cannon1000

My baby - of course it is a 996, not sure if it is that much different.

Macster

No flame.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear.

I'm not about to provide an *inexperienced* indy alignment shop my car to build up its experience on these cars.

If you have an indy shop that already has the experience to do a proper alignment, use the shop.

There's an indy that I would trust to do an alignment of my Turbo. I used it to mount new tires and align my Boxster once.

There are two problems using this shop though. One is the shop is down in Mountain View CA. This is nearly 40 miles from my house. There and back and the time it takes to do the work burns up a large portion of day's time. Time I can't spare.

Two is when I had my Boxster aligned there while I was of course pleased with the work and the service, the cost was nearly as high as if I had had the work done at a dealer.

For me then I can use a nearby dealer and in fact the dealer's SM will have a dealer shuttle run him over to my house, pick up my car, drive it to the dealer and after the service run the car back to my house. In the meantime I'm in my back up car.

The cost is nearly the same, and in some cases the dealer will give my a deal on the alignment. And the savings in time is worth something to me as well.

It I wanted a special alignment for my cars the techs at the dealer are perfectly capable of providing it.

Either I could supply the desired settings based on my research or rely upon the techs to provide alignment settings based on how I was going to drive the car.

If I required a special alignment though the cost could go up as the tech would need more time to do the special alignment.

Sincerely,

Macster.

phillipj

Agreed.. That makes complete sense...Sounds like you have a good dealer and a good relationship wiith the techs. That's awesome..

phillipj

Sweet car!!!!!! Don't see many red turbos.. Are your wheels grey or gold?

Macster

Sweet car indeed, and that color is awesome.

Sincerely,

Macster.

cannon1000

Red is "Amulet Red" samples to order color. The wheel color here is Black Chrome (prior owner chromed the wheels) - they are now solid black.

phillipj

It's a beauty.. That Red is awesome..

4ocious

Today, my new Michelin PSS's were installed and the car was aligned according to Porsche specs. All went well, my indy knew what to do and had the right answer to every question I asked. Thanks everyone for your comments and advice which aided me immensely in determining who could and who could not, do the work. BTW, I noticed an immediate improvement in the ride, handling, grip and quietness. I'm very pleased with my new MPSS's!

However, I am a bit concerned about the rear N-spec Bridgestones I removed. Their manufacture date was 4410 which is very recent yet, they had less than 4/32's remaining. My fronts were 3808 which is also a little strange considering my car is an 07. Because I don't know who the original owner was I'm beginning to think my car was heavily tracked which would explain why my rear tires were so worn. Or, perhaps the orginal owner bought a set of used tires when his OEMs wore out. At least I hope so-

Thoughts?

Macster

If I read your post right, I don't see anything sinister.

Depending up a couple (at least) factors the rears can wear out in under 10K miles.

(My 03 Turbo had a bad alignment and went through a set of new Conti's in around 8K miles, and while I can't recall the time this took I have put 85K miles on the car since June 09 and that works out to 37 months and ~2300 miles per month (on average) so it could have taken under 4 months to cover 8K miles. Might mention I had reason to replace the rear tires on this car a few weeks back and because one tire was damaged the possibility road hazard coverage would kick in. The remaining tread depth was 3mm which was above the 2mm lower limit so the tire with the damage was replaced, paid for by the road hazard coverage. The rear tires had over 23K miles on them and went on the car early in Sept of '11.)

Oh, thoughts? My thoughts are you should start enjoying the car now that it has new tires and a proper alignment and quit looking for things to worry about.

Sincerely,

Macster.

phillipj

I get about 6 to 7 k on my rears and I DONT track my car. When you like to get to "over boost" all the time you go through rears very quickly.. Totally agree with Macster.. Nothing sinister..

Yoy can make them last much longer... Just depends on how you drive..

cannon1000

Thanks! I like it. Should be the new Porsche Red IMO.

In regards to the rears...get used to it - these are big girls and they accelerate a lot! You can get longer lasting rubber but don't expect the grip to stay great either.

If you want more civilized tires the Conti DW's are good. I used the DWE (until the rears went). Don't be afraid to look at smaller tire sizes rated for your wheel width. I run 285's even though stock is 295. Gives me more tires to choose from as well as buy hand me downs if they come up (like my almost new Toyo's I have now I got for obscenely cheap).

512bb

Once you go PSS, I can hardly believe that you will go with the Conti DWs and yes the rears don't last too long.

4ocious

Thanks everyone for the update on rear tire wear. Because I was a previous AMG fanatic (and former MBUSA advisor) I wasn't quite sure what I was getting into. Now all I need to do is get Sirius/XM installed and I'll be good to-go, at least for now.

BTW, can you swap a v2.1 for a 3.0 PCM?

floridaBMW

Fr what I read u cannot swap to the new PCM...sadly. There r kits for BT and SAT radio which can b used in conjunction with orig PCM.

Ken