911 Club Coupe

[Bob Gagnon]

One thing I wanted to say was that my comparison of the 911 to the Audi A8 was not meant to be an endorsement for the Audi, but a demonstration of how much you can get for less money.

Jad makes a good point on the Audi A8 weight being high despite the alloy body at over 4200 pounds. Again this illustrates how much you can get!!

Seriously, I wondered how much the alloy saved, if anything, and found this quote referring to the latest A8 in aluminum industry literature:

"Improving on the previous A8 generation's landmark aluminum spaceframe (ASF), the new model features a fully enclosed spaceframe with 60 percent higher torsional rigidity than its predecessor. The new spaceframe—a high-strength frame in to which aluminum body panels are integrated—weighs only 473 lbs., the lightest in the luxury class segment and 50 percent lighter than that of an equivalent steel body."

I guess the air suspension, automatic trans, 12 speaker stereo, heated seats all around, 16 way adjustable seats, not to mention 4 wheel drive have taken their toll in weight. Without the aluminum body the thing would probably sink into the asphalt.

[Chris Huck]

Kary - Not all drivers are the same. Nor their use of the car. One car comes in needing a new engine and it's discovered that there are numerous stage two over revs (missed down shifts.) Not covered! Another guy shifts smoothly, gently and never misses a shift no same problem. One guy doesn't maintain oil levels or change more than street recomendations, another is meticulous with this. Different results! Just 'cause of reported case x, y, z doesn't mean this is symptomatic across the board. How many other 986 or 996s are being run without problems? But same with OLD cars! Some drivers report bulletproof 914/RSAs/944's etc... others report nothing but probems. Glad to hear you're a problem free driver!

Porsche doesn't provide the battery warranty, the battery manufacturer does. The battery folks seem to feel life expectancy varies with useage so has pro-rated coverage. Seems silly to me that I expect anything to last forever. I would just pay for a new one. Same with my clutch/tires/brake pads etc...

GT3RS tells you up front you they need to rebuild the engine for you every 10 hours of use. You're ok with that?? For a street car?

PCNA has covered LOTS of repairs for tracked cars. I'm sure it's worked into the corporate bottom line. But at some point I think it's realistic to ask folks to "pay to play" UNLESS the failure was due to a DEFECT in parts or workmanship.

One guys gets 40,000 miles on a set of brake pads. Another guys needs pads in 1500 miles/3 months. Who should pay? PCNA MIGHT do a "goodwill" replacement because MAYBE they were bad pads and they don't know for sure the pads were worked hard. But they will probably tell you they SUSPECT excessive use and IF there's a next time it's on you. Not fair??

IMHO EVERY part on anything is a "consumable." It's up to me to set my own rate of consumption.

And your car was 70k car - no mods? No expenses? 'cause there's a really pretty silver 993 sitting out back right now needing a bit of TLC. It happens.

[kary]

Kary - Not all drivers are the same. Nor their use of the car. One car comes in needing a new engine and it's discovered that there are numerous stage two over revs (missed down shifts.) Not covered! Another guy shifts smoothly, gently and never misses a shift no same problem. One guy doesn't maintain oil levels or change more than street recomendations, another is meticulous with this. Different results! Just 'cause of reported case x, y, z doesn't mean this is symptomatic across the board. How many other 986 or 996s are being run without problems? But same with OLD cars! Some drivers report bulletproof 914/RSAs/944's etc... others report nothing but probems. Glad to hear you're a problem free driver!

Porsche doesn't provide the battery warranty, the battery manufacturer does. The battery folks seem to feel life expectancy varies with useage so has pro-rated coverage. Seems silly to me that I expect anything to last forever. I would just pay for a new one. Same with my clutch/tires/brake pads etc...

GT3RS tells you up front you they need to rebuild the engine for you every 10 hours of use. You're ok with that?? For a street car?

PCNA has covered LOTS of repairs for tracked cars. I'm sure it's worked into the corporate bottom line. But at some point I think it's realistic to ask folks to "pay to play" UNLESS the failure was due to a DEFECT in parts or workmanship.

One guys gets 40,000 miles on a set of brake pads. Another guys needs pads in 1500 miles/3 months. Who should pay? PCNA MIGHT do a "goodwill" replacement because MAYBE they were bad pads and they don't know for sure the pads were worked hard. But they will probably tell you they SUSPECT excessive use and IF there's a next time it's on you. Not fair??

IMHO EVERY part on anything is a "consumable." It's up to me to set my own rate of consumption.

And your car was 70k car - no mods? No expenses? 'cause there's a really pretty silver 993 sitting out back right now needing a bit of TLC. It happens.

