todinlaw

I posted this at 6speed as well not sure where this fits in. I recently bought a 997 GT3. I have tracked it twice, and loved it. So I went out and bought the 996 GT3 seats and roll bar. I am getting ready to install them and I notices that the vehicle warranty states that it will not cover Damage the occurs during any racing or "track events, including Porsche sanctioned events" How do you guys handle the issue. are we voiding our Warranty by doing DE's. I mean give me a break you sell a race car and then say don't drive it. Also, if i install the seats and bar, am i giving myself away meaning if I develop a problem it will be hard to sell them that i do not rack the car. I have a small RMS leak which I am going to get resolved before in install the bar and seats. How do you guys handle this.

NJcroc

i would ask around your local club which dealers in the area are track friendly. you will not be able to hide the traack use froma dealer who is unfriendly towards this type of use. That said if you find a helpful dealer dont expect things that broke due to abusive track misuse to be covered

mooty

not every dealer is same in this regard, as around and find a DE friendly dealer and be friend them.

also, just b/c you drive the **** out of it on track doesn't mean it voids all warranty b/c one cannot say such failure only occur on track. now if you got into 2nd gear instead of 4th and zing the motro to 9000 rpm, sure, it's your fault and dont expect to be covered. but if your RMS leaked, how is that related to track use? or maybe your radio blew up, coolant hose popped, serpentine belt broke, cat converter died... i fully expect those to be covered.

i know of no less than 20 GT3's all have GT3 seats and roll bar installed. 1/2 of them dont track, so those items cannot be used as evidence for "abuse".

bmc

good question. where and how are you reading that?
i mean, i bought my car from porsche as an EX DE car with 5000 miles on the odo, i assume most spent on or at a DE of some sort.

rop3

Most PCA chapters have a dealer liason you can ask him/her. Also many dealerships sponsor and advertise thru the local PCA chapter this is a great sales tool for them.

Find out which ones.

RonCT

Although our cars are track-worthy, they are not sold as track cars. Meaning -- go ahead and track your car, but don't complain to Porsche if you blow your engine or abuse is the cause for part failures. They certify the car should be 100% fine for 4 years and 50,000 miles as driven on the street in a normal fashion. Change that to abuse on the track and you can understand their point. By your post, I can tell you aren't talking about abusing the car -- just driving it hard, but within design parameters.

The key is as others have said -- having the right dealer. My dealer encourages people to exercise their Porsches at our PCA DEs. They do the inspections, install modifications, etc. I don't know just how far they would go, however, with mods -- for example, I don't know if they would remove seats, install a cage, and disable the airbag warning lights.

I would guess that if you rolled into any dealer with a fully modified track car (lowered suspension, roll cage, harnesses, seats, etc.), they might have a real hard time covering things under warranty -- if it looks like a PCA Club Race Car... Imagine if the PCNA regional representative had to come to see your car at the dealer for an override / approval to replace an engine, transmission, or even pull apart the engine for RMS? In that case, you might return the car to stock first. But even then, signs of track use may be evident for the rep to see.

Casual DE use will not show up in a visual inspection. But hard DE use is another matter...

Perhaps more importantly is how is your GT3 insured?

Mad Manx

In the UK, the official warranty (2 years with extendable options thereafter) does cover non-competitive track events, which is only fair. Porsches are marketed for their track performance.

It would be like Land Rover or Jeep saying their warranties did not cover off-road use.

However, any after-market tuning, and some suspension, modifications could well invalidate the warranty. Slicks are obviously in breach of the warranty terms.

The on-board diagnostics give a reasonably clear indication of how the car has been used, and an 'over-rev' caused by missing a gear, would show up and may invalidate related aspects of the warranty.

TT Gasman

My dealer has always been very cool about DE use and reasonable warranty work on the 996. The only time they ever balked, when I wanted to install a Teq. roll bar - they wanted nothing to do with it.

85Gold

Dealer is everything I took my AutoX GT3 in for its annual service last year and the car was covered for a bad LSD. It was obvious the car had been Coned by the front bumper cover and the paint damage behind the front and rear wheels from R comps throwing rocks and sand.

Peter

todinlaw

First thanks all for the posts. as to where I am reading this? It is in both the owners manual and the waranty book about excluding damage during a track event. Ok, know I am going to reveal something about myself, that I am a lawyer, so as i read the language of the coverage exclusions it is vary vague. it says that to void the warranty the damage must occur "during" the event. difficult to prove that it did or did not depending on what the damage was. I agree that if you miss a gear and hit 10 grand that this is abuse, but honestly you could do that on the street too.( i know they have a way to track that onthe computer, and they may not cover that as an abuse rather than a track problem, but I am just using it as an example that much of what you do on the track could happen on this street, if you are crazy) I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has crossed that bridge. as i read it i think it would be hard limiting the coverage if it was fuzzy at all as to when it happened. For example my RMS leak happed the first week of ownership and well before i tracked it.

We do have two dealers in Columbus, one sponsors our local PCA so I will start with them. If find out anything more specific I will pass it along.