Macca

Too true. I saw it in their showroom before the SITT in early March....surely gone after 3 months? They had a few in there at the time including Petes colleagues dark grey 3.8, a red 3.8 and a red 991 GT3 with black wheels...

John McM

I managed to get through April without a single Porsche expense. This month I have two new front struts for the Turbo 3.6 but Herman is entering a stable phase. He's running very sweetly and the RUF Bilsteins are a great match with the H&R springs. Just need Peter to work his magic on the stance now that I have the permanent configuration.

No more cars for me. The 964s meet all of my needs.

Macca

Yes. April was a cheap month for me too. Like you I had two 911s inoperable!
Unfortunately May 993 work will take the rest of the annual budget and then some. By the time that completes the 991 should have a brand new engine and then there a few small work streams there to have done. It's not looking like a particularly cheap year!

kiwi 911

Macca - did Porsche respond to your open 991 GT3 letter??

Macca

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/...pensation.html

Hoping the US comp deal should fall in line this week.

Yes they did. Both directly and in the German media. Its posted somewhere on the
other board. It was one of those pseudo politico corporate affairs that read nicely but didnt say much. The tone was conciliatory however.

gt38088

Newer car fends off costs for a bit but at the rate that some are doing track days it still catches up. Gearbox rebuilds etc. Some trackday use in the RSG group will be more mileage than many race cars. No way around this unfortunately :-)

kiwi 911

So how much do you get - enough for the 993 box rebuild??

RS ZWEI

Does anyone know how many new unregistered 991 GT3's are sitting around idle.

Macca

100% agree

Macca

Yes approximately. The information is mostly on the 991 GT3 forum but mostly on the Action Group closed forum....

Macca

I'm expecting compensation commensurate with those in UK, Switzerland, Germany etc in fact I should think most owners who have already taken delivery will be treated very fairly. Dealers worldwide have already supplied new loan cars etc

RS ZWEI

What about here in NZ Mark?

John McM

Herman is about to tick over 12,000 km travelled in the 9 months since July 2013. In that time he has been driven 19 days at the track. Some of it intense and some light (Regularity trials).

While he's running sweetly now, I know I'm using component lifetime with each run. It would just be nice to have a clear period with low expenses. I'm helping that by halting the discretionary spend. He runs fast enough now and I'm happy with the reliability, look and driving dynamics. Unless Lola does a sub 1.19.50....

Macca

Nik. I believe 8 cars including mine. Three delivered and registered back in Jan and another four that arrived in March which are not registered. Mine is - so 4 registered and four not registered. It seems highly unlikely there will be any further delivery of 991 GT3 to NZ now until Sept. The factory has stated they will replace engines in order of production with those at the factory held back until last. They are producing 40 a day but only able to release half that number as believe (not confirmed by PAg) each engine is being wet run 1000km to stress test it before it is released. Rumour has it the whole GT3 development team have been putting stress test miles on Porsches tracks with these new engines 24/7 since the component in question was replaced.

Of course then there is the logistics of moving many hundred of 200kg engines around the world by air! Porsche cant afford a mistake this time so I expect these engines "should" be some of the most reliable product the factory has ever produced! Here's hoping. Fitting time is estimated at 1.5 days labour but lets say two days to be sure. Its a fairly simple hook up job but requires the evacuation of coolant and fluids and a number of under-body and rear bumper components and covers to be removed. The transmission gets dropped with the engine naturally then split. Its a big component as seen below. If my aircooled takes 8-10 hours to drop the engine/gearbox and bolt it back up this job will take a bit longer as more ancillaries to remove.

No firm time frame for replacement engines but one would expect the first 3-4 engines should makes NZ in late May with those cars being on the road by early June with the balance to flow 2-3 weeks after that. Id expect all the NZ cars to be in the road by end of July but again speculation.

As you will see on the other board compensation has been a difficult topic to establish equality. Obviously every customers circumstances are different and so there will be a fair bit of variation between clients. For those who have had delivered, registered and used their car before the recall its generally recognised that a loan vehicle and loss of use consideration of 5500 GBP till end of April and 1.5K GBP pro rata for each month thereafter is acceptable. For the average client with a car delivered id suggest that would equate to 7500 GBP as a cash rebate.

Macca

John. Dont drive it! That will ensure a low period without expenses LOL!

Seriously though. My car was 100% reliable for the first 12 years I owned it. Averaged only 3500km a year. If you ignore the modifications it would have cost no more than annual servicing.

Now that being said the last 24 months the car has travelled 13000km which includes 7 track days and a 5 day targa. As you know I like to drive it hard on track and road so its endured little mercy.

If I look at wear and tear I could day the only costs Ive had outside of again "performance modifications" are a drive shaft (issue was dry bearings probably from many tears of intermittent dry storage) a rear toe arm x 2 (accelerated by track work Taupo & Manfield), and an air con evaporator (age related and common failure item). Otherwise its been usage related consumables (pads, fluids, tyres etc).

So to be fair to the 993 its been pretty reliable and never left me stranded yet. Over the last few years there have been an increase in small gremlins, not reliability issues as such but small things that have needed to be sorted out (electrical and otherwise).

Now I face a gearbox synchro? job. The gear-shift has been playing up since 2011 but has become increasingly worse until the SITT where I really struggled with it and in the end couldn't really use 2nd. 88k km for synchros? I put it down to driving style. I confess I havent been very sympathetic mechanically on the box. Ive got much better since the problem tho! I think Pauls probably been through a similar learning curve. Anyway its a big ticket "maintenance" item accelerated but not caused by track work and fast road driving.

One BIG caveat over the above for those with any interest in running a 993 or 964 hard, is that the "performance modifications" have often involved removing wear prone components well before their expiry. For example in late 2013 I did the front RS uprights with new wheel bearings and RS tie rods. While we were in there we replaced the 20 year ord CV joints and boots. Thats three highly age/wear suseptable components all lifed back to new. Ive done a number of things like this which may have deferred maintenance that would otherwise have affected reliability by now.

One last point. If you are running track orientated cambers, running sticky tyres and pushing the car within 90%+ of its capability you will surely be accelerating wear related component failure. Id caveat that by saying driving style will have a multiplier affect.

I think Paul & Matt have both picked it up. If you push the 964 in its current configuration to consistent laps say 1.19 flat (which I believe it must be at least capable of) you will find things wear that little bit quicker. Its possible to get even a high 1.18 IMO out of your car with some camber and geo changes and dependant on driver of course but we are then running a heavy road car at 95% and this is where a light 1100kg "race car" makes so much more sense when it comes to costs per track km.

I hope Herman remains reliable for you but I wouldn't loose any sleep over it. One day youll find the box needs doing and a few other things as is always the case - nothing lasts for ever but the fun you are having with the car well offsets the cost IMO....