Chris, you bring up some interesting points about drivers and their wear and tear. Must be difficult to determine what is happening. Though Mike's steering rack really is not abuse nor worn out, at least with the recent replacement, though I do not really know what the rules are on this one. I suppose the rule is you provided goodwill for one replacement, now Mike is done with any help with this defect when driven hard. Brake pads, did not know you had warranty on brake pads. Thought it was a consumable item.

My questions still stand about the comparison of price and quality of a GT3 to older pre996 cars. I do not seem to get any answers to this question. I would like to understand if this comparison is fair or am I missing something?

Also, the silver 993 in your back lot I know well. I pushed it up on a trailer and watched it be loaded on a tow truck twice of three times the immobilizer system has failed in the last year and half. As I understand the last time, the last auto-x a few weeks ago, it failed again only three or four months later after being replaced and reprogrammed before. There is no abuse with this car, just a problem that has not been diagnosed correctly which is clear when three units are requiring replacement. Yes, it happens, but now we are talking about fixing something properly versus quality and reliability.

Not sure what your reference about no mods or expenses means. I do not see the relationship. All cars need normal maintenance and modifications are extra anyway. What is the point here?

Chris, bottomline here is Porsche seems to be in a difficult position. People like to drive Porsche's hard and have fun, not all folks, but quite a few do. Now the cars might not be a problem free nor endurance clad as they once were. Porsche now has to deal with many issues that they did not have to before or had very infrequent issues amounting to just defects, not confusion about use of the car. Makes for a very confusing discussion no matter what side of the fence you are on, wouldn't you agree?

I like the 997 quite a bit, might even buy one, but not until I actually understand what the issues are and how much Porsche will stand behind it, though mine would likely be a 997 GT3, hopefully it has the quality and reliability of my old 993, otherwise I would be very disappointed. I cannot make that leap forward unless I understand Porsche's stance and backing, as well as the parts used, right now it is somewhat confusing to say the least, at least for me.

[Chris Huck]

I appreciate your taking the time to see the "other side" of this discussion. Parts have been pretty general and others quite specific.

re: Mikes' steering rack, my understanding is simply that the factory rack and peripherals were designed for street tires and the slicks make it work harder than it was designed to. The first one lasted xxxxx miles and xxx driving events. I expect the replacement to withstand the same useage. Can we call this another consumable?

price v/s quality - Colin Chapman thought a car should fall apart the minute it crossed the finish line. Was that a wrong persepective? Or just a different perspective? I suspect making it last longer would be more expensive, but knowing exactly how strong it needed to be would be even more expensive! I'm confident the current cars are designed to last longer than I'm willing to keep it so I'm not at all worried here. (I had my last two cars 7 years/90k miles and 4 years/70k miles concurrently.)

The 993 almost put Porsche out of business. Sales were sluggish at best despite the fact that it was the perfect car for a small number of people. The 986, 996, 987, 997 were designed and redesigned to appeal to the largest number of buyers possible. And the reception has been tremendous! MANY of my customers have had a flawless ownership experience. Some few others have needed TLC. This applies to 993-997 cars. Things happen.

I don't think WE will be able to resolve the quality & reliability question here. JD Powers keeps track of this though and the current cars have received very positive reviews. Of course they only monitor cars for a limited number of years and most results are based on street use only.

My point with the silver car was more that it's known the issue is not driving related but electrical. Not abused just faulty. Again, things happen. It obviously needs to be figured out. Pretty nice that genuine Porsche Parts have a 2 year warranty. I only brought up this case as it was starting to sound like the 993 was a bulletproof car but it had it's share of gremlins too.

I can't say a 964, 993, 996 or 997 was better or worse (with reliability or quality) than any of the others as they have all had their good and bad. (My '92 968 sure wasn't perfect!) But the newer cars keep out performing, out handling, out accelerating and out comforting the older cars. And more features/toys too!

Others in this thread have already pointed out the prices haven't gone up much in the past xx years. That can't be said about most other cars!

Sounds like all this equals a good value to me! That's why I bought an '05 myself! I'm also confident Porsche will stand behind it, and I think I outlined that pretty well. No? Ask more specific questions if needed.

And come on by for a test drive too! I actually have a Carrera S with sport chrono to drive. I'm confident you will be impressed!

[sean996]

I agree numerous type II overshifts is reason to "flag" or not honor warranties, but two individual instances?

When I specifically asked if I had type II'd my car, I was always told I had not.

P got there first type II data in April 2004, the second incident was not until December 2004 during an oil consumption analysis in which several P people had told me to drive the crap out of the car and try and get it to burn oil!!!

