para82, sorry to say but i feel you got ripped off. If your in Arlington VA, try Intersport in Tysons Corner or german swedish auto in springfield. Both are small indy shops that specializes in Porsches and have fair prices. I do my own work but would use them if i were unable to.

 

Another good shop in the northern VA area just a little south of Alexandria is RPM.
http://rpm-performance.com/index.html

They worked on my 964 multiple times in years past (flywheel & clutch replacement, valve adjustment, new suspension) and I was very pleased - they were expert, careful and honest. Highly recommended.

 

Thanks Dave, I will keep them in mind too.

 

Thanks for the link. That's a great price... looks like that's the only part they have for my 997.1S but they had plenty more for the wife's Lexus.

 

I presume the $403.50 for the "realigned seat cover and frame" was a labor charge? If so, the charged labor for the 40k maintence was $1210.50 PLUS the parts charge of $622.75 = a total bill of $1833.25.

My local PCar dealer (Utah) offered me the following quotes back in April:

*40k maintenance = $750
*40k maintenance + spark plugs + flush = $1350.

It sounds like you have been gouged a bit....

Fight them - and if you have the time, take on some of this work yourself in your own garage. Rennlist is an amazing resource for DIY projects.

-B

 

Autohausaz.com also carries spark plugs for $8.32 along with other goodies.

 

No. It's not alright. For example, you buy a set of plugs and take them to a dealer to install. Something goes wrong--was it the part or the labor?

When a dealership's service department undertakes the work of doing maintenance on a customer's car they have to know that the parts that they are installing have some recourse if they are bad--they ship them back to Porsche and Porsche will also cover their expended labor.

All service departments should be entitled to sell materials consumed in the maintenance of your car. However, they should be charging reasonable prices, and not seeing it as a license to steal. This, sadly, is the reality of most Porsche dealerships.

I have yet to take mine in for the service shop to rip me off. On the brighter side, so long as you keep up on the simple preventative maintenance, there is very little that is complex that needs to be done with these things.

I'm still waiting to do plugs. I have about 69,000 miles on my car and the thing runs so well I'm afraid to change anything! (The service technician told me that it's best not to change them until you get a engine fault light).

 

Edgy,

Your plugs are probably fine at 69K. When I changed mine at 60K they were in very good condition and could have probably gone another 30K+ without a problem. That said, changing them only when you get a fault is ridiculous! That is really bad advice! Do you really want to be stranded somewhere with a misfire?

In reality, your coils will probably go bad before your plugs. 3 of mine went south with about 50K miles and all 6 were replaced under CPO warranty.

 

Porsche recommends changing the plugs on the 997.1S at 96K miles but they also recommend not to use anti-seize compound. To avoid potential issues with seized plugs down the line I like to change them out every 48K miles instead.

 

That's what mine looked like. It included a "drain service" and they charged me $70 to glue the rear emblem on properly...

 

Excessive spark plug gap makes the coils work harder, they must reach a higher voltage before they fire. If voltage gets high enough to break down insulation in the coils or along path from coil to plug then bad things can happen - shorting in the coil, high voltage leaking into the car's electrical system. There are plenty of expensive control modules in the car that I'd rather not stress, even assuming Porsche designed in a healthy safety margin.

I for one am comfortable changing the plugs at the factory recommended intervals.

I recall on my 964 as the plug wires aged, while idling the engine on a dark night I could mist the area near the distributors with water from a spray bottle and distinctly see blue halos of leaking high voltage. The car ran fine and I never had problems with the engine computer, but it was time to change out the plug wires and I did. High voltage is worthy of respect.

 

I had 40k service + plugs + brake fluid job in Feb at Tysons Porsche and paid a little over $1600. Yup. It was painful. Now my car is out of CPO warranty, I will be taking my car to local indy shops for future services & repairs.

 

Out of curiosity, where did you find this 96k number?

Porsche's official spark plug maintenance interval for the 2008 Carrera S is 40k/4 years. See, e.g., this resource on Porsche's website - http://www.porsche.com/usa/accessori...anceintervals/

Side note, for 2008 Porsche shortened some intervals. For example the spark plug maintenance interval is 60k/4 years for 2005-2007 Carrera & Carrera S vs. 40k/4 years for 2008 Carrera & Carrera S. Oil change intervals are different too - 20k/2 years vs 12k/1 year.

I wonder why that is, given they introduced the new design motor in 2009.

 

I ordered the 36k miles maintenance kit from Suncoast this week. Comes with new Wiper Blades, Oil Filter, Plug Aluminum Gasket, Carbon Cabin Filter, Cabin Filter and 6-New Plugs. $255.00 plus shipping.

My car has almost 36k miles and just turned 4-years old so I plan to do the plugs next month when it cools down a bit. The cabin filters are nasty so I'm replacing those tomorrow along with the wiper blades. Oil got done last month. I don't plan to change any coils and figure this will get me through another 4-years and then change coils and plugs if I have the car. I still need to look at the trans oil service interval. So maybe in the spring I'll do the trans oil and a brake bleed. Brakes were serviced at 28k miles.

 

One thing I forgot to mention.

Before I deployed this dealership stated they would be happy to hold onto my 911 in their garage while I was in afghanistan for the whole 6 months. I thought that sounded pretty nice. They said they could replace the hydraulic lifters and do all the labor while I was gone. I also have a leaking rear main seal that needs to be replaced. They stated might as well do the clutch too. They stated all this would be about $12,000. Later they told me they wouldn't hold on to my car if I wasn't having the work done at their shop.

Needless to say it was immediately transported to my garage in Navarre, Florida and those components will be replaced by the more honest Porsche of Destin or a local indy.

They almost got me for a whole lot more, that was just the beginning.