LVDell

Uh oh!

As Ricky said to Lucy.........
You got some splainin' to do!

Bob Rouleau

Bruce, in fact setting the record straight is MY hope. Truedelta will simply report. For years I have watched Dell (and others) dish out pretty harsh treatment to anyone who suggests that the M96 engine is inherently flawed. I hope that with enough data we might be able to provide evidence that Dell, Wellardmac et al were right all along. My own experience with an M96 was similar to theirs - no issues at all.

That's why I am puzzled by the objections to the survey. I am not qualified to debate stats with pros like Dell or Michael Karesh. On the the other hand anything reasonable which is positive will be a lot better than the conventional wisdom of the "ticking bomb" don't you think?

Best,

BruceP

I do. I just think that people are worried about the potential impact of bad information, having endured all this controversy. It really takes the fun out of owning the car sometimes.

BruceP

Sidebar:

Bob, you know what I would really love to have? A survey like this among all Porsche owners rather than among the universe of car owners. It's only among Porsche owners that the 996 is the Rodney Dangerfield of cars, and it's only among Porsche owners that it has any kind of specific reputation at all. It would be fascinating to look at a database of maintenance and repair diaries of everybody on Rennlist, and an awesome resource. That I would sign up for.

mkaresh

I never said I was trying to affect resale values, nor have I ever made any claims that my stats could affect resale values.

Earlier you got your knickers in a twist because you felt I had distorted what you said. Now you're entirely putting words in my mouth. Hypocrite much?

Sneaky Pete

This thread is making me ill. Why isn't there a smiley face for puking?

BruceP

Ah, the personal attack. That always works with me. Gosh, you're right. I surrender. You never had any altruistic motives at all. It's just a commercially motivated survey.

Grownup much?

mkaresh

BruceP,

Pointing out hypocrisy is hardly a personal or juvenile attack. For an example of such an attack see the earlier thread, where one of you ended up deleting such an attack.

I haven't the faintest idea what works with you. Quite likely nothing.

You do seem to have trouble thinking beyond a false dichotomy regarding my alleged motives. Following your logic, anyone who is paid for what they do is only in it for the money. Clearly false.

BruceP

Where I come from, "hypocrite" is an insult.

And you know what "works" with me? Integrity. That works.

You are a commercial enterprise who is taking advantage of the hospitality of an online community to generate content for your site. The quid pro quo for this is that this same community might benefit from the resulting information. There is nothing wrong with this. It happens all the time. But if you're going to do this, in the real live grownup marketing world, you do it respectfully and honestly and with humility and gratitude. You listen. You be enthusiastic. You make people want to help you. You accept their advice, since you're also accepting their time and personal information.

What you do not do is march into the community, a perfect stranger, pitch up your site as a service to mankind and then become argumentative, defensive and dismissive with people who question you. It's the equivalent of ringing a doorbell and interrupting a party to sell aluminum siding, and then yelling at people for not having the good taste to buy it.

If you want to make a go of this, you need people on your side. You will absolutely fail if the character you're showing in here ends up attached to your brand.

People usually pay me for that advice, but I'm giving it to you for nothing in the spirit of community. Isn't that nice?

Palmbeacher

Forgive me for not being bilingually-fluent in statistician-speak vocabulary. I'm not a statistician for whom everything is an abstract science of figures and mathematics, I'm the guy who has to decide whether conclusions drawn from those statistics are the result of flawed methodology and hence, erroneous, so innocent people don't get sick or hurt. The proposed methodology in this case is seriously flawed, and I would not put faith in any conclusions drawn from it. If you can't tell whether data is corrupt, due diligence demands one assume it is.

If the sampling was random, which this is not. You're surveying people who read internet forums. It would be like doing a study on cardiovascular health in America sampling only people interviewed eating at McDonalds... and then extrapolating your stats to the general population.


You don't even make an attempt to verify that respondants own or did own a Porsche, let alone verify that they actually had the repair issues they indicate. What other errors in the data would you deem important to check for, if not those ?

mkaresh

To the extent hypocrite is an insult, it's one with a clear, specific basis. Unlike, to pick a random example, "moronic."

The general gist of suggestions has been that the survey is fatally flawed so I should abandon it and the thousands of people who've been participating for the past four years. My apologies for not accepting this "advice" with enthusiasm, and for becoming defensive when attacked.

When people do offer constructive advice, I do react as you suggest. But there has been very little such advice here.

I have "yelled" at no one simply for not signing up, here or anywhere else. So this is also a blatant mischaracterization.

Before I ever posted in this forum I asked for, and received, permission from the owner. This particular thread was posted by the admin at his own initiative. So I honestly do not feel like a salesman interrupting a dinner party.

Throughout I have responded honestly, openly, and with an emphasis on the facts, so I see no problem with my character or integrity as represented here. True, I do not speak like a PR professional. I am not a PR professional.

Oddly, when people get the PR spin, they claim to want someone who speaks honestly and plainly. But when someone speaks honestly and plainly, they ask for sugar-coated spin.

mkaresh

There is not a reliability survey I'm aware of that does anything to verify that repairs were actually performed. We all assume that if someone reports a repair then the repair actually occurred, because there's really very little reason to assume otherwise and verifying every repair would be expensive. Even if cost were not a factor, and it certainly is, the negative impact of the reduced sample size would very likely outweigh the positive impact of verification.

There is similarly very little reason to assume that someone is taking the time over a period of many months to report on a car that does not actually exist. It would be a fair amount of effort with no real point. One or two such responses would have no substantial impact on the results. And more than one such response would be difficult to provide without being picked up by the checks I can and do run.

It's hardly the same as conducting a survey at McDonalds, as that population is engaging in a behavior with a clear connection to the dependent variable.

My focus is on the overall repair frequency. The great majority of car repairs are not dependent on how the car was driven or cared for. It is not possible to maintain the electrical system, to give a key example. And, even with those repairs that could have been influenced by how the car was driven and cared for, most cars are cared for well enough that they should not have required these repairs.

Major mechanical repairs before 120,000 miles are rare these days, in nearly all car models. In those cases where they are relatively common, the reason is not primary because of how the car was driven or maintained, but because of how the car was engineered.

chsu74

If anything, this is entertainment. I am getting no work done and will get more popcorn. Someone pass the salt...

mkaresh

Your taste in entertainment clearly differs from mine

BruceP

Sorry, no, Mike. It's a pejorative, and thus a personal attack. You may observe that you think someone has presented contradictory reasoning or evidence. But once you impute motive to this, it's just an insult.

I can't believe you think any of this is going to help your cause.