tkerrmd

For the record, I had NO missed shifts (no need to lie, already paid for tranny rebuild) and I also had NO type two over revs.
Porsche dealer pulled out pictures that the factory uses as a reference for pictures of abuse. In them the dog teeth are almost completely flat and worn off (sorry no pics but I'm sure someone has some). These pics were exactly what my syncros looked like, thus no warranty.
The ring that had this bump on it, I guess what Kevin refs to the dog teeth, seems pathetically wimpy?????

1AS

Tom,
Would the most likely explanation be abuse by the previous owner? Perhaps someone learned how to drive a s speed on your trans, or just decided to find out how hard it could be used prior to sale? This seems to be the greatest unknown factor in pre-owned. AS

Kevin

Chris, I have a local customer in the NW that we can pull his tranny.. The car hasn't been tracked or abused.. Basically a stock car...

JasonAndreas

Could it be by design? When you have a Type-2 overrev with the older air-cooled 911s the engine would maybe hit 9-10k RPM causing the valves to float and smash into (pistons) pieces. Everytime I hear of "Type-2" overrevs with the 996 the end result is usually just a minor ($$$ - compared to rebuilding an engine) transmission problem. It sounds like the dogteeth are sacrificing themselves?

mike_la_jolla

1999Porsche911: My 1999 996 was not a car the Porsche should be proud of. The build quality was very, very poor. Abominable. The power plant was fine, but the interior quality was simply awful. The radio sucked, the dashboard squeaked, etc. I stand by the statement that Porsche should be avoided utterly in the first model year. I will never go through that again.

Kevin et al: Had I know that this would have been such a serious repair, I would have gone to Pioneer rather than Hoehn. Pioneer has been through some facility issues in the last two years (expansion for the Cayenne?) and the service response had gotten terrible. I switched to the other San Diego dealer who is Hoehn in Carlsbad. I must say that Hoehn’s performance in this whole mess has been poor. The original service advisor clearly did not know anything about X50’s and made things up as he went along. I finally escalated the situation to the service manager, and things improved. Hoehn will not see my business anymore – either in service or sales. For serious Porsche repair in San Diego, I suggest going to Pioneer. The torture dished out by Pioneer is preferable to the questionable competence of Hoehn. The choices in San Diego these days for Porsche repair appear to be: BAD (Pioneer), and VERY BAD (Hoehn).

I need to clarify something: In order to get to the transmission, you have to drop the engine. So I didn’t know that transmission was completely shot until the engine had been dropped. It was then that the Hoehn people did the magical ‘picture comparison to the Porsche manual’ and determined that I had ‘abused’ the car. Hoehn was going to charge $3k-$4k to put everything back together. So at this stage I didn’t have any choice but to let them do the finish the work. One of the reasons the repairs is so expensive is because they appear to be unable, or not competent, at getting the necessary parts so a complete replacement of the transmission was recommended.

Porsche charges $1700 if you want the damaged transmission back for some unknown reason. I will consider paying this and sending the transmission to Chris Cervelli at Premier Motorsp for analysis. This would be very interesting …

Also to state clearly: There were two drivers on this car and neither of us EVER drove this car in an ‘abusive’ manner ever. This is a game that Porsche is playing. We are both WAY to mature to drive a $159k, 450HP super car like a hormonally poisoned teenager. I have no after market upgrades, and no short shifter. I am embarrassed to say that I don’t even know what a ‘short shifter’ is, although I have read about them on the discussion boards.

KPG – The REV2 violations is the reason Porsche is denying warranty repair along with the ‘picture comparison’ thing.

One important lesson here is that ‘Porsche Certification’ is completely meaningless. It appears that this is a marketing and sales lie only. Porsche made it clear that even if the REV2 violation occurred before I owned the car, the warranty would not be honored. This is not good news for the secondary market for the Porsche brand.

On the issue of admitting to Porsche that we took the car to the track: WTF are you supposed to do with a car like this? Park it in the front room, put a cover on it, shine it up every Saturday like piece of expensive jewelry and drive it to/from church? It is not my style to lie. And I don’t apologize for taking the car to Willow Springs, ButtonWillow, and Laguna Seca for some Driver Education and admitting this. Isn’t this what the car was designed to do? This car was never raced and not abused. Any I have never gone off. It is VERY VERY CLEAR that Porsche no longer considers the brand a street legal ‘race car’, even though that is what they advertise. And you are no longer allowed to track it without voiding the warranty – utterly and completely. This is a serious statement and my conversations with the local Porsche rep have lead me to believe that autocross events fall under this category, including ones that Porsche sponsors.

Kevin

The engine does not have to be dropped!! They want to charge you more labor.. You are definately in a rock and hard spot.. For the record Porsche has had these issues on all of there models over the years.. Valve guide failure starting with the 3.2 engine, and the 964 head sealing issues, Dual mass flywheel issues, Boxster and 996 rear main issues..

It sad when it happens to yourself or other members within this forum..

Premier Motorsp

It seems like there are far too many people having this problem for it to be abuse in every case.

On this transmission there is a shimming prodcedure that sets up the way first and second gears engage. If the shims were not correct, it is possible that the engagement of 2nd gear became difficult or impossible. Continued use of the transmission in this condition would tend to beat up the dog teeth and lead to the 'abuse' picture.

The 993 Turbo transmission is quite similar the 996 Turbo trans, except that it does not have the possibility of incorrectly shimming 1st/2nd. These transmissions did not have anywhere near the 'abuse' rate.

If anyone wants to go into this further, send me a PM.

