worf928

Ok now you've done it H. The 928 Karma God's gonna smite you.

You've just brought down Hell and Damnation on your 928. Repaint, repaint. And thin no more!

worf928

Thanks Dave.

heinrich

DaveC I'm shocked, all I can say is:

worf928

You can run. But you can't hide. The 928 Karma God's gonna git ya..

heinrich

He already did Dude ... now it's my turn

H2

Andrew,

The only way you could have more 928 fun is to have THREE (3) of them! You have the red one...now you need a Great White like Heinrich, Ed and others...then a patiotic blue car.

I'm getting cabin fever....Darvon/Darvecet....whatever it was itl does pretty good. On my first dose I passed out in the emergency room. But I got a pulse back and am now on Hydrodone or some such nonsense.

I gotta get better so I get get back in the garage and quit worrying about the Chinese making a cheap 928...and bidding on too much stuff on eBay. I hope I'm still solvent when the meds wear off. I don't dare do critical work on the car in this condition. Last time I was doing that I installed a mustang steering box onto a '32 Plymouth street rod...and when I went to take a test spin around the block, and I turned the steering wheel left...the tires went right, visa versa. just for giggles I went around the block anyway. Wow, that was difficult. I will never try to drive in countries that drive on the other side of the road.

Where was I? Oh...working on eBay.

Do you take blood offerings at the 928 Shrine? When I get the tools out, I'll be ready to donate.

Harvello

H2

Worf makes some good points...

H2

Andrew,

The only way you could have more 928 fun is to have THREE (3) of them! You already have the red one...now you need a Great White like Heinrich, Ed and others...then a patiotic blue car. I don't know anyone with that assemblage.

I'm getting major cabin fever....Darvon/Darvecet....whatever it was it's does the pain trick (are those Cherubs flying around my bed??). On my first dose I passed out in the emergency room. Young nurse about peed. But I got a pulse back and am now on Hydrocodone or some such nonsense that makes typing a bit fuzzy so my posts will be shorter.

I gotta get better so I get get back in the garage and quit worrying about the Chinese making a cheap 928...and bidding on too much stuff on eBay. I hope I'm still solvent when the meds wear off. I don't dare do critical work on the car in this condition. Last time I was doing that I Welded a mustang steering box onto a '32 Plymouth street rod...and when I went to take a test spin around the block, and I turned the steering wheel left...the tires went right, visa versa. just for giggles I went around the block anyway. Wow, that was difficult. I will never try to drive in countries that drive on the other side of the road. The Spokane track guys apparently would like to ban me for driving on the "wrong" side anyway

Where was I? Oh...working on eBay.

Do you take blood offerings at the 928 Shrine? When I get the tools out, I'll be ready to donate.

Harvello

worf928

You know. We talked on the phone before you bought your TT.

tdelarm

O...no...El Harv-ello is starting to double post...someone check his meds

heinrich

I'm wondering what sportscar is not fast ... maybe the kind that doesn't need excellent tyres

worf928

You're welcome.

My previous post was probably slanted too much to the negative side with regard to new-car technology. To be fair, I would add that I think most new cars are probably more reliable than ever during the first 4 to 8 years of ownership. The build quality is there, it is just optimized toward a different goal. On the other hand, I think that when they break out of warranty they get more expensive faster. They are better than ever during their expected service life but degrade faster and more-expensively afterwards.

Porsche's changes are not unique nor should they be considered controversial within the context of the auto industry as a whole. They are simply doing what the other car companies are doing. The difference is that they are using their heritage and a very-focused strategy to do it better than the others. Porsche's per-car revenue and per-car profit are head-and-shoulders above any other volume manufacturer. (Ferrari, A-M, etc., are not considered volume manufacturers.) However, I think that the heritage play will only work for a while. Eventually, a class of owners will evolve that don't remember the heritage and will ask themselves why they'er paying twice as much for a car and not getting even close to twice as much value.

The key words here are "want" and "feasible."

Feasible? It is certainly feasible and it is cheaper now on both an absolute and a relative inflation-adjusted basis to keep track of "all the little components." Porsche and other companies did it for years when information technology wasn't almost-free. Think about Walmart? How many SKUs do they track in real-time across every store world-wide? I don't know. But, I'll bet big money its one or two more SKUs than your company would need for all the bits and pieces of your assemblies.

Want? It is about profit. I agree that the rest of the infrastructure required to allow all of the bits and pieces to be shipped as field replaceable units would be expensive. Essentially, these companies have figured out that they cannot afford that infrastructure if they want to shave costs to the bone. Also, they look at the dynamics of the market and figure out that it really isn't that necessary anyway. Who maintains their cars after 8 to 10 years? Most folks do not. They just try to string along the old beater until they can by another newer car.

From the myopic perspective of a big car company (BCC) maintainability after sale isn't a profit center. It is a liability. The BCC wants to limit their liability after the sale as much as possible. They want to make warranty work as cheap (for them) as possible. Parts cost and labor cost are the primary components. And of course labor is eventually the dominant cost for parts manufacturing - except - that it's Chinese labor rates on the parts manufacturing and dealer technician rates on the actual warranty work. So, parts can be relatively more expensive as long as the labor to replace an assembly is lowered. And thus we have $1000 (cost to us) headlight assemblies than can be R&R'd in 30 minutes (and sold on e-bay by thieves that can remove them in 10 seconds. But that's another thread.) Not to mention the fact that parts from China are effectively an unlimited cheap resource while experienced dealer techs are scarce. So, the dealers like this too once your car's out of warranty, because the overall revenue per technician is extraordinary.

