McLarens & Reliability

[Matty3]

andrew said:

unusual diet for ducks

Shouldn't laugh - but I did

[LotusJas]

Geoffrey 321 said:

I've been tempted to order a 720S a few times, however, the 'perceived' reliability plus the fact I'm 130 miles from the nearest dealer puts me off even with the large dealer contribution.

They do look a fantastic car and the only thing that could tear me away from Porsche GT products.

I'm fairly distant from the nearest dealer too, and in fact bought from a farther dealer again (better service).

Distance has not been an issue for me at all. The car has been back with them once for post-delivery items, and they collected & returned it in a covered transporter free.

[Ferruccio]

I was followed by a McLaren, in a lovely pale blue colour, the other night on the A3 for over a mile.
It didn’t breakdown at all.
It had lights on and it’s indicator worked, as it turned off onto the M25.

[MadMacMcMad]

I am glad they seem to have their build quality resolved. I had a new 540C and it was awful.
6 new panels due to corrosion, shock absorber, parking break, heating/aircon, drivers window going down and not up, locked in the car, washer bottle with a hole, speaker fail,

So issues do exist but they seem to be concentrated on a few cars!
Anyway I was compensated by McL (not enough) and sold at my loss.... This all happened in 12 months. I then spent best part of a year trying to offload it. Never again!

The general theme on this thread seems to be dismiss the issues as minimal and acceptable. Not to me. On a new McLaren! it ruined my desire for what is supposed to be premium brands.

So, go into ownership with your eyes open and make sure you buy extended warranty.

[davek_964]

I've commented a couple of McLaren threads : I'd love to own one, but (even if they're reliable) most people seem to think you must have the warranty and the cost of that + service costs + depreciation meant the running costs were simply an order of magnitude more than my reliable, relatively cheap to run, mostly appreciating (although not in the last 2 years) 360. As a result I concluded that I'd never own one.
However.........

Last weekend - literally 40 minutes after collecting the 360 from a £1,250 service - the variable cam actuator failed. A known weak point on 360s apparently - although an upgraded part was fitted as part of a service bulletin, and mine had been upgraded in July 2004.

I'm sure most of you can imagine what happens when a variable cam actuator fails. From a driving perspective, it was simply loss of power - I changed from 3rd to 4th, put my foot down and nothing happened. From an ownership perspective - I now need an engine rebuild. It hasn't been stripped down yet, but I have had a ballpark estimate and - let's say, the running costs for a McLaren (with a warranty!) aren't looking so bad now.

Obviously the 360 is a lot older than the McLarens, and isn't really competing with them - although price wise, a manual 360 isn't all that far behind an early 12C these days. But it seems even the competition are not a paragon of reliability - even though I would have claimed mine was a week ago.

I will certainly give more serious thought to trying a McLaren when I get the 360 back. Although I've had 5.5 years of happy ownership, I'm not sure how I feel about a known weakness in the engine - it will feel like I'm driving around with a ticking time bomb. So perhaps it will be time to try something new.

Although whether I can afford to move to McLaren after paying for a Ferrari engine rebuild is questionable!

[IMI A]

davek_964 said:

I've commented a couple of McLaren threads : I'd love to own one, but (even if they're reliable) most people seem to think you must have the warranty and the cost of that + service costs + depreciation meant the running costs were simply an order of magnitude more than my reliable, relatively cheap to run, mostly appreciating (although not in the last 2 years) 360. As a result I concluded that I'd never own one.
However.........

Last weekend - literally 40 minutes after collecting the 360 from a £1,250 service - the variable cam actuator failed. A known weak point on 360s apparently - although an upgraded part was fitted as part of a service bulletin, and mine had been upgraded in July 2004.

I'm sure most of you can imagine what happens when a variable cam actuator fails. From a driving perspective, it was simply loss of power - I changed from 3rd to 4th, put my foot down and nothing happened. From an ownership perspective - I now need an engine rebuild. It hasn't been stripped down yet, but I have had a ballpark estimate and - let's say, the running costs for a McLaren (with a warranty!) aren't looking so bad now.

