Further Double Glazing Salesmen (with sharks fins!!)

Guys, Following on from David M's very interesting 'just like double glazing salesmen" thread......... I have just purchased (last Tuesday) my long awaited 996 TT, which I bought privately off a very very nice genuine guy from Kent! It's a 2003 model. The car is amazing and is everything I ever dreamt it would be and more!! It has virtually every option including silver hard backed sports seats to compliment the silver centre console and silver dials and air vents etc! It's a very nice car and I looked at over 10 in total since December! Now.....the first point I would like to raise is where do I have it serviced?? The car has 51k on the clock and was serviced in December by Porsche Tonbridge (Kent). Including a renewal of the annual OPC warranty the December 2007 service bill was £3500 – this being for the 4 year major 48k service!! This level of expenditure is evident throughout the previous guys ownership of this car......to the extent that alarm bells have started to ring!! I looked over the reams and reams of invoices for the last 2 years in detail last night, and this bloke has spent an absolute fortune with Tonbridge Porsche! And that's with the car covered by an OPC warranty!! Which leads me onto my second point.......are Porsche Tonbridge particularly greedy by any chance? As it seems to me that they have financially assaulted this guy repeatedly from behind and then some! So.....the car has the OPC warranty on it until December.....and I live in Gloucester........ so what the hell do I do come December?? 1) Go to OPC in Cardiff and be severely robbed? 2) Go to OPC Bristol and be severely robbed? 3) Go to OPC Swindon and be severely robbed? 4) Go to a recommended independent and run the car outside of the umbrella of the OPC warranty scheme? Have any of you any good or bad experiences of the above mentioned OPC's?? Please? Now I'm no idiot when it comes to the mechanicals of a turbocharged sportscar and have owned 47 performance cars in my 20 years plus driving history and am also in the performance tuning parts industry myself, but this level of expenditure surely cannot be normal? This car has wanted for nothing (that was why I bought it) - it has all 5 annual stamps done by Porsche Tonbridge except for year one which was Porsche Sutton Coldfield who supplied the car from new. Just before I handed over my 40,000 hard earned wongas to the guy I bought it off I rang Porsche Tonbridge to enquire about the car (the owner had given the service dept permission to substantiate the service history). They described the then current owner as "a model Porsche customer".......well they would wouldn't they as it appears he gave them a blank cheque every time he took the car in for work! I will post up the dates and amounts of the invoices from the previous 2 years from Tonbridge later.....but it just seems they took this very nice man's pants down and had a good hard look 'inside'!! There are bills for £3500, £1100, £2600, £2200 and loads of other "smaller £500 ones" in between! One included 'topping up a battery cell" and 'supply new battery".....on the same bl**dy invoice??? That's just since March 2003 !! Now I don't want to have the worry of future OPC running costs spoil my enjoyment of this absolutely fantastic car, but any comments and pointers would be greatly appreciated!! (Apologies to Admin if I've posted this in the wrong section!! ) Regards, Ian

Do a search on here for Turbo owners talking about the benefits of having a warranty on a turbo - I believe most of them dont think its worth it as the turbo is reliable and doesnt have RMS issues. But do search before taking my word for it. Assuming you keep the OPC warranty then surely your best bet is: 1) Take it to closest OPC for servicing, and spell out very clearly they are only to do the service and warranty work, nothing extra at all 2) They will still tell you lots of things that they think need fixing. Once they do that, take it to your nearest recognised Indy specialist (someone will hopefully be along soon to recommend one near you) and get any non-warranty work done with them. If you dont keep the warranty, proceed straight to a good indy for service and long term personal care of your pride and joy. Enjoy.

Ian - first of all congratulations on your purchase We all moan about the service and maintenance of these cars and especially the OPC pricing but they are more of an irritation to the overall supreme package that the TT has to offer. However just to make you feel even more concerned I have updated my previous thread with the OPC prices of all the advisories - none of which apart from the horns were covered by the warranty and therefore will be done by an Indie......now go and get the vaseline :floor:

Like all good salesmen they will rape you given the opportunity. When Porsche describe him as a model customer I guess he never queried anything and took his car to the OPC for everything, servicing, tyres, brakes etc. Which is great news for you as you know the car has had everything it needed (plus some more). I use the OPC for menu servicing only - £390 for a minor and £1038 for a biggie. The warranty at £895 is a must for these cars (IMO). Invariably when your car is in the OPC they will tell you that discs and pads need replacing as do your windscreen wipers, your rads need deleafing, aircon regassing, airbags checking, brake fluid changing etc etc. I tell the OPC just to do the menu service and any warranty work, the rest I will do independently. Parr, Northway etc. I do think that by having OPC stamps in the service book it does help when it comes to warranty decisions or goodwill gestures, I know it shouldn't but it does. My warranty has paid for itself 5x over with a couple of issues mine has had in the last couple of years. Namely 2nd gear synchro failing resulting in complete gearbox rebuild £4k, I got the clutch replaced while the gearbox was out and that saved me £1k 2 x micro switches in the door mechanism £300/400 each Failed o2 sensor £300 Everything else bar tyres has been done by Parr in Crawley Geo £300 a time Pads and discs - £1300 all round Brake fluid changes £90 Tyres I have done by a local firm Michelin Pilot sports £250 ea for the rear and £160 ea for the front. For a car with this sort of performance I think they are quite reasonable to maintain to high standards. Enjoy the car and welcome to the Forum