I had the car in the dealer 5 times about the smoking and 3 rear main seal leaks. The whole time P was acting like I was making the smoking problem up and the RMS was a fluke . . . like no one ever experiences this problem, and then at arbitration they informed me of the oil system upgrade that's available that voids the warranty (and the type II's, and the pages of the warranty booklet that refer to participating in competition events) . . . after the arbitration I called a couple of dealers to get a cost on this upgrade and they didn't know anything about any oil system upgrade . . . just pathetic!!!

Now in defense of the 996, I know a guy that has a couple of street GT3's, TWO 959's (one of which is the only 959S in the country supposedly), and a couple of cup cars . . . oh yeah, and a Stradale which he likes more than the Carrera GT he "passed on". He actually thinks the 996 is better for track use (for us poor people) . . . why? In his opinion, it's easier to bite the bullet on a $7500 engine for a 996 than $20-$30k for your GT3 engine (or gearbox) when P says no to warranty claims.

Just my experiences.

Sean

[MikeD]

re: Mikes' steering rack, my understanding is simply that the factory rack and peripherals were designed for street tires and the slicks make it work harder than it was designed to. The first one lasted xxxxx miles and xxx driving events. I expect the replacement to withstand the same useage. Can we call this another consumable?

Since we are going public with the details of my lack of warranty, let gets the facts straight. I have not run "slicks" on my car Chris, EVER! The tires that were on the car when it went to service were Toyo RA-1's. I now run V710's, but those did not go on the car until after my warranty was revoked!

So you're saying that no 986, 996, 987, or 997 can run a sticky STREET tire without running into issues with their warranty claims? Your service manager (Larry, is that his name?) doesn't know this sport and if he is going to be calling shots like that he should take the time to learn the difference between a slick and a performance street tire!

Also, your service manager told me that anything to do with the steering is no longer covered. Nor is anything to do with the suspension. Nor will they even look at problems associated with the drive train. That leaves me with what to be covered by the factory warranty? Electrical? Doubtful as I have a cutoff switch and they will likely use that as an excuse to not cover any electrical problems. So what, exactly is my warranty going to cover?

BTW, your service manager also pulled out a Witness an attempted to show me spinning out as evidence that I abuse the car. I was puzzled as I had not spun at a PCA event in a long time. Turns out it was the yellow GT3 which was going to wrong way on the track (and it did not take much intelligence or deductive reasoning to figure it out). But even still. If Pioneer is going to use the Witness as evidence against PCA members there seems to be only 2 solutions. 1) tell Greg to not put any pictures of cars with warranties in the Witness or, 2) explore legal channels to disallow Pioneer (and PCNA) access to the PCA (and other club) publications. Which would you suggest?

A little birdy also told me that your general manager said (of my car): "What the hell is THAT car doing in our service bays? Get it out of here as soon as possible."

So either by Pioneer Centers or PCNA (you tell me which) my warranty has been revoked. Whatever the computer says doesn't matter, as the result is that I have no warranty anymore. Up until my last service visit with Pioneer I could not sing the dealerships praises loud enough (heck, I even volunteered to run with Pioneer Centers stickers on my car for FREE). Is the now, bad blood worth a $500 steering rack? I guess only your general manager would know. Am I going to sue, or go to arbitration? No. I don't work that way. I just take my money elsewhere. Will you miss it, doubtful, so it has an absolute zero net effect. But I will feel better about my purchase decision.

All that aside, and you may find this interesting. I learned just a few weeks ago (hanging out with the Nor Cal folks) that PMNA has a 3/4" bushing they add to lowered 996's with race alignments to bring the steering geometry back to where is should be. However, PMNA will not even TALK about the Boxster (and I have tried). Even if your service techs would have known about the existence of the part they would not have been able to get it for my car because PMNA would have hung up on them as soon as they heard the word Boxster. But that's assuming your techs would have known about the part, which is doubtful as is has been sent from on High (PCNA) that the Boxster is not supposed to be raced or tracked. And with all the parts replacing, they still didn't solve the problem, Chris. I did (well actually Jae did) with a little help from Rennlist. So this steering rack and componentry will last, but not due to anything Porsche did or said.

So in answer to Kary's question about what is covered and what is not. You will surely not have to face the issues that I have faced Kary. The GT3 is a 911 not a Boxster and PCNA is far more forgiving with 911's.

Am I angry about this? Yup. Am I biased about this? Yup! So read into this your own conclusions.

[Bob Gagnon]

Chris-

I let the mention of the cupholders as a metric of sports car value get by in two of your posts without commenting, but then you mentioned the Sport Chrono Package and I've lost it.

The Sport Chrono Package is to me the epitomy of the new mentality at Porsche. An expensive completely dorky looking timer presumably for "lap times" that resides in the center of the dash as supposedly a "track ready" feature. To me it is a useless testemony to a racing past. If you have time to push a button during your laps, you probably don't want to know the time anyway.

