997 broken down - 3rd party warranty - Page 1 - 911/Carrera GT - PistonHeads UK

Frustrating Sunday night - 997 4S broke down at 21:30 5 miles from home, I was accelerating hard when the car went really really lumpy & yellow flashing CEL came on so I coasted to a halt in a cul-de-sack off the main road & called the RAC. Took 2 hours to come & after 3 mins they said I needed recovery, which arrived at 12:45am. I discovered that my family membership only has recovery & not onward travel so only takes me to one place - would be OK in the day but NOT OK at 2am! I decided to get recovered to Northway where I bought the car from a year ago, rather than a few closer alternatives as I knew at Northway I could leave the car in their carpark & it would be safe there - I wasn't sure if any of the other garages nearby would be as secure. So it took 90 mins to Northway, where I got a taxi home from for £100 (thank goodness for smartphones, made it so much easier). Anyway, got to bed at 03:30 and got a lift to the office the next day with a pal. Spoke to Northway at 3pm and they had replaced all 6 coil packs (1 was destroyed & 3 were cracked), car is 8 years old. I had to pay for 2 but the rest they had claimed from my warranty company without me having to do anything. I'd extended my warranty for £1k for 2 years last month after the 1 year the car came with ran out. The warranty company paid £260 and I paid £90 for the 2 that were fine. I took them a bottle of nice malt (Balvenie DoubleWood) as a thank you as I was back on the road by 5pm! Yes it was inconvenient but it's the price I'm happy to pay to drive what was a £100k car as my daily. And it just goes to show that not all warranty companies are out to shaft their customers. Ray @ Northway told me these guys are pretty decent & pay out for major failures, which is why I took it out. There is a maximum claim limit of £5k but if you think about it, with a rebuild costing around £5k-£7k, it only takes a year or two of non-Porsche servicing & parts and it's break even anyway.

Hi. My porsche warranty runs out in December and I don't fancy paying through the nose for gt3 servicing. Who was the warranty company??

Hi. My porsche warranty runs out in December and I don't fancy paying through the nose for gt3 servicing. Who was the warranty company??

Hi they are called WMS Automobile

So, so far you've (1 way or another) paid for 1500 pounds' worth of cover and successfully claimed £260? Given that most people could easily stomach such an unexpected bill themselves, I think the acid test of whether the cover's worth having would be if they straightforwardly paid out the £5k to someone with an engine failure.

OP, I'm glad you got sorted. One thing to remember is that a recovery guy can take your car on without you, so you should have sent the car to Northways and caught a cab for the five miles home. You would have got to bed sooner.

thegoose said: So, so far you've (1 way or another) paid for 1500 pounds' worth of cover and successfully claimed £260? Given that most people could easily stomach such an unexpected bill themselves, I think the acid test of whether the cover's worth having would be if they straightforwardly paid out the £5k to someone with an engine failure. It's not an unreasonable challenge - but where does the £1500 come from? I bought the car in Oct 2013 with 12 months warranty. 1 year later I paid £1000 for 2 years further cover. In the first year of ownership of the car I got the gearbox rebuilt, the windscreen washer pump replaced, the PSE valve replaced, a new foil attached to the rear threee quarter panel, and since renewing, 6 new coil packs. All I have paid towards this work is £90. Sounds good to me! It's a 2006 car with 47,000 and inevitably some parts are going to break over the next 2 years as I do 14,000 miles a year in it. Of course I wouldn't be bothered by a £260 bill, if I was I wouldn't drive any car, that's only 3 tanks of fuel! But I have complete confidence in the product, from experience, and because Ray told me he has dealt with IMS failures and they always pay out. I trust Ray because of the way he has dealt with me over the last 7 years which has shown him to be completely trustworthy and decent. Regarding letting the guy take it to the garage & dropping it off - I didn't feel comfortable with this as it would mean leaving my key, and also previous time I got towed the operator substantially damaged my car and it was only because I was present that he couldn't fleece me, quite amusing as I was in his cab when he was on the phone to his bos saying "No we won't be able to say it was like that, he was standing right next to me when I did it!"

Paddy_N_Murphy said: interesting. Mines from Northway, same Warranty. It did not cross my mind that the warranty (which yes Ray said was a 'decent' one) was extendable. 1k for 2yrs you say? Inspections and such required? Think it was £700 for 1 year, £1050 for 2 years or £1400 for 3 years No inspections, OPC service, matching N ratings on tyres, Porsche parts or any of that nonsense, just keep the services within 500 miles of the recommendation. It makes running a car that was close to £100k new, actually affordable for me without the risk of a huge bill or wasting money

jakesmith said: It's not an unreasonable challenge - but where does the £1500 come from? I bought the car in Oct 2013 with 12 months warranty. 1 year later I paid £1000 for 2 years further cover. I'm guessing you meant Oct 2012 and I said £1500 "one way or another" which was just working on a pro-rata basis - you paid c£1000 for 2 years = £500/year, so in total for the 3 years total cover you've purchased (albeit some of this was wrapped up in the purchase price of the car) simple maths suggests £1500 of cover. jakesmith later on said: Think it was £700 for 1 year, £1050 for 2 years or £1400 for 3 years QED, you did my job for me here really jakesmith said: In the first year of ownership of the car I got the gearbox rebuilt, the windscreen washer pump replaced, the PSE valve replaced, a new foil attached to the rear threee quarter panel, and since renewing, 6 new coil packs. All I have paid towards this work is £90. Sounds good to me! It's a 2006 car with 47,000 and inevitably some parts are going to break over the next 2 years as I do 14,000 miles a year in it. Obviously none of us knew this earlier, now I can see why you renewed and the cover looks reasonable value and in your case you're certainly up on the deal (a gearbox rebuild normally being c£2500).

