Local general garage servicing??

[blease]

Just sounding people out on this. Have owned my 996 C2S 3.4 since 2004. Its a keeper now with 88k miles. Not going anywhere! But we live a long way away from either main dealers or good recognised indys. Our local garage has good competent mechanics and they have looked after variety of other cars we have owned and I know and trust their work. Am thinking of asking them to look after the 996 as I'm not precious about the stamp in the book, I just want to keep everything tip-top. As these cars are now 'old tech' I would have thought most garages could work on them. Question is - can they and what are the questions I should ask them e.g. is there specialist testing gear or critical tools that they may not have?
Anyone else gone down this route??

 

[The Saint.]

Personally I would not take my 996 to a general garage. Some mechanics have never worked on them. Every car has its peculiarities, and Porsche are no exception, so I want a mechanic who is familiar with my car. Also when you sell, the fact that it has not been looked after by qualified Porsche mechanic could put buyers off. Certainly would me. Although you say its a keeper, you still want a competent Porsche mechanic to look after your car in my opinion. After all its not a Nissan, it is quite specialised. Doubt whether a general garage would have the piwis diagnostics required for your car. Or the experience of knowing which faults are common on your car.

 

[JuliusF]

Like most things in life .......it depends!

Simple stuff you could have a go at DIY, then a garage with a ramp and a competent mechanic and a good set of tools could probably take a reasonable stab at say an oil service, including changing spark plugs (bit of a pain on a 911, but other than scuffed knuckles doable with a bit of patience), probably OK to change an alternator, various sensors, brakes etc.

BUT its finding the problem on a 996 that can be a real challenge, and a lot of money can be spent on fools errands. Even if its throwing error codes, you need a 996 specific diagnostic tester to really be able to understand them - don't let them tell you they've got a universal tester that can be programmed to read fault codes, because it will only be able to go so far - I've got a 98 C2, and the legacy tester for that is so specific, not all indy Porsche dealers have them.....!

If you want to get an idea of what a non Porsche garage might be able to manage I'd recommend the book 101 Projects for your 996 - bit of a DIY bible.

If you get to the point where you're needing to drop the engine down for any work, or separating the engine and transmission, I'd say you are automatically in specialist 'indy' territory.

So you pays your money and you takes your choice - or like me you pays lots of money and make some bad choices......then pay more money (see my take on the PORSCHE acronym below).....don't even get me started on geometry......Still, it saves on worrying where we need to go on holiday most years....[]

Where do you live by the way - there's indy's around the country, and Richard Hamilton can usually recommend someone reasonably local using his encyclopaedic knowledge....

 

[j7agy]

I think that if most competent diyers on this forum can carry out numerous routine tasks then there's no good reason why a decent / qualified mechanic can't carry out routine maintenance on your pride and joy - especially with the wealth of info on the web. However, the very point it needs anything more than routine maintenance then they just won't cut it as I found the hard way!

I've used a general mechanic in the past and he really let me down. As he wasn't familiar with Porsches he would mis-diagnose as my expense. Never intentional... just didn't know any better. Not to say this would happen to you, but I learnt my lesson and will now only use main dealer or specialist.

The dilemma you then have is whether you simply use each for their respective skill sets individually. Issue is that you will never build a relationship with the specialist for the few times you need to rely on them.

My vote goes on specialist.

Good luck
John