Obviously the 360 is a lot older than the McLarens, and isn't really competing with them - although price wise, a manual 360 isn't all that far behind an early 12C these days. But it seems even the competition are not a paragon of reliability - even though I would have claimed mine was a week ago.

I will certainly give more serious thought to trying a McLaren when I get the 360 back. Although I've had 5.5 years of happy ownership, I'm not sure how I feel about a known weakness in the engine - it will feel like I'm driving around with a ticking time bomb. So perhaps it will be time to try something new.

Although whether I can afford to move to McLaren after paying for a Ferrari engine rebuild is questionable!

Bad luck mate. Is there a possibility of improving the engine for a few more horses on rebuild and maybe addressing some of those known weaknesses? Very interesting car the 360 IMO. I love it looks wise though build quality always felt a bit patchy.

[12pack]

Wow a 360 owner being concerned about reliability - who would have thought

Sorry for being snippy and I'm sure individual cases vary - but that was the worst period for me in performance car ownership. I've only had my Mac a trouble free 4 months, which is 4x longer than my Fezza experience with issues. My SO used to comment that it was that time of the month for the car .

[davek_964]

IMI A said:

Bad luck mate. Is there a possibility of improving the engine for a few more horses on rebuild and maybe addressing some of those known weaknesses? Very interesting car the 360 IMO. I love it looks wise though build quality always felt a bit patchy.

Thanks.

It's always felt fairly solid to me - but clearly not as solid as I thought.

Actually - on the subject of other marques reliability - I used to frequent the Porsche forum (996 turbo) - think your 997 turbo went bang a few years back? But if I remember correctly, at least Porsche covered it after a fairly long argument.

[davek_964]

12pack said:

Wow a 360 owner being concerned about reliability - who would have thought

Sorry for being snippy and I'm sure individual cases vary - but that was the worst period for me in performance car ownership. I've only had my Mac a trouble free 4 months, which is 4x longer than my Fezza experience with issues. My SO used to comment that it was that time of the month for the car .

In the time I've owned it, I'd say it's been very reliable. Obviously this is a big negative against it, but generally it is (or was) very reliable. Overall, I'd say they are reliable cars - but (and I suppose it's true of most high performance stuff) if it does break, it can break very badly....

[IMI A]

davek_964 said:

IMI A said:

Bad luck mate. Is there a possibility of improving the engine for a few more horses on rebuild and maybe addressing some of those known weaknesses? Very interesting car the 360 IMO. I love it looks wise though build quality always felt a bit patchy.

Thanks.

It's always felt fairly solid to me - but clearly not as solid as I thought.

Actually - on the subject of other marques reliability - I used to frequent the Porsche forum (996 turbo) - think your 997 turbo went bang a few years back? But if I remember correctly, at least Porsche covered it after a fairly long argument.

Yep lost an engine but its always been driven like I stole it which seemed to bother herr obermeister fuhrer - been fine over the last 30 odd thousand miles since 9e have looked after her - now on 87k and going strong on new engine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uKOqutlLV8

[davek_964]

IMI A said:

Yep lost an engine but its always been driven like I stole it which seemed to bother herr obermeister fuhrer - been fine over the last 30 odd thousand miles since 9e have looked after her - now on 87k and going strong on new engine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uKOqutlLV8

That looks very impressive.

(I might also have driven the 360 like I stole it a lot of the time, but feel this has no correlation to the engine failure.....)

[The Surveyor]

davek_964 said:

…..

Although whether I can afford to move to McLaren after paying for a Ferrari engine rebuild is questionable!

Gutted for you, its never nice to hear about somebodies pride-and-joy suffering such a failure.

There is a really good thread running about a guy having an engine rebuild on his Lamborghini Gallardo after it ingested part of the cats, he's using a well respected Indy and is taking the opportunity to tidy up the engine bay so the car will come back both healthier and smarter. I'd be interested to read a thread about your experiences with the 360.

