plima

Fall 2006: I had reached 2 years and about 24,000 miles on my '04 GT3 and wanted to get a 4 wheel alignment. The original factory alignment had been very good, but 2 years is time enough. I took the car to an authorized Porsche Dealer, thinking that I'd rather trust the dealer than a shop I didn't know. I left the car early in the morning and picked it up after hours that night (Sept, 06) and the car was not driveable. The LR toe was so far out that the car crabbed its way down the street . I turned around and left the car at the dealer. The following day, by phone, I had a long talk with the service manager, who informed me that the LR suspension of the car was damaged/bent/cracked and I needed to replace the lower control arm and the LR subframe, for a total of over $1500. I told him the car has never been in an accident nor hit anything on the road, and thus whatever was wrong was defective and should be covered by warrantee. He disagreed, but did agree to get the car back to the state it was when I brought it in. I picked it up, barely controlling my significant anger. For a variety of reasons I have only just gotten the car to a reputable, capable dealer (Carlsen Porsche in Redwood City). They found the root cause of the problem: someone had badly mangled the subframe trying to adjust one of the eccentrics without unweighting the suspension. The result is that the shoulder on the subframe (aluminum casting) that guides the eccentric bolt is no longer there, and thus the eccentric doesn't work. Since only the factory and the first dealer have touched the car, the conclusion is pretty clear. I am planning to visit the original dealer with the mangled subframe and the written description of the damage done. I'm hopeful, but not confident, that they will admit their guilt and pay for the damage they did. If they do the honorable thing, they shall remain nameless. But the lesson here is to find a good personal reference before entrusting your car to even a Porsche dealer. I guess I should have known better.

cavlino

Sorry to hear about your problem but thank you for sharing it so we can learn from it.

mxdave74

Do me a favor and PM me the dealer name? I'd rather avoid this dealer from now on...

thx Dave

Phokaioglaukos

Good luck with that. Hope you can deal with it and not have to get PCNA involved.

mooty

who's the bad dealerl?
rector?
stead?
My?
sonnen?
or the notorious oakland one?
we bay area lister should know which one to avoid.
carlsen has one guy who works on johannes' car, he's good. there rest of the crew.... well.

Holger B

I'd like to know who to avoid also.

I doubt it's Sonnen as they've done numerous alignments on my cars and the work has always been top notch, but maybe the guy who does all the alignments was out the day your car came in.

Blacksport350

Sorry to hear about the problems!

There is another possible fix for this. The Tarret Engineeering toe links with the eccentric elimination kit. Lock the toe arms down solid to the subframe and use the turnbuckle on the new toe arm for the toe adjustment. This is the way to go even if you do replace the subframe as the alignment will wold far better and be quicker in the future. The cost is about $600 for the parts.

Good luck!

enthusiast

Give them a chance to admit to their fault. One bad tech does not mean you write off that dealership.

allill

tell us where not to go, please.

bora

Let us know the dealer name. Please

UCrazyKid

UPDATE?

ArcticFox

My car also has about 24K on it. The rear eccentrics were pretty well shot. My shop could not get the toe "in" enough. So i went with the Tarret toe control arms as mentioned above. I can highly recommend them as a fix.

The big plus is that if you buy the "eccentric locking kit" (or similar), you can lock down those eccentrics and bascailly not have to even worry about rear toe again! Do a search and check out the thread about it....most owners that have done this type of conversion are having very good luck with the alignment holding its settings now! Its probably one of the best investments I have made. Last time, my toe was out and i ate a rear set of PS2's in about 4 months!!! Talk about an $800 mistake!

Buy the Tarret arms, they are well worth the peace of mind (and rear sets of tires!).

plima

Update: Shortly after writing this, I sat with the Service Manager and shop foreman at Stevens Creek Porsche. They were polite, but refused to accept responsibility for the damage in spite of clear evidence and the opinion of the repairing dealer. I'm disappointed, but not surprised, and am writing this to help you make better decisions wrt which dealer you visit.
On a related subject, there are 2 eccentrics in the rear suspension: the forward of the 2 is primarily for camber and the rearward is primarily for toe (this is the one that the Tarrett/TRG arms replace). It was the forward of these that was destroyed by SCP negligence.

lightguy

Report this to Porsche North America.
Add a link to this Forum and post.

Alignments should only be done IMO by people who do this for a living.
In my city there are a couple of shops known who use the best equipment opperated by technicians who do only this. Btw the shop that is the best, looks like a run-down shack.

Contact the Owner of the Porsche place and try to resolve.
If no-go contact an Attourney.
Good luck and thanks for outing the place to us.

lightguy

Also you may want to link this topic to the General section here so other Porsche owners are aware of their happy ways.
PS; if there was a pre-existing problem it should have been made aware to you before ANY work was done.