Do you service your Porsche at the dealer?
 

Hi All,

I'm curious to see how many of you service your Porsche at the dealer or if you have service done at an independent?

If you go to an independent shop, is it because of the price or the service?

The couple of times I've needed anything different done I've gone to the local dealer (local being an hour and a half away). Oil changes go to a local guy. In a rural area, this car may as well be a space ship and I wouldn't chance it with an indy.

I do all of my own service (so far). I may look into an indy shop if the project is bigger than I can take on, but I do sometimes buy parts at the dealer. :)

So far all work in my garage by me. I bought this car with that expectation. Have only gone to the local dealer on Sundays to look at the new shiny bobbles. I did call them once to see if they had a relay in stock, they didn't, I would have to order, take 5 days. I ordered from Pelican.

That's the hardest part about this car, getting anything. I can get oil and filters and belts locally, that's it.

I do everything I can do myself and take it to an indie when its too difficult for me. Never to the dealership.

Same here - only had my car for a month, but so far I've been able to do everything (and there has been a number of things) myself. Seems that it's not a terribly difficult car to work on, its actually less annoying than the VW Jetta I had years ago.

You're right on the parts availability - local auto parts stores don't have much on hand, so sometimes the car needs to stay in the garage for a few days while I wait for things to ship.

If there is something I cannot do (mostly internal engine stuff), I will sometimes take it to the dealer in my area. I am friendly with one of the service managers, and they have never tried to rip me off, but the base prices are very high compared to an independent. That said, I had one instance where they troubleshooted my car for 2 weeks, and then only charged me for the final fix. Mostly because it was so obvious they should have figured it out the first day, but still it was very nice of them.

I do all my own maintenance, including recent 60K mile service, but usually get the parts at the dealer. Their parts pricing is competitive on most items. Spark plugs, oil & what not I bought at Canadian Tire. Major work (clutch, IMS, etc) was done at a local independent.

I'd love to get service at the dealer, their shop is gorgeous, but the high labour rates are prohibitive.

I always quote jobs with my Indy and the dealer, I know my Indy very well and don't have to worry about him using subpar parts. Some times I order parts from the dealership keys >.<, gas cap, coolent stuff like that.

Either do it myself or take it to an indie. Here in the Phoenix area there are a number of good indies with reasonable labor rates and they all know what they are doing. We have two dealers, one is close to my house that I use sometime for parts as they are competitive (10% to 20% below retail), will make the extra effort to find what you are looking for (grey center console delete kit was a little hard to find) and I avoid shipping costs.

35% myself, 45% indie, 20% dealer so far.

6 months of ownership and never been to the dealer. RMS, IMS, AOS performed at my Indy. Brakes, Rotors, Oil, Filter, Air Filter, Cabin Filter, gas cap (lol), Radio Bluetooth Adapter, LED Interior/boot/bonnet lights, etc. were all done by myself.

+1 Have a local indie who specializes in the breed.

My breakdown:

70% DIY
20% Local indy
10% Race prep (highly specialized indy)

I DIY for fun and enjoyment (its my zen zone) and so that I know that the job was done exactly how I wanted it done, not necessarily to save money (although that is a nice byproduct). So, if I am feeling lazy or am too busy, I'll send the car to the shop without hesitation (in fact, they often will send a flatbed to pick it up so I don't even have to drop off/pick up).

I never go to the dealer.

There are dealers, and then there are dealers. We are about equidistant from two dealerships, which we try to remain cordial with. One of which is retail parts at list price only, "your IMS cannot be replaced without taking the engine apart", etc. The other actually stocks LN IMS retrofits in their parts department, and sent two retrofit jobs to us when the IMS Single Row Pro first came out because we had the Faultless tool while theirs was on back order.

You really can't lump them all into one category.

If the maintenance is outside engine e.g. oil, plugs, change fluids, filters, etc. I do my own work; if it requires getting into the engine e.g. IMS, clutch, etc. I am likely to get a cost comparison between dealer & indy shop.

Dealer as they know there stuff. Better off paying and getting it done right.

I bought my car new in 2003 and did my maintenance with the dealer I bought it from, Prestige Porsche in Nanuet, NY. Basically oil changes and recall notices. They went out of business in 2008 or 2009 - taken over by Jack Daniels and closed down the Nanuet dealership and turned into a preowned showroom for all makes. Had one oil change done by Jack Daniels and didn't like their attitude. Then I started going to Pepe Porsche in White Plains, NY as I was working within walking distance of their maintenance facility. When Hurricane Sandy hit Pepe was out of commission for a long time and I needed something done so I started with my independent specialist, Power Tech in Rockaway, NJ. I've done a few things on my own, rear speaker kit, center dash cupholder replacement, hard top spinlocks, OBC add-on with PDwight's cable, Ben006 short shifter, front brake pads and disks, r&r front bumper to clean radiators and replace horns. But I have Power Tech do all my oil changes and serious work/upgrades. If Prestige stayed around I might have stayed with them, but now I'll go to Power Tech for as long as I own a Porsche. I think it depends on the dealer as JFP said.

every other year service/inspection from my trusted dealership to pass the TÜV inspections.