Chris Cervelli
Premier Motorsports

Lizard1

I purchased a pre-owned certified 996tt in 10/05 and immediately noticed a difficulty shifting into 1st/2nd. Like i was meeting resistance and waiting for something to "line-up"? Dealer said not too worry, looks like the synchros are working very hard but it's fine - then it started popping out of 2nd witha big thud

Currently at the dealer getting a new tranny put in under warranty. Are new shims part of a new tranny or are they something separate? I don't want to pick up the car and it be exactly the same because the shims weren't changed/adjusted???

tkerrmd

A.S., very astute as usual. That was both the dealers and my final and only real explaination. That's why I finally just got over it.

tom

Salespunk

I have had terrible experiences at both Hoehn and Pioneer recently on the sales side as well so this does not surprise me. The salesperson at Hoehn told my wife that I would not spend the money for a 997 and told her to look at a used 996. I have had great service experiences at Pioneer in the past, but that was several years ago.

If Kevin is in fact correct I would be screaming at them and PCNA about the overchage in labor.

faterikcartman

Okay, now I'm properly freaked out.

I bought a Boxster from Pioneer b/c I've never owned a P car. I likey but obviusly need more power. My wife is of the "buy once, buy the best and don't regret it" school so now we want a 997tt.

We talked to someone at Hoen but they seemed, well, greasy. I don't mean in the dirty sort of way but the kind where you felt like you were talking to someone who would tell you anything or has a secret life as a serial killer.

I like the sales guy at Pioneer but this sort of dodging responsibility is pretty weak. I can't drop that kind of dough on a new car just to get the run around later.

And the track restriction? I think I saw this in my Boxster paperwork. I don't get it. If you were in Germany you could hit 190 + on the Autobahn and not worry about coverage and of course your brakes etc. could be worked just as hard as a track if you have any traffic so WTF?

Really, are you supposed to go 75 mph max? I took a freaking 996tt to 140 on a test drive.

I've read about this sort of thing on several other P car forums and I'm losing faith. Should I just buy a new Z06? Who cares about warranty coverage on that car as the repair costs, in comparisson, are so so much lower.

BC

The San Diego Dealers that you speak of seem especially shady. Shady in the sense that they are dishonest and would lie to get a sale. I can't say that I have bought anything from them whole-car wise, but mucho time spent at the parts counter, and the floor sales guys looked....iffy.

The warantee issue is going to come around an bit Porsche in the back. I think they are doing this because they are not used to issues of this maganititude. Did 911 SC transmsisions break like this? I don't have that info.

Very dissapointing. I think the customer base is changing and they aren't.

mike_la_jolla

I have posted the final bill from Hoehn: a shade more than $12k and I was without the car for 3.5 weeks. Here is the link to the invoice:

http://www.dinigroup.com/~mdini/tran...ice_2-2-06.pdf

I have redacted my personal information for obvious reasons.

Some comments and conclusions

1. This was not an ‘abused’ car. I take this accusation as a direct personal insult. I am not some hormonally poisoned teenager driving a 450HP car around like a mad man. Porsche needs to find another way to accuse their customers of ‘abuse’ so that it isn’t so demeaning or they will lose some of us for life. They used this ‘abuse’ accusation to weasel on paying for this repair. The implication: ‘I am not worthy of an X50 Turbo and not good enough to drive it let alone track it.’ The Porsche rep in Southern California could not have been less helpful or more insulting. A poor performance. Mr. Richie, don’t ask me for any references. You are the enemy, not a friend. It shouldn’t be like this …

2. Porsche, via the southern California rep Mr. Richie, has made the following statement CLEAR: ‘If you track the car anytime anywhere, the warranty is void.’ This includes ‘Porsche Sponsored’ events, at any speed. I will, in the future, lie. I would prefer not to behave like this, but Porsche’s attitude forces the issue. You are not allowed to track Porsches anymore. This is sad and very depressing. I don’t know how to square this conclusion with Porsche’s advertising. Look to another manufacturer of high performance cars if you occasionally want to take your car to a DE.
3. The transmissions on the higher-powered Turbos (X50 and above) are suspect. I count several dozen of us have had to have major repair work done on the transmission. This is a weak component. Expect a recall or service bulletin someday on this problem and be aware of this issue if you are looking at a used (or new) X50.
4. ‘Porsche certification’ on used cars is meaningless. This appears to be a marketing thing only, and has no practical implications.
5. If you are getting a used Porsche, MAKE BLOODY SURE that someone has read out the fault codes. Get a printout!

markski

well.. here we go again.... I ask the same question... did it have any any time a after market short shifter.?
My tarnny was replaced... I was lucky... I had the 2nd gear popping out.... they blame a combination of poor driving and or after market shifters causeing synch roll damage.

faterikcartman

I read it as there was something wrong with the transmission (hard getting it into gear) which may have been a defect and covered under warranty but when trying to put it into gear because of the difficulty caused by the defect, you abused it.

What does it cost to go to small claims--$80 and some time? I would sue in small claimsand when they say the owners manual says no track time say you didn't see that there and never saw it in the sales contract or advertising literature (provide copies of that) and figured it was a car and you knew how to drive and the salesman showed you how everything worked so you just followed the maintinence schedule and enjoyed your high performance car which was sold to you as a car that performed highly. Being a law abiding citizen you didn't speed on the street, you sped on a track where it was legal. Now you've got a car which Porsche says is not fit for its intended purchase--isn't that wrong under California law?

Emphasize they didn't give you the owners manual until after you bought the car and there is no "cooling off" period in California so that was too late for you to change your mind. If you wanted to go slow you would have bought a Hyundai.

(You may want to also point out they put back the same crappy brass gears instead of the stronger steel ones other repair shops use.)

I don't think they can drag small claims out for ever or use lawyers so maybe you'll find a sympathetic judge (who may own a P car) who will at least let you recoup some of your losses.

I realize most of us aren't going to die over the loss of $12K but it may give you some personal satisfaction.