How many miles are on your IMS Retrofit?

[jhandy]

Jeff is correct. These people are evil. I bought the coverage the day I bought the car new. I used it once for a wheel bearing, and then it sat un-used for years.
My milage was fast approaching 75,000 which was the cut off. So I sent it to the shop and asked that they inspect everything and replace anything that was broken or worn.

The only thng that saved me was that they pissed off Jake and he fought tooth and nail to get stuff covered. (just out of principle I think)

However I think that experience soured him on warrenty companies. In the end I had ~5000K of work paid for and a car that drives like new.

At one point they even tried to say that I changed my oil too frequently as the manual for the car said every 10K.

Buy the coverage from the dealer, it will cost double but I dont think that they would try to screw you as quickly.

[autodoctor911]

I have dealt with many warranty companies at dealerships and independent garages, and the only time they have even asked for maintenance records is when there is evidence of neglect such as excessive sludge. even then though, after some bickering the repairs were covered even if no real records could be produced. Of course If you bought the warranty somewhere other than from the dealer that sold you the car, you probably did get screwed right from the start no matter how many years they claim to have been in business. how can you know what business they've been in, unless you check them out. the hard part has been getting them to pay enough to cover quality parts and a decent labor amount to make good money recently as they have tried to cut costs by using used parts. not nearly as bad as with regular insurance coverage, especially state farm recently. yeah some of the inspectors don't know much, but that can be an advantage too. I still work with them, and have not had a problem getting paid once the approval is made.

[autodoctor911]

The best extended warranty plan that I have ever dealt with has been from Nissan, so if you can, find a porsche for sale at a Nissan used car lot, or even just go to a Nissan used car salesman and have him findyou one that you like at another dealer or at an auction. Dealers trade the cars with each other at wholesale so he can sell it to you for the same price you would pay wherever it was. then you would be able to purchase a kick ass warranty. I've worked on a mercedes with a Nissan warranty and they payed the dealer $2500 in repairs for fixing lifters, and maybe some oil leaks, which I know was probably BS. It probably just needed the plastic oil crossover tubes. then they misdiagnosed the ac and put a FEC(front electronic module) in it for $1100. The ac still wasn't working when he brought it to me. I checked it out, determined that the codes stored in the ac control unit were keeping the FEC from activating the compressor. the codes were caused by the fact that the compressor did not funtion when activated. I just had to think for myself and go outside th pinpint test boxes mercedes publishes and generate my own signal to the compressor to determine that it was the cause. I called the Nissan warranty and they approved a $1000 compressor job without even sending an inspector.

[autodoctor911]

one way to tell a crappy warranty is how they pay for the repair. any good warranty is going to give a one time credit card # with the approval or right after the repair, so patment is recieved before the vehicle is picked up. If a company tries to pay any other way they are being shady and probably not going to pay at all.

[autodoctor911]

I do see one giant loophole on the ims failure in some warranties:
"internally lubricated parts"
Because Porsche had the bright(dumb) idea of using a sealed bearing this would possibly leave it open to someone's interpretation who looks at the part as being not internally lubricated, which would be correct, but I doubt anyone at these warranty companies has figured that out yet.

[Frank M]

Originally Posted by autodoctor911

I do see one giant loophole on the ims failure in some warranties:
"internally lubricated parts"
Because Porsche had the bright(dumb) idea of using a sealed bearing this would possibly leave it open to someone's interpretation who looks at the part as being not internally lubricated, which would be correct, but I doubt anyone at these warranty companies has figured that out yet.

maybe not but an inspector should.

BTW when I had my shop I did not do any warranty work for customers. I would tell them, we will fix it and give you a detailed bill for the warranty company.
Most customers said "forget it, just fix it" and pay me when completed.

[andyv94]

Thank you all for your replies. The company where I am buying my car in Austin is not a big dealership (i.e Porsche, etc....) it is from a used car company that sell high end imports for the most part. I never trust these types of dealerships to be honest.........so I will have a pre-purchase inspection done to the car prior to me buying the car. If everything checks out I will buy the car, if there are too many red flags I will walk away.

So I think what I will do if I buy the car is to forgo the extended warranty and take the car to an Austin Porsche mechanic to do the retrofit for the IMS............

Does that sound like good logic to you folks??