Former GT3 owner & contributor here not too thrilled with his Z8:

http://www.businessweek.com/autos/co...117_121900.htm

 

again proves "there is no substitute".

 

The thing I found most interesting was that only 3 places in this country can fix the chassis and it costs a mint to do it. Eventually Porsche will be building aluminum cars too (maybe the 998?) to get the weight down (or at least hold it steady). By then, more shops will be fixing them due to the number of Audi's, Jag's, etc that are made from the stuff. Of course, insurance costs will go thru the roof and you'll be forever wondering if the damage from a minor accident can be repaired properly. It's the six-figure fender bender that's always made me nervous of the CGT (if I could ever afford one)...well, that and the maintenance costs. These aluminum cars seem to fall somewhere between the cf & steel cars financially to fix and that's a scary thought. Hence, the talk of $20k Z8's.

 

Man I almost bought one of those.... I bought the 911 Turbo instead (both cost the same at the time way back when) and I'm glad I did. I would not have been happy with it at the track. The 996TT wasn't perfect either at the track but with a few changes....

 

I wonder about the long term durability of these newly released aluminum cars ala Audi. Aluminum in general work hardens over time and becomes brittle. What is to say in maybe ten years these cars start to develop cracks? Just a thought..

 

Can you say, lawsuit and buy-back........

 

Is the author of that article a member of this forum?

Greg A

 

I dunno about the author, but Andrew McPherson was the previous (original) owner of my car (see sig pic below). His handle was MacFly. I hope he doesn't want it back now.. :-)

 

Correct, it's DCLee.

Gotta watch what you say around here since you never know where it'll end up...

 

Awesome to get coverage like that. A load of us UK owners are having problems with wheel corrosion on our GT3 RSs and Porsche is telling us its not a 'warrantable defect'.

Can't even do a class action here, so we all individually have to pursue them.

Take a look at the rims on this ebay auction. There are a 7+ people that I know of suffering from this, and I've had a specialist GT3 shop say all RSs they've seen suffer from it, yet Porsche don't want to know.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/4-PORSCHE-911-...QQcmdZViewItem

 

Wow, now that is some nasty corrosion! I would be a bit upset about that....

 

Are the RS wheels different than the standard GT3?

I thought they were the same, just painted differently.

 

They are, and this painting process appears to have an issue. People are being told its down to track usage or improper cleaning, but I don't buy it. I've run track cars before without this issue, and I don't believe its a problem on standard GT3 wheels. This is on cars which are 2 years at the oldest, and most have very low mileages. Mine was 18months old when warranty claim went in, had under 5k miles on the clock and appears to have never been on track in its life (well until I bought it).

There is uk laws that do protect us, its just really disappointing that it seems I will have to use them. I've been offered some rims at cost by my dealer, but thats about 6k USD and they would probably do the same. What is really galling is that I spotted the issue before I bought it (2nd hand) from an official dealer, and they said 'Don't worry about it, Porsche will look after you'.

p.s. mine aren't as bad as those ones yet, but they are on their way...

 

Maybe you could get them stripped & refinished?

I hate all the frivolous lawsuits we have here, but this seems like a time when group legal action would be beneficial. It's a shame that the company with the highest profit margins in the industry won't stand behind it's products (especially when they're still under warranty!).

 

Current plan is to continue to talk to Porsche (I can be persistent). If that doesn't work, I'll have to raise the profile of the problem as best I can and find out all the people affected. I don't think it will take long for me to show a problem on at least 10% of the UK cars. The fact that one of the 2 main specialist shops who maintain these cars (track setup, dampers etc) says its commonplace just makes it a no brainer to me.

Of course all of this will damage my relationship with the marque and is not something I want to embark on, especially when they should be standing behind their product.

Fallback option is indeed to get them stripped and redone, but its a complicated finish and I don't know who could do it. Given the OEM can't even do it properly, one has to wonder... Then again I don't see why I should be picking up a bill on this one.

Suffice to say, its not just Macfly who's 'incredibly angry'!