'Mobile Porsche Specialists' PPI - dreadful service. Avoid!

[DynoMike]

Mark, what a refreshing post to read, and congratulations on your purchase into Porsche ownership.
Now that you're here you could do a lot worse than post up a pic or two, in the Newbie section, of your new toy and do tell us a little about your racing history.

:welcome:

+1 :thumb:

+2 Nice to see that that you guys represent the typical Porsche owner, remaining friendly and engaging after the sale/purchase. :thumb:

 

[James03C4S]

Mark, what a refreshing post to read, and congratulations on your purchase into Porsche ownership.
Now that you're here you could do a lot worse than post up a pic or two, in the Newbie section, of your new toy and do tell us a little about your racing history.

:welcome:

+1 :thumb:

+2 Nice to see that that you guys represent the typical Porsche owner, remaining friendly and engaging after the sale/purchase. :thumb:

Absolutely. And Mark even allows me visitation rights to my old beetle.

 

[loftyambitions]

Should i cancel my appointment?

MPS are due to change over my battery on my Panamera Diesel 2014 this week Wednesday - should i cancel them? It makes me nervous reading this and although i'm sure they don't mess up on every appointment, i hear that the battery is difficult to locate on the Panamera and therefore i'm worried they'll make a mess of it.

Whilst writing, they suggested i could buy the battery myself and supply to them FOC but i'm not sure which battery to buy. Is Varta a good brand? Do i buy 95 Amp or 105 Amp. As a stop/start, i suppose i buy AGM?

Any feedback would be great!!

Thanks

 

[RobMurray996]

Helpful feedback

It is always helpful to have feedback.
This incident happened at the end of May this year. I am not sure why it has popped up on here now.
The bore check was carried out by a Porsche Gold technician who was Porsche GB Technician of the Year in 2013 and 2014. While he was previously Workshop Controller at Hatfield OPC, he is not our most experienced technician but is certainly one of the most experienced in the UK.
While carrying out a routine bore inspection, using a brand new Stanley inspection camera, the camera failed leaving a small plastic tube in one of the cylinders. No damage was done but the Stanley part needed to be removed before the car could be used again. We cleared the Technician's diary and attempted to remove the part in situ with no success. We, therefore, recovered the car, removed the engine, removed the cylinder head, removed the Stanley part and put all back together correctly. We also carried out an IMS upgrade at the owners request. All of this was done and the car delivered back within a couple of weeks. He was threatening to sue us because of a lost sale and we tried our best to manage both parties, including the potential buyer (our client) visiting the workshop to see the car on the ramp in much detail. I am glad that the deal remained intact.
People can imagine the cost to us of resolving this issue, all of which was done without hesitation and at no cost to the owner or the buyer. To this day Stanley have not paid a penny to us following the failure of their product, although they did offer a derisory settlement but one which acknowledged that the camera had failed.
I am not sure what the OP is trying to achieve but I am proud of our response. I have never been a banker (not sure where that came from) but come from place where I believe that you should always do your best for your customers. I think totally sorting a problem which was not caused by us, without quibble, our our cost within a couple of weeks is reasonable going and I doubt even an OPC would match that. As 996 owners will know, wet carpets is caused by rain water ingress, usually via blocked drainage channels. There is nothing that you
do in cylinder head removal that would have caused blocked drainage channels.
I genuinely welcome feedback from this group on what we could have done better. It is when things go wrong that you show your quality and learn. The OP did not suffer any loss and gained a labour free IMS upgrade. I don't think that he is trying to help us with his feedback which is sad because we went out of our way to help him but I welcome any thoughts on what learnings we can take from this.
Regards
Rob

 

[911UK]

Re: Helpful feedback

It is always helpful to have feedback.
This incident happened at the end of May this year. I am not sure why it has popped up on here now.
The bore check was carried out by a Porsche Gold technician who was Porsche GB Technician of the Year in 2013 and 2014. While he was previously Workshop Controller at Hatfield OPC, he is not our most experienced technician but is certainly one of the most experienced in the UK.
While carrying out a routine bore inspection, using a brand new Stanley inspection camera, the camera failed leaving a small plastic tube in one of the cylinders. No damage was done but the Stanley part needed to be removed before the car could be used again. We cleared the Technician's diary and attempted to remove the part in situ with no success. We, therefore, recovered the car, removed the engine, removed the cylinder head, removed the Stanley part and put all back together correctly. We also carried out an IMS upgrade at the owners request. All of this was done and the car delivered back within a couple of weeks. He was threatening to sue us because of a lost sale and we tried our best to manage both parties, including the potential buyer (our client) visiting the workshop to see the car on the ramp in much detail. I am glad that the deal remained intact.
People can imagine the cost to us of resolving this issue, all of which was done without hesitation and at no cost to the owner or the buyer. To this day Stanley have not paid a penny to us following the failure of their product, although they did offer a derisory settlement but one which acknowledged that the camera had failed.
I am not sure what the OP is trying to achieve but I am proud of our response. I have never been a banker (not sure where that came from) but come from place where I believe that you should always do your best for your customers. I think totally sorting a problem which was not caused by us, without quibble, our our cost within a couple of weeks is reasonable going and I doubt even an OPC would match that. As 996 owners will know, wet carpets is caused by rain water ingress, usually via blocked drainage channels. There is nothing that you
do in cylinder head removal that would have caused blocked drainage channels.
I genuinely welcome feedback from this group on what we could have done better. It is when things go wrong that you show your quality and learn. The OP did not suffer any loss and gained a labour free IMS upgrade. I don't think that he is trying to help us with his feedback which is sad because we went out of our way to help him but I welcome any thoughts on what learnings we can take from this.
Regards
Rob

