Warranty...worth it ?

I have a 50,000 mls C4. Porsche say £1450 for 12 months, £2695 for 24months. This includes Europe breakdown cover. Is this good value ? Seems excessive to me and I'm wondering if it's better value anywhere else. Dave

Always a good topic this one. When the warrany was £895 it was a bit of a no brainer however with the increase in price and the requirement for a 111 point check it is not so clear.I was in the camp of stuff Porsche I will go independently and take a chance, however I changed my mind and coughed up the £1350. And Boy am I glad! During it's 48k service they have found a sticky hydraulic tappet, a noisy EGR valve and corruding rads. This little lot would have cost me several thousand to put right but Mr warranty has stepped in. Two years ago I had the 2nd gear synchro go awray - this required a complete gearbox rebuild costing in excess of £4000. Again the warranty came good. I will keep the car with an OPC warranty for as long as I can. With regard to third party insurance companies, excluding people like Hartech I would make sure you read the small print very carefully. I know a few people have a Tesco warranty and it will be interesting to see what happens if they have to make a major claim. If my car was age restricted from OPC warranty then I would definately look at Hrrtechs scheme (even more so if it was down South)

......thanks for that. I've got a block of 9 flats with cheaper insurance to replace if neccesary. I'll go down the specialist route for now. Take yoiur point re the privates. I've had two non car claims in 30 years and they wriggled out of each one.

Can I ask a question related to the new warranty. If you have warranty, manufacturers or OPC used, and the 111-point inspection shows a problem what then. For clarification I'm assuming you went for the new warranty with a day of the old one in place then are you covered or are you forced to go for inspection on the day the warranty expires? You get my drift. :?: Pete

Pete I don't know enough about the warranties to comment. Insurance is always based on fear, as we know. What intrigues me is a car that is built to a higher standard than most is almost expected to break down seriously at some point. I've had Vauxhall astras that do 150,000+ mils before surgery. Surely if the Porsche is serviced and not flogged to much it should do the same. OPC are charging too much and the raking in more with the insurance premiums when customers are trying to negate their fees. Double whammy for Porsche. Still love that car. Dave

warranty I have a 996 c4s cab, as I only use it for pleasure maybe 3000 miles a year it does not make much sense to pay for the warranty, i have owned boxsters and had no problems . If you put aside the premium say 1500 a year you can get quite a lot done within that amount if you need to! I agree with the last post its all based on fear, because unlike a vauxhall a Porsche is by its nature going to be expensive to repair, mine is serviced by an independent I detest the attitude and huge charges OPC's make find a good independent and youll be ok.

You have to have (and pay for) the 111 point irrespective of whether you are in new car warranty, new used warranty or the old used warranty scheme. The new used car warranty scheme covers more, as such it's possible that something that might come up which requires repair, that wouldn't be covered under the old used car warranty. As such, you'll need to pay for it to be repaired before you will be able to take the warranty. The new used car warranty is more in-line with the original manufacturer new car warranty, as such if your car is still less than 2 years old, then anything not wear and tear would be covered. There is a rather nasty sting in the tail though. Firstly, some OPC dealers are refusing to offer the warranty for items that would not be covered by warranty anyway, eg. brakes, tyres, alloy curbing (I kid you not) Secondly, if you have anything and I mean anything, after market installed (eg. Bluetooth, Angel alert, Tracker) and it is discovered during the 111 point inspection, then the warranty will not be offered. As to whether its worth it or whether it's scare mongering, I disagree. There is a known RMS and intermediate shaft design fault with the M96 and pre-facelift 996 engines (not GT3/Turbo). These can and do wrong on a regular basis and can be extremely expensive to repair if the engine goes wrong (about 10k for a new engine) or about £1k for a leaky 10p plastic ring. The insurance company of course try and make a profit out of the scheme, but the 996 (and early 997) do have design issues with the engine and that is fundamentally what fuels the used car warranty. I want to extend my warranty, but at the moment cannot, due to my Bluetooth Parrot being installed. I'm talking to Porsche CS, but I am suspecting the answer will be no. Part of me is thinking oh well, that's £1.5 saved, but as in the example above, it isn't necessarily the case. Especially if my engine goes. If I can't get the warranty extended, I'll get out of Porsche ownership. As I've also fallen out with BMW, I'm not sure where this leaves me. But having a warranty refused because you have a bluetooth telephone installed, into an OEM headunit which has the option for an external telephone equipment is quite frankly, madness. So the question is, what car manufacturer shall I move to?

