make them to any number of specs. I enquired about a fitting for a curtain rail in my house recently and was given 8 options on the steel it could be made from. To me it appears Porsche might have a default answer for some components of "cheapest please" when asked what steel they want. I can see why. Makes the car cheaper to build than then when the exhaust clamp fails, again, they can charge me £65 for another. £65 for a piece of crap quality steel with a crap quality bolt in it. It would be funny if it wasn't so irritating.

Now for items that are common to other vehicles, you would expect the same failure rate no matter what it was fitted to. So, for arguments sake, if the horns on Cayman and 911s are the same as an Audi or whatever and they are a known issue on the Porsches but not the Audi then that might suggest that the issue is an implementation one of that component. Which would be the fault of Porsche.

[PaulD86]

Kawasicki said:

PaulD86 said:

Kawasicki said:

To the OP...what gives you the idea that your Mondeo wasn't designed to be driven hard?

I think common sense would suggest that when setting out the brief for a 2.0 diesel large family hatchback, Ford weren't envisaging the average customer of that product throwing it around on local B roads, regularly testing its limits of adhesion. I may of course be making a ridiculous assumption here and they have have planned it as a rival to the Golf R. Who knows?

Common sense from an engineering point of view would mean that handling safety is right at the top of the list when developing a car that can be driven by millions of drivers with different skill levels. Cars are thrown around more in development than 99.9% of customers will ever experience, to ensure that the 0.01% don't die. Vans too, can't say much for trucks as I haven't been involved with their development.

The base model Golf will probably have had more development time being driven at the limit than the Golf R.

Fair point. Although I would suggest that while they are tested at extremes, that's not necessarily the same as expecting them to be used at the more extreme end of their operating window for decent percentages of their lives. Although, maybe that is the case.

[gwsinc]

What annoys me is the inconsistencies in the fittings and fastenings, high quality exhaust and exhaust clamps from new, but with mild steel bolts and fastenings that rust, seize and then cost a fortune to grind off and replace. I see why they do it, x thousand steel bolts are cheaper than x thousand quality stainless ones, but I would expect better from Porsche.

A small change like this would only minimally affect the £14,000 profit they make on each car, and keep enthusiasts like us happy...

[PaulD86]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Of all the cars I have owed only one has ever had rusty wheel nuts. The Porsche. Of the cars I have owned only one has ever had an exhaust component fail. The Porsche. Of the cars I have owned only one has had bolts that are so corroded they are just like blobs of rust. The Porsche.

Now bearing in mind I've owned a 15 year old Volvo and a 13 year old Ford which lived outside in all conditions and didn't manage to achieve these things I'm afraid it suggests the Porsche just might not be using top notch components everywhere. Of course this is anecdotal so cannot possibly be true. Same for the other posters who have noticed the same things as me. But maybe you're right - maybe being detailed, cleaned regularly (including underneath), being kept in a non damp garage and being kept off salty roads and not even used in the wet that much is why the car has more rusty bits than ones used in all weathers and kept outside. It's the obvious conclusion....

I think we need to agree to disagree on this one. Then again, I also prefer the handling of my Cayman on 19s to 18s so that maybe isn't a surprise.

[PaulD86]

gwsinc said:

What annoys me is the inconsistencies in the fittings and fastenings, high quality exhaust and exhaust clamps from new, but with mild steel bolts and fastenings that rust, seize and then cost a fortune to grind off and replace. I see why they do it, x thousand steel bolts are cheaper than x thousand quality stainless ones, but I would expect better from Porsche.

A small change like this would only minimally affect the £14,000 profit they make on each car, and keep enthusiasts like us happy...

Maybe they should add 'Proper stainless steel bolts and fittings' to the options list. Even if that was a grand on the price, I'd have paid it!

[rabbitstew]

Polome said:

Before changing I considered a GTR , mainly due to the above as Nissan don't have a lot of these problems .

I had a 2001 VW Golf which had 180,000 miles on it before I sold it and moved onto a 2007 Nissan 350z 313HR GT. The Nissan at the time was just 4 years old and had covered only 20,000 miles. One of the first things I did was to get underneath it and swap the exhaust out for something a bit sportier. I was staggered at how rusty the car was underneath. It literally looked like someone had dragged it out of a lake. The underside of my old golf, which was 10 year old at that point and done 9 times the mileage still looked brand spanking new.

The wife had a brand new Nissan Juke when they first came out back in 2011 and within a few months that was showing rust too, especially around the top of the front shocks.

[jimPH]

I believe it's the coating that's responsible. Everything is now dolphin friendly. Even the paint used on subframes and brackets, less durable, but much better for trees and people that hug them.

[stichill99]

You think Porsches are bad! All I can say is never buy a Land Rover!

