2 week old blues

just purchased 2001 c4 2 weeks ago. some may have already seen my rms post... car has been with the dealer now 2 days. detected a leak upon my drive back from a dealer 200miles away. yes, i have rms. luckily, i bought a cpo so rms is covered. check engine light also came on on my way back..... o2 sensor, covered. groaning front suspension - cause: bad control arm, however, NOT covered. looking at 550 +250 for alignment and im getting real pissed about having bought a car with so much that needs doing right out of the gate. thankfully, the selling dealer stepped up and will pay for the repair. also had the clutch replaced with 35k miles on car.... was told by repairing dealer that it was worn past 50% mark so it would be foolish to not do it at essentially 70% discount. clutch as a part cost 700. i am amazed at the variance in clutch replacement estimate.... this guy, pepe in white plains, ny says 2500, danbury in ct quoted 1500 all in(6hr labor) and the grand daddy of em all, manhattan motors at 4400. crazy.... anyway, as a newly minted pca member, i learned that pepe gives 20% discount on parts and labor, bringing that down to a reasonable 90/hr. while im not happy for all that i went thru, i am happy of the outcome. coulda been alot worse. new clutch at 560... not too bad. just thought i share my experience to date.

That's exactly why you should have a PPI done before purchasing any used Porsche, even one with a warranty. For $200-250 you can save yourself a lot of headaches! That's pricey for the clutch kit, though not out of line with most dealers. You can get it from Suncoast Porsche for $430: http://e-partssales.com/Merchant2/me...y_Code=996main What do you mean 70% discount to do the clutch? How much labor are they charging you? If they're doing the RMS, it's a cinch to do the clutch at the same time.

i would consider yourself lucky. some issues with a used car is perfectly normal. way to reduce this risk is by doing ppi next time.

Suncoast has the BEST oem prices, ask for Noel, he hooks me up everytime!

buying from a porsche dealer, with a full 2yr cpo warranty, i felt i can reasonably expect the car to have been throughly put through the paces and have any maintenance and repairs done.. according to a cousin of mine who is a porsche salesman, cpo will only be designated by porsche na if all their criteria is met... never been in an accident, acceptable repair history and must go out with all maintenence performed, min tread, min brake life, etc, etc. as it turns out, while its been a pain, but its all been taken care of. so the selling dealer took did the right thing by covering the control arm that cpo wold not cover. clutch was something i opted to do, while i didnt need a new one at this moment, chose to do because it was past 50% worn and it cost so little - relative to a whole separate clutch job at the various quoted prices on my orig post. the repairing dealer is charging me zero labor. so i thought of it as insurance or prepaying for a job that will most likely be needed sometime down the road. in the opinion of the tech, i would have needed it the next 10-20k miles. i didnt have the luxury of time nor the option to buy a clutch kit elsewhere, then bring it in so that the dealer can then install as the car was already on the lift and wasnt gonna stay there awaiting a part i bought elsewhere. 70% disco number is based on my paying 550 for the clutch alone net of pca discount vs the 2000 or 2500 it would cost me if i brought the car in after the rms was replaced. difference is all labor. no doubt i would have done a ppi if i bought from a private party or a non porsche dealer... but the manner in which the selling dealer handled my situation has left me with a good feeling about my buying from a porsche dealer and a cpo. hopefully, this period of anxiety will be beind me when i pick up the car today. i truly cannot stop grinning every time i get behind the wheel....

Doing the clutch when doing RMS makes sence, as the RMS job get's the car to the point where the clutch replacement is almost only parts, no more labor. Of course any dealer would suggest you do it at that point, as they will make some $$$ on the parts Depending who drove the car before you, and how they drove it, will have effected clutch wear. Lot's of clutch burning starts will eat through the original clutch real fast, I've seen 996's with only 12k miles need a new clutch! No way any dealer could tell how worn it was without getting in there, assuming it was working perfectly (which I guess it was). PPI would not have been able to tell you the clutch was 50% worn. PPI should have spotted the control arm - but there's no guarantee on that either - you mentioned that you only noticed it after driving for some time, and that the sound was not evident when cold... Glad the selling dealer stepped up for you- - that's only right. Think positive - you have a whole load of new parts on your car - less to worry about in the mid-term. Chris.

with regards to the control arm----b*tch and moan to pcna, what have you got to lose? even you complain enough, they just might kick in for parts.

While anyone would be dissapointed if their new (to them) car needed so much in their first weeks of ownership, look on the bright side. You now have a new 02 sensor, rms, control arm and clutch for only 560 dollars. If someone told me that was just done on a car I was looking to buy I would definately offer them 1-2 k more. Congrats on your new purchase, and double congrats to the dealer who sold you the car for stepping up and paying for the control arm!

I agree - you should of expected more from a CPO car....

it really has restored my faith in dealers, the manner in which the selling dealer handled himself. i dealt with the owner so im guessing he felt more responsible than most. during the 3hrs i waited for the selling dealer to get back to me about what they were gonna do, i contacted pcna. they were useless.... the drone, while sounding sympathtic kept telling me its not covered. i said i KNOW its not covered and thats why im calling you, to see if you can try to bring about a happy ending to a situation that a buyer from an authorized delaer is suffering from. he readily agreed that it wasnt fair for me to have a car with so much needed repairs. also readily agreed that i had the right to expect a car free of problems when you drive it off a authorized dealer lot. having said that, if the seller wanted to stiff me, pcna would want to know about it but would not step into help. i hung up on him.... dont tell me you cant do anything.... you WONT is more accurate. so all that stood between me and absolute fury was the seller, and he came through. expect nothing from pcna... as a policy, seems they dont really to care to get involved in customer grievences, though they want to know about it!

I've had luck getting PCNA involved, but only by going directly to the area representative that looks after my dealership. I asked the dealership for his name, and got through to him by calling PCNA and asking for him by name. Having got him directly involved in a warranty/service issue, PCNA suddenly stepped up and 'authorized' the dealership to fix the problem. Might be a course of action for others to bear in mind - personal involvement usually gets you better results that just hitting the corp helpline. Chris.

Stupid question, but if the car has been certified, would this not be considered a PPI?

For a car to be certified, it has to go through PPI first. If/when it passes PPI, or when all detected anomalies corrected, then it gets certified. Anyhoo, that's how it's SUPPOSED to work.

Even though it's annoying, you're still getting a lot done for $550+ dollars.... this will all be over soon and you can start enjoying the ride.