Think about it. During the warranty period, the BCC is paying a lot per hour for a very little bit of technician time and the parts really are very cheap (for the BCC.) So, the BCC liability is limited. Also the cars are designed with the intent of flawless operation during the warranty period. After the warranty period, the dealer has techs that can generate many hundreds of dollars an hour of revenue because the hugely expensive (to us) parts can be swapped out in minutes. And margin on parts is great for the dealer and the BCC.

All IMO.

I quite agree. A $20k Cayman will be tempting. And disposing of $20k on a few-year old disposable car is far more fiscally responsible than doing it now for $60k+. I've had the same thoughts about a Cayenne. But they seem to be even more abandoned by PAG than the 928.

(Look at the Pepper Forum threads about CD-based NAV systems.

Cliff notes version: Want the newest map data and fixes for glaring software bugs for your 2004 CD-NAV system? Too bad. SOL. Buy a new Cayenne please.)

H2

I had written a novelesque size "notita" and before I could send it some PM advisories hit and I lost it all...including the PreMenstral stuff. I feel my fever coming back on and I should go looking for those other head pills....Niagra i think they're called. . The stuff the pharmacists hide under the counter and give samples to their friends. I'm not sure what the guys do who drive automatics.

And I was in the middle of an apology to Worf for not buying his Audi TT w/ spare winter tires and driving in deep snow from some forsaken state with more ice than Idaho...and then went and bought the same kind of car (but with much worse suspension) in Seattle. Worf's wiife preferred the VW IF i RECOOMEMBEr right...where's the caps lock key? And my fever is coming back up and my wife has a party of women gaggling upstairs and I'm stranded for a while here in the basement wondering if I take down the bear skin rug if the new Physcho Ebay Seat Covers for the '77 928 will look good hanging there? I should take some pics and do a poll.

But I AM totally distressed that companies are starting to sell HUGE assemblies when a nut or bolt might do. You guys are scaring me. But that's not much different than, actually, replacing the 928 AC Controller Head for a $1000 like God and Porsche intended rather than slinking out to Radio Shakle and soldering in a $12 relay! The M5 and truck front end esamples are really scary.

I refuse to divert attention from the topic (was it Vieegra?) and tell you boys that Professiuonal Wrestling is all Fake....except in Mexico where it's real.

But if i can use PayPal, I will buy into your assertion that "Technology is making Guns and Bombs better and more precise, but the basic idea is still the same - blowing **** up." Thanks for sharing that thought good buddy.

I thoink I'm losing it. I'm checking into ebay and see if them seat covers is stil covered up and go looking for my Snipe Software. I was too late on TT-Alarm's '88 so I have to be cocked and locked this time.

Those psycho seat covers have red neck appeal and I'll bet I could tradem for a case of Dutch Harbor Spinners (Dynomite) or maybe even a new fuel hose for my '85. That's really what I wanted in the first place after Shane's car became a hi-speed BBQ machine.

Chau...amigazos..

Harvello BTW, Heinrich, you got friggin Godzilla hanging all over your posts w/his tongue dragging the floor. What's the world a coming to?

I really gotta run now...those wimmen are starting to sing and it's not happy birthday either.

Hope I feel better in the am. The new sinus surguries are better than they used to be but are still not perfected. Wonder what my nose will look like when this is over? Not as nice as a Shark's I'm sure.

Harvello

Ispeed

I don't have the patience to read some of the long posts. Sorry.
H2: I still cannot believe you bought a car without LSD. You may be on LSD now though.

MGW-Fla

its only 8:30am & now my head hurts!
pass the hydrocodone or such, migraine excedrin just won't do!

fabric

The specifics on the M5, and the general issues of new cars - Dave, you're killing me, I just bought a 4 year old 5 series.

I was actually trying to make the same point on the 5 series boards, when people were complaining about the costs of 540 maint. They're saying the V8 is more expensive/less reliable than the I6, and both are worse than a Japanese car. I pointed out that they are comparing the 6-8 year old E39 they bought to the former new Japanese car they owned previously. How many people are driving around 10 year old Honda's? Not too many. I had a 10 year old Acura, it had all the same issues they were dealing with.

In fact, isn't this sort of what the Japanese invented in car production - they make extremely reliable cars due to good quality control, but they aren't designed to specifally be reliable forever? They put everybody on notice that a new car can be nearly bulletproof, but no car can maintain that forever. The result is what Dave has explained - everybody makes cars that are great for the expected ownership duratino of the average American (5-7 years, or basically their loan term), but aren't as maintainable. I believe European car ownership patterns are (were?) different, hopefully I can get some comment if I'm on the right track here, but they tend (tended?) to own their cars for longer, so they wanted a car that was maintainable with realistic repair costs, so that's what Euro manufacturers made up till recently.

O9C: Aren't 928's great?