matttheboatman

I'm in the luxury business and have learned a lot about customer expectations. Things do go wrong, and yes it is an opportunity to shine. The most important thing is to under promise, then do everything possible to over deliver. I think that is Porsche's approach. Lets face it, they are German and not very good at hand-holding. Americans want answers and fixes now. Germans don't car about that. Typically, they only care about getting fixes done properly with proper engineering. They want to be Right, way more than Liked.

I have discovered that the best way to operating in the luxury business is to:
1st - charge a lot for your product or service and have enough profit to correct future problems,
2nd, really listen to your customer's complaint without regard of how correct or incorrect they may be,
3rd, do whatever you can to lower the customer's expectation of the future resolution, and finally
4th) do whatever it takes, and spend whatever amount necessary to make the product or service right.

The people who abuse your kindness, know they are taking advantage of you and will tell many others that you were good to them, ultimately leading to more profits.
The people who don't let you fix the problem, will tell many others how bad you were - BUT they will get a lot of push back from people who know your reputation and pretty soon will realize that they are the problem, not your company.

Porsche just needs to focus on getting the fix done correctly, then do the right thing by paying for any inconveniences the failure has caused its customers. In the end, if the car has a reputation of holding together everyone wins, and if not, we all loose.

UncleDude

Well I’m the exact opposite, I care more about the mechanical integrity than group-think forum chatter.

Jeff Jones

Who knows...maybe the Spyder will be my forever...okay, I can’t even finish that with a straight face, I know myself too well. When it comes time to move on and fall in love with the next one, the Spyder will get traded in to a dealer and they won’t even think about this issue. I’m worried about lost driving time while waiting for the car to arrive and how invasive the fix is going to be. I do trust Porsche to fix this right...they aren’t going to allow hack jobs on a rebuild like this that would come back on them 10x. I just want my damn car and don’t want to delay arrival by a month or two. Such a tease.

987SCoupe

I can appreciate your thinking. My first p-car was a one-owner 944 Turbo that I bought from an old man who treated himself to a nice retirement gift. It made me think someday I'll buy a "forever" car to grow old with me, but I guess I'm just not that person. Still, that was definitely on my mind when I spec'd out my CGTS and leaned "touring" as opposed to "sport" in its look and feel. Still keeping an open mind, so we'll see.

Archimedes

You said that you never saw anything damaged by a thrown rod that wasn't attached to the engine. What do you call the entire car burning to the ground? If you throw a rod, there is a very real risk of a fire, and fire in a car is very dangerous.

You love to make stupid comments on this forum and then change your statement once someone calls you on it. Driving a car that is likely to throw a rod is risky and stupid. Now if the risk is crazy low and Porsche is just being super careful, that's another story.

Zhao

No, I think you just make assumptions on context that let you start a back and forth with someone, which you clearly enjoy. As do I. Like now, you're trying to add 'continuing to drive the car is not risky and not stupid' to my argument. I never said anything of the sort. The exact line I was responding to was this "I’m no forensic scientist, but I would imaging that having a rod blow at high speeds could be fatal." so my comment about what gets damaged was about where the metal goes when an engine blows. Didn't even enter my mind someone would assume I overlooked fire because fire isn't really possible to cause death when an engine blows in a mass produced street car so there'd be no reason to factor that in to my answer. You'd have to create a situation where you can't get out of the car to die from it, because it takes minutes for fire to enter the cabin, while it only takes seconds to get out (I've had two engine fires myself in a street car so I've seen first hand what happens).

It be super easy twist what you mean as well, like when you say 'there is a very real risk of a fire, and fire in a car is very dangerous'... But I can give you the benefit of the doubt that you know there is always a fire when a rod leaves a block (but does it find a fuel source or not when the gas supply stops?) and that you're talking about car fires in general being very dangerous, not engine fires caused by them grenading.

sanderabernathy

If there’s a 5% chance of throwing a rod and a 5% chance of a fire resulting from a thrown rod and a 5% chance that an occupant will be killed by any fire, the chance of fatality is 0.0125% which is lower than the 100% chance of you looking like a jerk calling people stupid for twisting what they say and misconstruing their point.

Knotty Skink

Deleted

ausgang

I have a question related to recent speculations on resolution of the connecting rod/bolt issue:

It has been suggested (speculated) that the likely solution to the connecting rod/bolt issue will be removal and replacement of engines. If that is what is going to take place, would this not affect the accuracy of the information on the data plates? This will be my first modern-era (non air-cooled) Porsche, so I'm not familiar with the current Porsche practices for documenting on data plates the engine that was assigned to a given chassis.

All of my older cars have data plates that record the matching engine number that belongs in the car. Even my '69 240Z has such a data plate. So -- perhaps current owners could enlighten me on whether modern Porsches have data plates that record the original engine ID number and Chassis Number. Presumably, somebody at PAG would also have to update the new engine numbers in their database for authenticity purposes as well?

zedcat

My understanding is the chassis no is the VIN. It's recorded under the windscreen on the drivers side lower edge. It's also etched in the floor pan interior on the passenger side. There is a flap in the carpet. There is also an adhesive tag with vin, build monthand some other data in the drivers side door sill. The engine number is on a small adhesive sticker in the back. On the Caymans from memory it is on the inside edge of the hatch. For GT3s it's on the inside edge of the engine cover. For 991.1 GT3s with engine replacements the tag is supposed to be replaced with the new engine number. Certainly PAG will have complete history in their digital records.

Knotty Skink

I just received my letter from PCNA. Did anyone else get theirs?

sassdouille

Mentioned in the other thread
https://rennlist.com/forums/718-gts-...l#post17340646

SGPioso

I also got a direct call from PCNA two weeks after taking delivery of my Cayman GTS. I'm a first time Porsche buyer (very unlikely to become a repeat customer) so they are def not calling VIPs.

I've been hastling with a number of folks from Porsche and just got an email from Porsche Cars North America...which sounds pretty far from making me whole again.

So to be clear, I took delivery on March 14th, drove it for a week, had to take it to a service department due to issues with the instrument cluster electronics, was informed the same day that my car was unsafe to drive, spent another week figuring out whether the call from PCNA was a scam, had my new car dash taken apart twice to fix the aforementioned electronic issue and now, Porsche thinks I should be happy waiting until May to replace my engine (with <400 miles) in exchange for maybe a loaner car and $1k track day voucher!!!!???

I'm very disappointed with PCNA and their attempt to make themselves lemonade from the lemon they sold me.

beeker

The whole reason behind buying the car was so I could track it, and now it looks like there will be no track season. So what options do I have if I haven't taken delivery? Foreseeably, they're not going to offer a car to track, and they're not likely to offer any discount or other compensation for this inconvenience. This was the first time I've ever ordered a build to spec vehicle. Can I just bail? Can I get my refund back?

zedcat

I would say check your paper work as to any specific terms and contact your dealer on whether you can get any deposit back. Also deposits may be governed by state law. I understand in some states deposits must be refundable. It may end up affecting getting future allocations for GTs though.