thegoose said: Obviously none of us knew this earlier, now I can see why you renewed and the cover looks reasonable value and in your case you're certainly up on the deal (a gearbox rebuild normally being c£2500). It's bizarre but I'm actually happier, having paid for a warranty, to have used it, despite the inconvenience of breakdown! Makes me feel good about the decision & money spent, and you do get some beterment from having new parts in the car too. I think a lot of people have had bad experiences with 3rd party warranty companies but that doesn't mean that even if 99% of them are crap, that there aren't a few good ones.

Interesting thread as I also have a 997 4S supplied by Ray and it came with the WMS warranty. I didn't renew it when it expired in March this year. Admitedly I drive fewer miles p/y but my car is higher miles at ~55k. During the warranty the amplifier went, it that wasn't covered (~£300). Since then the coffin arm went and the a/c condensers went, £850 between both. Would they have been covered, not sure, unlikely. More than anything though, I am surprised (as in, dissapointed at Porsche "quality") that you've needed a gearbox rebuild and 6 new coil packs at somewhere between 30 and 45k miles. It really does seem to me that these cars are built with sub-standard components that randomly fail. I have more issues with my 911 than I do with two older but similar mileage cars.

The car is 8 years old... I think it's pretty reasonable TBH Re the gearbox - synchro failed between 5th & 6th, they said it was the only one they'd ever seen like it and searches of the forums revealed the same so a pretty freak occurrence. The way I look at it / justify it is that the original owner lost c. £60k in depreciation, I get to drive it for peanuts compared to that even if there is the odd £1k expense here and there. I don't know if the coffin / condenser would have been covered or not, in my mind I see the main benefit as being £5k contribution towards a rebuild if the engine fails whick, according to this forum, is about 95% likely!

jakesmith said: The car is 8 years old... I think it's pretty reasonable TBH I'd disagree with you on that. My 12 yr old BMW doesn't seem to have as many issues as my 7 yr old 911. It just seems much more "Renault/Fiat" than what a German manufacturer should be. Washer pump going bad? Dodgy syncro at 40k miles? Faulty stereo amp? Squeaky steering (current issue on mine getting looked at tomorrow by Ray)? Etc... These are cheap car issues in an expensive car.

IMO if you paid £1400 for a 3 year warranty and never got to claim, its money well spent. Bit like private health insurance....I'd happily pay £40 a month for life and never be ill to claim on it

Mmmmmm What does this mean then... Engine - Rocker assembly, inlet and exhaust valves, valve guides and springs (excluding burnt valves and decokes), cylinder head (excluding cracks and overheating damage), stretched head bolts, push rods, camshaft and cam followers, timing gears, chains and tensioner, oil pump, pistons and rings, cylinder bores, gudgeon pins, con rods and bearings, crankshaft and bearings, flywheel and ring gear, distributor drive. Excludeds cracks and overheating damage ..... aka bore scoring? But then goes to say it covers Cylinder Bores

That's the components covered by their 3 star policy which also has a claim limit of something like £2k so pretty useless for a Porsche. I have the 5 star policy, with £5k limit. Only engine exclusions are injectors and oil seals. There is a fair list of exclusions but most of them are common sense really...chassis, bodywork, trim, glass, brake pads etc. I'm not saying it's perfect but Ray did tell me that they have sucessfully claimed for IMS failure and bore scoring - in the case of bore scoreing they got a contribution but the warranty company didn't pay for the non-damaged cylinders, leaving a partial payment required. Given how unlikely engine failure is this option for me is a good middle ground and spares me the ridiculous hoops Porsche make you jump through to use their warranty.

jakesmith said: Given how unlikely engine failure thats the quote of the week

So bored of hearing about it to be honest, it totally dominates the forums. I wouldn't normally consider 5ish percent to be a particularly high chance of something happening

jakesmith said: So bored of hearing about it to be honest, it totally dominates the forums. I wouldn't normally consider 5ish percent to be a particularly high chance of something happening Is it 5%? Whilst that would be pretty poor for a modern car, I'm not sure it would lead, as you say, to forum domination. As it certainly does.

All anecdotal of course but I've seen surveys on Boxa.net and one of the USA forums, maybe here too, that put it at about that figure, it's probably well under that considering the number of people who don't use forums and that you might be more likely to use a forum once you suffer catastrophic breakdown. Also talking to the guys at the various indi garages I've been over the last 8 years, they all say similar, that it's not as common as you'd think, 1 a month vs 50-100 cars coming in for normal work without a failed engine