Thanks for engaging, are you confirming his post is factual and you hold a different point of view of the events.

 

[BlueCat86]

Not a great situation for anyone involved and I have nothing to add regarding this particular matter....but, I will say that "Mobile Porsche Specialists" carried out a PPI for me a couple of weeks ago and I was impressed by their service and attention to detail.

Cheers,

Lewis

 

[Kryton]

Not a great situation for anyone involved and I have nothing to add regarding this particular matter....but, I will say that "Mobile Porsche Specialists" carried out a PPI for me a couple of weeks ago and I was impressed by their service and attention to detail.

Cheers,

Lewis

Hmmm....

 

[T8]

Hmmm....

I sense that there's some suspicion in your mind. The post below might allay that. :dont know:

http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=146891&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

 

[BlueCat86]

Not a great situation for anyone involved and I have nothing to add regarding this particular matter....but, I will say that "Mobile Porsche Specialists" carried out a PPI for me a couple of weeks ago and I was impressed by their service and attention to detail.

Cheers,

Lewis

Hmmm....

Genuine post and I'll be sticking around to prove it. I hadn't seen this thread before instructing my PPI. Perhaps if I had I would have thought twice. Either way I was happy with the level of service.

A borescope inspection was neither carried out or offered.

Lewis

 

[Kryton]

Hmmm....

I sense that there's some suspicion in your mind. The post below might allay that. :dont know:

http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=146891&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

Ah, like a man wearing orthopaedic shoes, I stand corrected

 

[timm996]

I would have spent 10 days trying to get it out through the plug hole to be honest.
https://www.oasisscientific.com/sto...Monitor_and_LED_Lights_and_Photo_Storage.html


Or employed a keyhole surgeon to remove it, it might be cheaper!

 

[The return of Marty Wild]

I did wonder if some sort of fabricated pipe to hoover it up might have been possible?! Not sure how big the aperture would be though.

 

[spinnaker]

Just wanted to chip in with my experience of these guys. I had a PPI done by them on Tuesday this week and it all felt very professional. The booking service was friendly and helpful. I put a few requests in for the engineer to check on the car and I got answers to my queries.

I had a call with the engineer after he had finished and he gave a balanced view on the car. He seemed very knowledgeable and I gather he had previously worked for Hartech. His expertise was in 996 and 997s so he knew what to look for.

Naturally I would have preferred the PPI to be done at an indie garage but this wasn't possible in this case. The PPI was pretty expensive but the outputs were good and the engineer I had clearly knew his stuff and spotted a few things that I had missed when looking at the car.

I'd use them again if I was unable to get a vehicle to an independent to be checked on a ramp.

 

[DucatiRob]

I would have spent 10 days trying to get it out through the plug hole to be honest.
https://www.oasisscientific.com/sto...Monitor_and_LED_Lights_and_Photo_Storage.html


Or employed a keyhole surgeon to remove it, it might be cheaper!

This!

Same here, would have found a way to get it out!

Blaming the Stanley tool is ridiculous! If it is one of these...

https://www.stanleytools.co.uk/prod...Inspection+cameras/STANLEY®+Inspection+Camera

... not the sort of tool you should be poking into a Porsche engine, the attachments don't look like they are physically secured to the camera. I have a cheap ebay borescope that has similar attachments that clip on to the camera end, great little tool for all sorts of jobs, but not inside the engine

 

[DucatiRob]

Same here, would have found a way to get it out!

Blaming the Stanley tool is ridiculous! If it is one of these...

[/url]https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stanley-STHT0-77363-Inspection-Camera-Yellow/dp/B01D35H8C6[/url]

... not the sort of tool you should be poking into a Porsche engine, the attachments don't look like they are physically secured to the camera. I have a cheap ebay borescope that has similar attachments that clip on to the camera end, great little tool for all sorts of jobs, but not inside the engine