Thanks, it's been an expensive but very rewarding addiction.....

 

If someone doesn't buy a car I am selling because I don't have receipts because I did it myself, I doubt they are the person I want to deal with anyway.

 

in 1994 I bought a brand new Jeep wrangler.. (Right tool for the job still have it...) Anyway took it to dealer for first oil change.. they told me I had time for a coffee and then it would be ready, When I came back the guy did the paperwork handed me the key and said it was ready to go. It was still in the oil change bay.

Got in fired it up and drove out but it sounded odd,, in the mirror I saw this ginormous pool of oil..
Pushed in the clutch, killed it and let it roll straight back in to the bay..
Service manager came running in to the bay yelling "What did you do?"
Got out and popped the hood ignoring the DB..
The dipstick was blown out and oil everywhere..
They had those plumbed in oil guns that deliver oil from a tank, the 10-w40 one was still on the bench ,, I walked over and the delivery preset was set to 5...... Gallons..
After some unpleasantness.. they agreed to pull the engine and replace all the blown seals, valve cover gaskets
so this was about 1500 miles in to owning it..
I was dumb enough to let them deal with a warranty issue on a cat about 2 months later, When I came to pick it up got in and noticed a funny smell and then a 4" hole melted in the carpeting.. The mechanic had used a torch and burnt the floor and melted the carpet..
About 2 hours of unpleasantness with me on the cell phone on speaker with Chrysler in the SM office and they agreed to fix it..
The service manager was quite offended when I warned him that if they damaged ANYTHING else while repainting the tub it would go badly...
I ended up in there two more times for a transmission warranty every time it was a total cluster, Chrysler wouldn't let me take it to the dealer in another town..

Only time they ever saw my rig was for warranty work , when the warranty ran out,, it never went back to a dealer..

Of course now the dealer would not touch it,, the only close to stock part left is the body..

But I miss them not..

 

Unfortunatly or fortunately we have Porsche buyer that won't purchase a car if the CD player don't work or the front bumper has a microscopic scratch.

 

I do my own work but I have a garage, tools and have been working on cars for a long time. Not everyone has access to a garage for example, or doesn't have the tools or the know how to do the work. There is also value in the documentation that is provided.

That said, $495 is a bit steep, even for SoCal, but then these things are not always priced logically. The mentality may be that "it's a GT3/GT3RS, we can charge $495 and get it". Also, in SoCal, labor rates are probably close to $175-$200 at a Porsche indy shop, and there are enough cars out there to keep them busy. Just like on a Ferrari ... oil, filter and book labor time aren't that much more than on other higher end Euro cars, yet the prices are much higher for any BASIC maintenance (oil, plugs, air filters, fluids). It's how the industry operates.

 

And probably don't own any tools.

 

Those are good points Lawrence... Same with me. I have the tools, a decent sized garage, a 4-post car lift and the experience to be able to tackle most of the basic items. But wrenching is not for everyone, I get it. These are special cars, and DIY work can indeed come with some risks. For the example at hand, while an oil change on one of these cars is not particularly complicated, it's certainly possible to make a mistake that could have catastrophic (and very expensive) consequences. Hell, we could have an entire thread dedicated to dumb wrenching screw-ups.

This will sound a bit corny, but another reason I like to do my own work is that it helps me 'understand' and know the car better. I feel like it's more my car once I've done a bit of work on it here and there.

Re: this very expensive oil change... I know these shops have to make ends meet, but if you're going to make people feel taken advantage of by charging so much for the relatively simple stuff, how suspicious will your customers be when they need to you to do more significant maintenance work or repairs?

 

I could see someone's wedding ring falling into the oil filter hole
I could also imagine someone spacing out and forgetting to replace the little o-ring, but I imagine those with no experience would avoid the various DIY procedures like replacing spark plugs etc. When I had the control-valve/disc valve issue I dove right in to find out what was wrong. And it's funny how that disc valve is from the 928. If mine had been effective as well, it's just under $30. Dealer would have charged a fortune to diagnose and repair. Many owners had them misdiagnosed, sent back under warranty 10 years ago!

JB

 

I wish I had time and a lift to do the simple stuff myself. Mostly because it's pretty difficult to find competent people in France to work on this and no one cares about your car more than yourself The piece of mind of knowing it was done right is nice.

 

I think many people are intimidated to work on the 997, but I've found that it is one of the *easiest* and most reliable cars to work on and to own.

 

Agreed

 

The 7.1 can't be any or much different than my 6GT3. Why can't you do it yourself?

I don't even use a jack. I just back the car out of the garage until the tail is past the door, lay down some sheet plastic, and slide two oil pans under it.

The whole job takes about 1/2 hour, mostly waiting for the oil to drain, and about $80 (most of that is the oil).

Autozone takes the spent oil for free. I don't know about California. I would not be surprised if you had to submit to a background check and fingerprints.

The job is amazingly simple (easier than a lawnmower) and only requires a minimum of tools (far less than $400 worth). As an added bonus you get to beat your chest when you are done.

 

Well, the other thing I did not consider is that you do get bragging rights when you tell friends (or anyone in earshot) that your oil change costs $500.

 

I’ve worked on vehicles before I could drive - ever since my parents needed assistance with the air cooled VW fleet. Kept at it when I “graduated” to Porsches and BMW’s. Getting a track obsession and then racing kept me upping that game. Now I have a (very) small side business https://dergarage.com working on p-cars for a handful of owners. My main interest is modifications and upgrades but plenty of regular maintenance and repairs are also done. I can understand the OP using a service provider for even the most basic of maintenance. There is some value for certain buyers having the dealer/independent service records when purchasing. I look for that when finding my next dream car. But I also have a lot of respect for the many talented DIY people in the Porsche community and don’t think twice about buying a car from someone who did their own work and kept records. In the modern era I keep an online photo album of all the work performed on a car, with images of the odometer included which can be used at the time of sale.

Not everyone has the time/interest/equipment to DIY car work. And no one wants to overpay but in some markets and marques the professional service carries a significant price tag.

 

When the 991 GT3 came out, there were some cases of engine fire. I read quite a bit about it, and it turns out some techs were wiping the engine after reinstalling the drain plugs and forgetting the oil soaked rags in there after closing the underbody panels