My uncle just bought a 97 993 from a guy named Steven Osborne in NYC a couple of months back. The car looks beautiful inside and out and the PO said he's owned the car since 2001 (confirmed by the Carfax). Despite the PO claiming to be a PCA member and knowledgeable about the 993, he didn't even know where the battery was located, so that should have been the first red flag. But the car seemed very nice and had low miles, consistent with the claims the PO made about being "meticulously about maintaining and servicing the car". So my uncle went ahead with a PPI at Jack Daniels Porsche.

JDP reported "Vehicle looks good no problems found or services due". My uncle paid for the car and had it transported to Denver in January.

He's driven the car about 50 miles or so, and noticed a few small oil drips on the garage floor. He wasn't overly concerned but took the car to a local independent shop familiar with 911s.

When the shop removed the engine undertray, it was full of oil. So, they contacted Jack Daniels (where the car had been serviced by the PO), and got them to fax a number of recent service records. I'm surprised JDP did this, but they did.

One of them is a service order that says "Check engine light on". The tech note says "Carbon buildup on air injectors. Customer declined repair at this time".

WTF??? Why would Jack Daniels not even check their own records on the car that they've been servicing for 13 years? Or did they purposely hide the truth?? The SAI problem was diagnosed just 4 months earlier. Furthermore, an OBD2 diagnostic would certainly have shown an SAI fault code, so did they also neglect to do this? WOW. Both of those things should have been SOP on a PPI. Jack Daniels screwed the pooch on this one. And screwed my uncle!

My uncle is now looking at a rebuild of the heads at the very least, on a car that had just been given a clean PPI by the largest Porsche dealer in the country. My uncle is livid and intends to talk to the dealer about this, but doesn't believe he's going to end up getting anything out of them. In my opinion, JDP needs to pick up the entire repair.

When my uncle confronted Steven Osborne about this, he claimed he knew nothing about it and that the car didn't have any leaks at all when it left on the truck towards Denver. This, despite the service order from August clearly showing that he was informed of the SAI issue and that he declined to do the repair.

I believe he was informed of the expensive repair being needed, and he then decided to sell the car instead of doing it. He deliberately misrepresented the car and stuck someone else with it. Bastards are out there, and this guy's one of them. He advertised his car on Excellence. Watch out for him.

And STAY AWAY from Jack Daniels Porsche. I know it's an aircooled car but one should expect far better service from a dealer, especially when critical information is right there in their own service records. And how could they fail to report the extreme oil leaks? Did they even look at the f'ing car??

 

I'm really sorry to hear that.

I had a similar experience at a different dealer when purchasing my 997TT a year ago. I took it to Porsche of Roslyn for a PPI and they did the exact same thing. Never bothered to check the car and asked for $350. Thankfully the car was a CPO so the majority of issues were taken care of by the warranty. And I ended up getting my $350 back from Porsche of Roslyn due to their incompetence.

I doubt you'll get anything from JDP other than perhaps your PPI money back. Call PCNA and complain, see if they can help you in any way.

Best of luck!

 

well, it is possible that the sai codes were cleared 4 months earlier when the customer declined repair.
and possible the codes hadn't come up yet again.
oil leak does not equal sai problem. so maybe a valve cover gasket just started leaking.
and finally sai carbon build up does not equal a rebuild of the heads.
possibly just some bike brake cable, a drill and chemicals.
I'm not saying your uncle shouldn't squeeze the dealer for some compensation, they should have provided the service history with the ppi.
but a valve cover leak and drilling out the ports is less than 100 bucks in parts.

 

Didn't JDP give you a comprehensive PPI report. compression leak down numbers, service history, paint thickness

 

Sorry to hear. I've been at JDP several times for service. It was always a good experience. I would not hesitate to go back there. What exactly was done for the PPI? And I agree with post #3 about oil leaks starting at any time. My lower valve cover gaskets went bad with no notice dripping oil all over the engine cover and heat exchangers. Hope it all turns out OK.