Hope you get it sorted without too much financial pain

[macdeb]

LotusJas said:

Sorry, guys I took my McLaren out and did have an issue!

It started to run out of fuel, and I had to visit a petrol station to sort out the issue by refuelling it

I suspect all McLarens have this problem!

My trousers have had a moment.

[LotusJas]

macdeb said:

My trousers have had a moment.

LOL..... blame McLaren for that too

[LotusJas]

On the reliability point, it's also relevant to mention the various 720S that have been doing repeated launch control runs on sticky tyres on US drag strips, and not missing a beat.


The engine, gearbox, drivetrain is over engineered on the 720S and appear to be pretty bullet proof.

[Superleg48]

LotusJas said:

The engine, gearbox, drivetrain is over engineered on the 720S and appear to be pretty bullet proof.

Over Engineered. One of my favourite oxymorons.

[LotusJas]

Superleg48 said:

Over Engineered. One of my favourite oxymorons.

Not at all.

Colin Chapman's approach to his race cars is a perfectly example of "perfectly engineered". He wanted his race cars to minimise weight to such an extent that they should theoretically cross the line, and then break. Obviously a joke, but you get the sentiment behind it.

[Ingenere]

davek_964 said:

I've commented a couple of McLaren threads : I'd love to own one, but (even if they're reliable) most people seem to think you must have the warranty and the cost of that + service costs + depreciation meant the running costs were simply an order of magnitude more than my reliable, relatively cheap to run, mostly appreciating (although not in the last 2 years) 360. As a result I concluded that I'd never own one.
However.........

Last weekend - literally 40 minutes after collecting the 360 from a £1,250 service - the variable cam actuator failed. A known weak point on 360s apparently - although an upgraded part was fitted as part of a service bulletin, and mine had been upgraded in July 2004.

I'm sure most of you can imagine what happens when a variable cam actuator fails. From a driving perspective, it was simply loss of power - I changed from 3rd to 4th, put my foot down and nothing happened. From an ownership perspective - I now need an engine rebuild. It hasn't been stripped down yet, but I have had a ballpark estimate and - let's say, the running costs for a McLaren (with a warranty!) aren't looking so bad now.

Obviously the 360 is a lot older than the McLarens, and isn't really competing with them - although price wise, a manual 360 isn't all that far behind an early 12C these days. But it seems even the competition are not a paragon of reliability - even though I would have claimed mine was a week ago.

I will certainly give more serious thought to trying a McLaren when I get the 360 back. Although I've had 5.5 years of happy ownership, I'm not sure how I feel about a known weakness in the engine - it will feel like I'm driving around with a ticking time bomb. So perhaps it will be time to try something new.

Although whether I can afford to move to McLaren after paying for a Ferrari engine rebuild is questionable!

Sorry to hear about your failure. I've has my Challenge Stradale for 9 years and since I do most of the maintenance myself, it has been inexpensive to run. There have been a couple of odd problems along the way, but nothing that can't be fixed. Plus, the fact that it has appreciated at least 2.5X what I paid, it's all good.

The 570S is so good, that I have thought more than a few times about selling, but the CS is better than money in the bank.

Good luck with the rebuild. You'll get her running again and it will put a smile on your face again. If you can add a 570, the grin will be bigger!

[bunyarra]

Many, many miles around the Lake District and Yorkshire Moors with the owners club, "spirited" driving and have to report loads of problems ... we had to full up the owner serviceable fuel tanks at least twice a day. Shocking of McLaren. More joined for the next few days and, still, not one niggle. I have also learned (yeah, noob), that track suspension mode really does help stop grounding!

Well, there was also a stone through the radiator for one GT owner but that's just poor luck.



Stunning machines.

Edited by bunyarra on Monday 8th April 11:50

[andrew]

^ still got issues trying to get the doors to shut properly then