new tires on the box and guess what...?

[mach schnell]

leaving shortly to pick my car up from hoehn (dealer where i bought the car, 2nd dealer to have the car - now for a total of 4 times for vibration - 3 times at Walter's, 1 time at Hoehn). Unfortunately, nothing new - they deny anything abnormal - deny any reason to evaluate alignment or lug nut torque. when i asked what would explain 3 19" pilots with less than 4000 miles all being road force failure/defective at the same time (seems incredibly random to me), response was, it has nothing to do with the car. service mgr admited it was very suspicious, but his best guess was that my car must have got an entirely bad batch of tires (holy crap if i didn't just step into a frickin gm dealership in the backwoods of the deep south with that response). he did however offer that the regional serv mgr could evaluate the car on the 29th - i can't make it back in - no way to alter my schedule (orientation week for residency training) - so next available date is late july.

it may seem crazy, but there's something wrong with this car - i could understand if no one else noticed the problem - but other people have driven my car - these people drove it before the vibration (shortly after i purchased it) and then again recently - they all admit there's a huge difference. i could chalk it up to being the dynamic of the car if i only had the car for a week and was complaining about something no one else felt. but, since the car drove and felt one way for the first 4000 miles (although i've always had the vibration in the gas pedal), then developed this shimmy - i can't and won't accept that there's nothing wrong. furthermore, it is absolutely unacceptable to chalk up 3 defective $450 performance tires to random bad batch.

sad to say, i'm done (especially after installing the schnell short shifter - man that thing is nice - definitely if i buy the 993 - it will get short shifted soon)! i have two strong offers for both the boxster and vw and two different dealers and may move on something unless i decide to sell the car outright - only hesitation is that i'm now under 20 days before the start of residency and need all this wrapped up prior to beginning. selling the boxster outright should be easier than the vw, but may still take a few weeks.

i appreciate all the support on this forum and will stick around for color and commentary as welcomed no matter car newly occupies my garage. rondog had a strong suggestion about using the power of the forum to pursue representation for ongoing problems with any of our p-cars. - great idea and someone should take him up on that.

will keep everyone posted...

Ok, I do have a suggestion, to at least get confirmation that there might be a problem. Many Tire places, like Tire Kingdom will do a free alignment check for you, and can do a wheel balance for you for a nominal fee, like $30.00. They can also tell you if there is a problem with a tire or wheel, esp if it won't balance without excessive weights being applied. If they find something, you can then take it to your dealer and say, "Ok, I've had an independent 3rd party look the car over and they've found this. Are you going to fix it under warranty or not?"

Just a thought...and one that shouldn't cost you Porsche tech rates to try.