Chris Huck wrote: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car when it went to service were Toyo RA-1's. I now run V710's, but those did not go on the car until after my warranty was revoked!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So either by Pioneer Centers or PCNA (you tell me which) my warranty has been revoked.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.