Hi, Congrats on the TT clearly been loved and had all and more that it needed by all accounts. I have used Cardiff OPC and had dealings with Bristol. I bought my C4S from Cardiff. All I can say is the service and overall relationship I have had with them appears to be significantly better than a lot of the OPC experiences I have read on here. Bristol have been very helpful on looking at installing a white dial set and replacement Porsche battery for a fraction of the cost than London OPC prices that have been quoted on here. Cardiff have serviced her and only niggle I had was an additional insurance cover for the use of a courtesy car that escaped my scrutiny. But think I was part to blame actually. Any addtional work is always discussed and honestly I do not feel any pressure to go ahead. More of a duty of care thing. Had some good will thrown in also. With the service and hospitality I have received from Cardiff to date I would consider them first point of call for my 997 TT upgrade in the future. Regards Alan

just bear in mind too that although its "only" cost you £40k to buy............its still a near £100k supercar with running costs to match,it would be interesting to see what the equivalent Ferrari or other such exotica would cost to service to the same level..........ok the OPC in question perhaps took the liberty of relieving the owners wallet a bit much but I suppose more fool him for not checking if the work was needed

Excellent. Thanks for the very prompt and informative replies chaps. Am I right in assuming that the brakes have to be replaced by an OPC then? Is there a quick list of what the OPC has to do and what an indy can do that does not invalidate the warranty? I mean I got quoted £741 to replace the brakes on another turbo I viewed. To put into perspective, I could replace the 380mm AP Racing rotors on my previous Escort Cosworth "WRC" spec track car!! One more thing........my only "fault" I found with this car was that when I took it for a test drive, I pulled over and got out to look around the car with the engine running. Around the area of the drivers wheelwell I got a faint whiff of antifreeze. I questioned the owner a few days later whilst thrashing out a deal and my suggestion that hew took it in to the OPC was flatly refused and he appeared scared to take it anywhere near there as if he knew they would have him over again! I knocked him down from his £41,500 asking price to £40k and took a risk that it wasnt anything serious. To date the temp gauge stays 1mm above the 80 DegC mark and there is no loss in coolant in the tank so I am assuming all is well. But it just goes to show that he had finally had enough of them taking the piss even with it having a warranty. In the meantime before buying my research revealed the rads were £140+vat for the outer two and £190+vat for the inner one so not the end of the world if a rad had split. But all ok so far!! Any other comments would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Ian

Hi Ian sounds like a fantastic car. Have just read the double glazing thread as well, last week i posted the oppositte experience form my OPC so they are all very different, I was expecting the same conversation David had and would not have been shocked after reading of many similar experiences. All I can say is there are extreme differences and having to drive half way across the country to get your car serviced is not ideal but can pay dividends, I always take my volvo to be serviced in Doncaster takes 1/2 a day but I normally save £170 due to the cheaper labour costs and the service is far superior! Guess the same applies to Porsche. Make sure you keep that warranty. cheers Morgan

I was thinking about this last night, after giving the OPC a bashing in the other "double glazing salesman" thread and actually want to make a small stand for OPCs (its early, I must be slightly hungover). There is nothing wrong with an OPC servicing a car and coming up with a long list of work that needs doing. Thats their job - to spot every single thing that might need fixing/repairing/replacing to keep the car in as new condition. We would be livid if they didn't spot stuff. At the end of the day its our choice what work we have done and what we don't. I think some OPCs follow this route and get a bad rep cos people see the long list, see their ridiculous prices, and get annoyed. These OPCs are just doing their job though, no problems here. The problem OPCs are the ones who invent stuff, do work without your permission, or put 1ltr bottles of oil in your car after a service so they can sell an extra £13 of product. Those boys are obviously cowboys and deserve everything they get.

I was told by the OPC in Glasgow that servicing/remedial work could be done anywhere so long as the parts used were Porsche.

Its also worth keeping some perspective- the 996TT was a nigh on £100k car when new, and compared to a Ferrari, the running costs are an absolute steal considering the performance. To quantify this, a routine service with cambelts on an F355, even applying various special discounts at the time cost me £3,500. They even had the bare-faced affrontery to charge £15 labour to change the wiper blades...

I'm with Wagonface on this. Some OPCs deserve their bad rep but also some play straight(-ish). I've had both good and bad service from my local OPC and it's a learning curve. I'm sticking to one service guy now and hopefully building on that relationship. They even sent parts by post to me without charging, post or for the part. It did turn out to be the wrong part though :twisted: The thing that did get to me though was the 1litre oil pack, it was placed in my boot right next to a 5litre Mobil1 bottle I had already in there! Did they honestly think I'd need more?!

Now I like the sound of that!! Any good places to buy original Porsche parts eg brakes from?? And maybe cheaper than an OPC?

The placing of the 1 litre oil pack was rediculously cheeky!! I may be able to get Mobil 1 a bit cheaper than nornal. What do you guys pay? I'm pretty sure I can get the Porsche Approve stuff for around £28.00 for 5 litres which I am assuming is good!

I couldnt agree more but want to start my dealings with a local OPC on a good note! I'm also paranoid about the work/parts required to keep the car under warranty! I don't want to do anything that gives them the excuse to say that I am not covered because my air filter is "not approved" when my gearbox has shat itself! Stuff like that!! As Isaid, the previous owner just didnt say anything, just paid the bill! I will not be like that in any way!