I know that time is money...and I will probably not fight them over the bill, but I just hate knowing that I paid for them to potentially really screw my car up.

DOES ANYONE MIND IF I USE THE POSTS IN MY LETTER TO PCNA AND THE DEALER?

NO NAMES WILL BE USED...

Thanks everyone!

 

work takes me to lots of different parts here in the uk and inevitably i call at different porsche shops for odds and ends, ive learnt that they are not the place to go for any kind of mechanical work unless its very simple and theres no one else around. they charge a lot and arent familiar with the 928, mostly. also there workshops are less and less set-up for anything other than plug and play modular swapping.

 

just so this isn't a completely negative thread i've got to say that my experience with the porsche dealership in Glasgow has been fine! They really like and know their 928's inside out. I was in their workshop about a year ago and there were 4 928's on the ramps.

Yup, they charged like a wounded rhino, but the work was always top quality and done on schedule. At the time I didn't have either the facilities or the time to any major work on the car so this was a viable alternative.

Also, once I was doing more of my own work the Porsche parts department gave me a considerable discount on parts and put a lot of effort into tracking down hard to find items. YMMV.

Cheers
DaveW

 

Not quite
A good mechanic will find the problem eventually, but all problems I’ve had looked into started with a base quote. If you allocate $100 for diagnose time – you are only giving the mechanics 1 – 1 ½ hours to diagnose. If it’s not found in that time, you don’t get your $100 back. That mechanics time is worth something. If you say find it no matter what, be prepared to pay the price. If it takes the mechanics 10 hours to find the problem, you better expect to pay for 10 hours worth of labor, then additional labor to fix the problem.
You also have to allocate for multiple problems on almost any issue.

Take my Audi – AC didn’t work when I bought it, I decided to get it fixed. They pressurized the system, test it etc…..
The compressor was pissing out whatever they put it.
Mucho $$$ later, replaced the compressor, life is good, I have cold air.
A few days go buy, AC is no longer blowing cold air. I go back to the shop, they start over, pressurize the system etc….. guess what, some hose fitting is now leaking. This connection is no where near the compressor.
Few more $$$ later, I have A/C again.
Did the mechanic screw up the first time? No.
I have friends that felt I should not have paid for the 2nd diagnoses & testing.
Why?
It’s not the mechanics fault I’m driving a 15 year old car – it’s also not his fault that hose fitting waited a few days to start leaking.

 

I tend to agree with Dave & Erik. My is about the double-rated fuse and not owning up to the fact that the problem was neither found nor fixed.

 

The point about charging for LOOKING for a problem.... trouble shooting a car is kind of like when you misplace the keys to your car.....first you check the obvious ,pants pocket, coat pockets, table next to the door, then you blame your wife , next you look at the less obvious places , garage work bench, dinning room table, driveway next to the car ( accuse the kids)......maybe you eventually find them under the cushion of your favorite TV chair(apologize to the wife and kids). Now if you had by chance FIRST looked under the cushion of the chair you would have solved the problem very quickly BUT that would have been somewhat illogical. That is the dilemma of trouble shooting it can take hours and hours to find something which maybe takes 15 minutes to fix once you find it. The more time that is spent looking the more unhappy the customer is going to be if they do not FIX IT . Like when you really have lost the keys ! Throwing in a bigger fuse is however not acceptable.

 

No kidding.
If they were real experts, they would have used a jumper wire to connect the leads and dropped the fuse alltogether.