My old buddy indy Porsche mechanic was the one who convinced me to buy a Porsche Certified car from my local dealer. In his opinion from extensive experience with customers from up and down the spectrum, there was just no substitute for being an "A" customer with your local dealer when it comes to high dollar German cars. Being an "A" customer means buying the car from them (the only way to have a certified Porsche, to begin with) and taking the car to them for every scheduled maintenance. You will have little or no argument about warranty work, especially if it's in conjunction with routine maintenance, and if you have one of those heaven forbids, the dealer will have no problem telling PCNA to step up and make things right. His opinion is also, even if you buy your tires from tirerack (so does your dealer anyway) take it to the dealer for mounting, balancing and alignment. The dealer will not have a leg to stand on if he damages your Porsche wheel in the process, either. I ended up eating an RX8 wheel and TPMS with my local save a buck tire company mounting my bought from tirerack tires. That one wack cost me about six sets of dealer mounts and balances, as I remember........