 

I'm not sure what he got from JDP to document what they did. He's going to be talking to them in the next day or two.

The shop where the car currently is has the valve covers off and has determined that the valve guides are badly in need of replacement. The oil leaks are not likely related, but I mentioned those because they are what prompted the shop to contact JDP about service history initially. Also because I'm astounded that the leaks can be so bad and yet go unmentioned in the PPI report.

 

With all the great indy shops in the northern NJ area, I have to question why your uncle chose a stealership to do the PPI. I realize it's "too late" to change that but it has me thinking; did the seller recommend Jack Daniels and if so did he have some type of relationship with them. It's quite the coincidence that the seller had his car serviced there and subsequently that is where the PPI was done. Lastly, did your uncle seek out your advice. You seem to have a cache of air cooled Porsches and surely you would not have steered him to a dealership for a PPI.

 

My current 997 C4 is a Jack Daniels car and I had the PPI done there too. It was an extensive PPI, they looked at the prior service history and even printed it off for me as well (which many dealers won't do for privacy info - ex owners info was omitted). They also pointed out some items that I should fix (minor trim).

Sorry to hear.

 

I would take my car no where else but JD Porsche….wonderful people and an excellent service department and Manager.

I love those people!

Tom

 

Sorry to hear this. Sounds like JD really blew it on this one. And the seller sucks for not being forthcoming too.

 

I don't even remember when my car first had the SAI CEL. At the time I didn't need to get an emissions inspection so it didn't matter. Finally, in the spring of 2005, when I needed to pass an emissions inspection the dealer did a SAI flush which cleared up 5 of the 6 ports. Since then I've been able to reset the CEL and after doing the OBDII test drive everything is fine for then next 500-1000 miles and I can pass the emissions inspection. That may be how the car passed emissions inspection in NY. It's not surprising that this didn't show up on the car fax. A "clean" carfax is fools gold. If they were printed on softer paper I might have some use for them.

It sure sounds like JDP dropped the ball on the PPI and the seller committed fraud in not disclosing the problem. That said, my legal opinion is not based on the knowledge I acquired studying law but I am a fan of Judge Judy and the People's Court.

 

JDP may be a good dealership and have some good techs but something went very wrong with the PPI.

I hope we are updated as to how JDP handles this situation. If they are as good as some people say, JDP will do the right thing. If they do not, reach out to John or Mike Daniels, the owners and let them know that they really screwed up. Those guys are really focused on customer satisfaction.

 

I don't trust a single car dealer in the world. They are the absolute last people I would have do a PPI. In fact, I don't trust many indies either.

My bet, JDP did absolutely nothing other than write the invoice and collect the money.

That said, please post the PPI sheet...I hope to god you got more than "car has no problems and no service issues" before buying.

What did this cost?

Mark, I gotta think that Jack Daniels doesn't give a hoot about a guy in colorado they will never see another dime from.

 

I bought an older M5 last summer (long distance), had a PPI done, agreed to buy it, and immediately - literally on my test drive - the car started acting up. I bought it anyway, had the problem fixed, had some other stuff fixed, decided to sell it a few months later. The buyer had a PPI done at my local shop, and they found stuff that the first shop missed and missed stuff that the first shop found. So, you know, with old cars, you gotta sorta figure that something is going to happen somewhere, somehow. And a 30 minute inspection isn't always going to find every little thing. Especially if no code is set.

Also consider that if shop A finds a problem and the owner has the car in for a PPI six months later, who's to say that they didn't have shop B fix the problem. Shop A isn't obligated to report something that they found 6 months ago if there's no indication that the problem still exists (no code, for example). And an 18 year-old Porsche is leaking oil? OMG.

Not to say that the shop wasn't negligent, and for sure the seller was not forthcoming with the known issues on the car, but unfortunately, that's not uncommon when buying used cars.

 

Is the seller on Rennlist?



Andreas