[Slippydiff]

My guess is VAG don't set out to specify inferior quality products, they merely specify the cheapest that will meet their specifications and do the job. But when all is said and done, once the components have got past their expiry date (ie the car is out of its warranty period) they're not going to be too bothered whether an exhaust is a pig to remove or not, as it's not really their problem ....
And if someone should choose to extend their warranty, you can be sure any parts that fail ultimately end up back at the original manufacturer for credit ... If you're supplying Porsche AG with 50,000 water pumps every year, you'll probably not get too sniffy if they send you back 500....

The 964 had it's faults, BUT.... the undersides were hosed in a wonderfully effective wax sealant/gunk seen here :



This stuff was used to cover the engine, gearbox, suspension, in fact pretty much everything underneath, and this in addition to decent quality clamps (often stainless) and nuts and bolts (ditto) on the exhaust system, ensured that whilst often not easy to disassemble, due to the handbuilt/assembled nature of the car, they did remain intact and thus were easily removed once accessed.

Fast forward to the 996 and someone at the Stuttgart decreed "We no longer need to apply that brown gunk to the underside of every car we manufacture, it has a cost attached and there's no benefit to us or indeed our profit margins".

A look at the suspension/engine/transmission components under any 996 that's seen a few UK winters without any form of protection or Spring cleaning will reveal a very sorry sight. Try shifting some of those key fasteners and you're pretty much assured of skinned/bruised knuckles and that the air will be thick with Anglo Saxon expletives...

Whereas Porsche used to use decent quality fasteners (as I understood it a lot of them were supplied by Wurth and Nedschroef) they look to now source their fasteners from a company( CP Tech) that supplies the rest of VAG :

On August 31, 2017, Koninklijke Nedschroef Holding B.V. (“Nedschroef”) purchased a 90% equity stake in CP Tech GmbH. Founded in 2006 and located in Búren, Germany, CP Tech is a developer and manufacturer of lightweight and high-strength metal components used primarily for automotive and motorsport applications. The company’s products are used in a range of engine, transmission, suspension and frame applications and its customer base includes Porsche, BMW, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Audi and Volkswagen. CP Tech operates from a 120,000 square foot manufacturing and engineering facility and employs approximately 175 people. Founded in 1894 and headquartered in Helmond, The Netherlands, Nedschroef manufactures a broad range of cold headed fasteners and specialty components which are sold primarily to the European automotive industry. The company is also engaged in the design and manufacture of cold heading machinery used to produce fasteners. Nedschroef operates from 25 locations in 14 countries and employs more than 2,000 people worldwide. The company generated net sales of €629 million (US$742 million) in calendar 2016. Nedschroef is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shanghai Prime Machinery Company Ltd.

But do Porsche really fit poor quality (or poorer quality) components than other manufacturers ? I suspect that whereas once their components were solely sourced from Western Germany, slowly but surely the supply chain became more focused on East Germany and beyond, where the labour was cheaper. A look at some of the parts produced for the OE classic range :

https://www.porsche.com/uk/accessoriesandservice/c...

shows them to be second rate tat quite frankly. A closer look reveals they're now made in Poland, The Czech Republic etc etc.

Were those Moll batteries fitted to the 996/986 really that bad ? Yes, as I suspect they were built down to a price. Probably fine if your car was daily driver, but with little or no capacity for a car left standing for 2, 3 or 4 weeks. Which reminds me, back in 2002, I left my 1.2 Vauxhall Corsa on the drive (without any form of battery conditioner) in the UK for 9 weeks whilst I toured New Zealand. The day I returned back to the UK, I jumped into it and and it started without any issues whatsoever .... go figure !!

Mezger engined 996 and 997 variants have the well documented coolant pipe fitting issues, the fittings having been quite literally glued into their receptacles. An ill thought out cost cutting exercise ? almost certainly....

I seem to recall the horn on my 996 GT2 failed and Porsche wouldn't issue a warranty without me footing the bill for a replacement .... They do seem to fail with tedious monotony. They look to be made by a company called Vemo which has subsidiaries in Shanghai and China :

Founded in 1998, VEMO® has quickly developed into one of the industry’s leading manufacturers of quality electronic vehicle parts. Started as a joint project with leading OEMs like Robert BOSCH AG and AEG Motorenwerke, the company has become famous worldwide very quickly, with customers in more than 125 countries. In more than 100 of its product groups, VEMO offers over 15,000 electrical parts and components for fuel supply and exhaust gas recirculation. Many of the company’s products feature the Q+ quality seal. It identifies vehicle parts produced to strict original quality standards. more details on - https://www.carid.com/vemo/horn.html

I think it fair to say they're cheap rubbish ....