GD, thanks for replying. I'd forgotten I'd posted this :?: I'm fortunate to be still under manufacturers warranty so my question is still, as I don't think anyone has answered yet, if you plan to extend the warranty to run continuous without a second outside warranty and they find something with the 111-point check you will be covered, right? I understand all your points and thank you for them. I will be looking at all possible insurance schemes as I don't believe in wasting my hard earned cash as would the next person. My local opc is Bolton where I bought the car from. To be fair they were decent to me but you would expect that as I was a 'buyer' :wink: then. Next time they will have to compete with Hartech also on Bolton and their maintanence scheme. Only thing is I don't remember seeing a 997 scheme in their plan or was am I mistaken? A lot of the indies don't seem to cater service deals for the 997 yet. I suppose in time they will. So one thing I might do is take it for the inspection as if I was going to re-warrant it (with a few days of the manufacturers warranty still remaining) get them to fix anything that shows and is covered under manufacturers warranty and depending on how helpful they were decide then on whether the future is opc or indie! :wink: :wink: Pete

Hi, I did answer it, but perhaps not clearly enough. As you are still in the new car manufacturer warranty period, faults found during the 111 point will be repaired FOC under your existing scheme (as there's no gap between new car warranty and the new style used car extended warranty). If you were under the old warranty scheme (where there is a gap between your current cover and the new cover, in terms of parts qualification), then the item will be fixed FOC as long as it was covered under the original warranty. If not, the fix will be at your own cost. The difference is under the new scheme, some OPCs are now using this as argument to practically print money, eg. saying that they will not offer the warranty for tyre wear, discs/pads, alloy curbing etc, even though these items are not covered under the warranty anyway!

Wrt to an extended warranty. You are extremely limited. Most (if not all), 3rd party warranties don't cover the labour rates of an OPC and will have a claim limit (certainly less than a replacement engine or gearbox). This leaves the only real alternative as Hartech, which currently doesn't include the 997. I'm sure if you spoke to them, they will probably be introducing it shortly, as the 997 is fundamentally the same design as the M96, with the same RMS and intermediate shaft problems. I understand the facelift 997 has finally addressed these issues, but whether Porsche have introduced additional problems, only time will tell.

The only caveat being that they won't offer you a warranty if you have any third party product installed on the car, eg. bluetooth headset etc. I also believe there's an issue if the car has been serviced outside of the OPC network (although I doubt this is the case with you).

Warranty worth it? Warrant worth it? In my case Yes. The car is once again back at an OPC garage where it is having for the third time this year the engine removed to find out where the oil is leaking from. So glad it's still under warranty. I will, with out fail be extending the warranty in Jan. I agree with all the comments above about build quality and fear, but £1350 doesn,t go vey fare when things go wrong on expensive car such as porsche's! Any one else have oil leak issues on a 997 GT3?

[/quote] GD thanks for your replies. I'm horrified that the RMS problen hasn't been sorted on the Mk1 997. I thought that when I bought the car this frequent problem wouldn't be one for me :x :evil: . I will speak to Hartech to discuss the options in 10 months time. I have no none opc mods so will be able to get the warranty at Porshe if needs be and has not been serviced yet. Could I ask you one more question. If I have a short shift fitted which is a non-opc part (I have read on this forum that the official part is not the best), if they found out about it would they also refuse warranty? :?: I would probably go down opc part if it did. Pete

Pete I would suggest the answer to your question is yes, and i grappled with this myself recently. I wanted the Manthey shifter but in the end went 997 ssk fitted by opc specifically for wtee reasons.... lol, if i get refused ,my wtee extension next yr i'll be pretty cheesed off !!

The RMS is improved on the pre facelift 997, but not resolved. It has an up-rated part, but is still fundamentally flawed. There is a great guide on the M96 engine workings which are still entirely applicable to the pre-facelift 997 (on Hartech's website). I would add that the RMS isn't really anything to worry about. It's internal engine failure through the intermediate shaft or the liners. Both 996 and 997 suffer with this. Wrt short shift. If it's a non-Porsche part, the warranty will be refused. You might find that some dealers are more lenient than others, but certainly Reading, Chiswick, Guildford (all PCGB owned) and another one I tried aren't prepared to risk it (understandably so).