All the mods done by me.

Initial after-buying multi k$ updates by trusted indie, oil changes 50% by me, 50% by quick lube place with oil/filter/etc supplied by me. Tires by indie, battery by me (mail order). Airbag light 3x by dealer, O2 changes by muffler shop, air leak CEL by indie.

100% is always done by me on all my cars. Never trust anyone else with any one of them. Even good shops typically only have one or two good mechanics that actually care. No one will ever take care of your car as well as you will yourself so I do it all and occasionally consult with these forums or others when stumped on a problem or just want to get an opinion on what to look into first so that I can diagnose quicker.

I've had my Boxster serviced by dealer and an Indy here in Rochester NY. Price turned out to be about the same for both. Really like the dealer here although I think he tries to sell me things I don't need sometimes.

Flew down to Mebourn FL to buy my 996 and had the clutch and IMS done by the local dealer there. Totally different experience. Wound up using a slide hammer to pull my IMS and slipped a chain. Charged me three extra hours to fix his mistake. I'm waiting for that one to bite me in the butt. I called Porsche headquarters and complained and they sent me a $400 gift certificate.

Moral of my story, just because it's a dealership, it doesn't automatically make them any good.

I regularly buy parts from my local dealer. I also have them do my track inspections and alignments. They do a track inspection for $50. They do a non standard alignment any way I ask them. $125. I can not complain about their service or parts.

The dealership has two levels of service. Poor Boxster scum, and all other white-glove service types.

They flushed the brake fluid with wheels on and got fluid all over my freshly painted rear wheel barrels and the fronts. Made a sludge. Offered a detail of my perfectly clean car. Passed.

Boxster owners, go be poor somewhere else.....

Your dealer sucks! I had a customer last week that was getting his boxster fixed there in SLC for a lost key. They took his car apart and then refused to fix it. He was in a major bind and he needed his car fixed so he could drive home to Tennessee. They pushed his car out to the parking lot and said he needed to get it removed soon. I know there's always two sides to a story, but I can't imagine the guy I was dealing with deserved that kind of service. This isn't the only time I've heard something negative about that dealer in SLC either.

Driving down State few weeks back. 986 pulls out of P dealer. I pull along side, say nice car, (looking down from my truck) and tell him tail light out. He's instantly super pissed. Just had it inspected. How could it pass???

They really cater to rich new sales and customers. There's never a classic car in their service lot for a reason.

I bought mine with the thought I would do some, but probably not all, of my own work. For the first three years I was too busy to do much, retirement will hopefully be better. So far, I replaced the rods for the convertible top after foolishly breaking them, and just finished servicing the front brakes. Balance has been done by the dealer, and I will have them do an upcoming inspection before PCA DE in August. The dealer labor rate seems high, but parts, while expensive, aren't too bad compared to the import costs from US websites since the exchange and shipping kills the cost advantage. Plus, the parts manager told me he can drop off any parts orders I have to my house! Going forward I will probably review the tools and parts required, along with the amount of effort and degree of crawling under the car and weather (concrete can get quite cold and I'm a wimp_ before deciding.

The strangest part about this forum is how many people actually take their 15-20 year old car to the dealer or a shop and don't do the wrenching themselves. I have several "enthusiast" vehicles in that age range and on all the other forums that I belong to the only posts are about how to modify or repair the vehicle yourself and few if any people would even consider going to a shop to work on their old car. I think part of the charm of owning a car that is old but you find interesting or in my case couldn't afford when they were new, is wrenching on it yourself. It's like a "hot rod" now, not really practical and not really worth anything so you wrench yourself to make it something reasonable. Thanks to a good buy and repairs performed by me I have under $2k into my Boxster including the purchase price.
I can totally see why the dealers mentioned that seem to provide poor service to owners of these older, not worth much, cars do that. It is probably their experience that a person who has a 5-8k Boxster does not want to replace 10k worth of worn out parts. Mechanics typically work on commission, they get a percentage of every labor hour that is charged and a dealership is in the business of selling parts so as noble as they should be they still have to worry about keeping their doors open so it only makes sense to allocate your resources to the cars that will keep the lights on.

Once the warranty runs out I never take a car to the dealership unless it is for a recall. They typically aren't optimized for working on older cars and charge prices that are insane. If you aren't able to do your own work you want to find the local Porsche club and quiz people about good Indies.

BTW, so far, I've done everything myself, double-din stereo replacement, rear speaker install, backup camera install, top mechanism repair, starter AOS, serpentine belt, short shifter, HVAC display repair, seatbelt/airbag ground fault, oil changes, spark plugs, air cleaner, radiator cleaning, mirror cover replacements for visors....

The principal reason people continue to take them to the dealer is two fold: A dearth of available and/or reliable technical information, and the incredible number of "single use" special tooling required to do serious work on these cars. General maintence is not really an issue, but if you start to get into the deeper stuff, tools get real expensive very quickly.

I get that on internal motor work, most people who have no experience have no business in there anyway, but I was referring to simple straight forward jobs like brakes and clutches, water pumps etc...

It's becoming a world where less and less people want to get their hands dirty. Or should I say know how to get their hands dirty.