But what gets me most about the Sport Chrono Package is the fact that Porsche uses this as a high dollar excuse to reprogram the electronic throttle for "better throttle response". Let's see, better throttle response, which is no more than a change in a line of computer code in the E-Gas computer, sells for over a thousand bucks and includes the dorky timer. If you want quick throttle response you gotta pay more? Talk about an insult to the sports car customer IMHO.

While we are talking about so-called performance options, why does PCNA keep the 997 European sports suspension out of the USA? This is the suspension that lowers the car 20 mm has stiffer springs, shocks and stab bars and includes a good old plate type limited slip differential in the package. Perfect for the weekend autocrosser and Porsche driver as opposed to a Porsche Poser in a parade float equivalent that has a dorky clock on the dash.

Please don't point out to me that we have the PASM suspension which lowers the car 10 mm and comes with wonderful electronic shock absorbers instead, they have this available in Europe too. It can't be because the car would be too low, since the GT3 was lower than this option.

I know you by your own admission are not a technical guy, and you are more interested in cupholders, stereos, and other "standard features" than performance stuff, but thought you might have heard something about the sports suspension gap between here and Europe.

[Chris Huck]

Mike - and that's why 3rd party testimony is not admissable in court ;^) I obviously got a few details wrong. I apologize.

The gist is simply non-factory recomended tires overtaxed the steering box.

I just triple checked and verified that your warranty is NOT voided. Components impacted by aftermarket mods won't be covered by the warranty but that's always been the case.

All that said, I'm still moving forward with a new suspension for my 987S (from MOM) and really looking forward to it!

[Chris Huck]

Bob - OTOH I really like the "sport" mode on my 987S and have it engaged most of the time I'm driving. But OFF when in stop & go traffic. While I wouldn't want it on ALL the time. it does make the car just a tad more responsive and fun when on. But on my 2001 M3 it made the car too edgy for me. I never used it. BMW included it in the selling price of the car but I would have preferred to save that money. While I wouldn't pay extra for the stop watch on the dash I do like the way it looks but that's just me. I did opt to pay the $920 extra for the package on my car. It's nice as a salesman that my customers can get the car the way THEY want, not the way a manufacturer insisted on making it.

Same with the PASM. It's the customers' choice. At first I thought it was too stiff with PASM in sport mode so didn't spend the money. Now I'm wishing I had of gotten it except that at only 10mm lower I would have wanted even lower. So what will I do? Have MOM put in an even more expensive suspension! Go figure!

I don't why PCNA doesn't offer the ROW spings but plenty of customers have added them to their cars over the years. Or H&R springs. My understanding has always been crash test related.

And FWIW I'm not totally thrilled with the new cup holders. They're too high IMHO. I added new ones from ultimatecupholders.com and am much happier now thank you LOL They're at floor height so I don't spill my coffee anymore ;^)

[David Ray]

First, Chris, really nice car, good luck in the new Porsche. Big step up from the Spec-944 (which you were very competitive in). I’m sure you’ll be in the TTOD with the GT3.

Secondly, this is a great post, lots of looks, and before long it's soon to be the most popular post on the site. Maybe we ought to post the entire transcript of "Excellence was Expected". Karl would be flabbergasted at all the pundits in the club. You could have helped him update the 2003 Edition.

Lastly, was the 917 so successful because of its drivers or because it delivered 1million RHP and 1million lbs. of torque? Or “Their 917 was poised to roar off its motor-show ramp through a huge loophole in the FIA rulebook toward total dominance of sport-car racing by Porsche.” ?

[Bob Gagnon]

Chris H.-

I would advise your customers that if they are interested in any true sports suspension that they perhaps go with the standard suspension and install the European sports parts (or others) as an aftermarket installation rather than PASM. They still won't have the limited slip differential the Europeans get

I understand that the PASM system "looks for" the electric shocks and if they are not wired in, the car won't run. IF (big if-I don't know), this is true, or not easily correctable, then it would be very difficult to install an aftermarket suspension of any type-factory or otherwise- and the customer will be unhappy.

I still think the throttle response switch should be standard equipment in the car, if anything. It costs Porsche $.02 for the switch.

I still don't understand how one can buy a high dollar leather interior, etc and then actually drive with a cup of coffee in the car without worry. I guess I can't shift smoothly enough

Chris B.-

Since for some reason the GT3 picture will not show with my browser, it took me a while to note you bought a GT3.

Congratulations on a good decision, it will be fun to see it go.

I hope Porsche continues to make cars like the GT3 for those of us who appreciate Porsches built by "track racers' rather than "sales racers".

That's it for me, I will post no more, this thread is too long and rambling as it is to go into why the 917 took a development competition between Porsche Salzburg and John Wyer Engineering to make it successful....