Automotive

Very sexy in person and quite compact, it really looks like the gt3rs and the gt4 had a baby Love the color too which is a great match for the black and carbon accents:

Perfect for track work.

In that way more extreme than the GT3 which is the better road car (quite a statement!).

Congratulations!

My pick of the line-up is the boxster gts 4.0 though, a real bargain at half the price of a gt4rs..

German horses, the best thing second to Italian cavalli ;-)

Was my birthday prezzie last year, manual, with "club sports" pack. Car is fun in old school way, but absolutely slower then most rides out there. Even a PDK 992 C2S will be faster at the get go, but if a certain analogue feeling is what u crave, this is it. Dont go for the track half cage and sport bucket seats, i tried the "regular" edition and its way more comfortable with 80% of the seat grip etc. The Goodyears are not as grippy as the Pirelli, but less harsh. Good luck and enjoy your ride. Best, Horo



My Greenie

Porsche has gone crazy with their pricing structure.  Here in Silicon Valley, people think of Porsches as a great value.  But the Porsche dealers here fleece owners with insane servicing costs.  Mainly because owners here have no idea what to expect and are too wealthy to even think of investing time to make comparisons or to shop around.  The GT4RS is another crazy example of Porsche pricing.  A $180,000 USD car will often be marked to the point that it's within striking distance of a Lamborghini Huracan.  When I explained this to a young crypto millionaire who bought a 911 Turbo S for around $230,000, he was shocked.  As he had assumed that the Lamborghini was much more expensive.  He was saddened to learn that the Huracan wasn't much more than his 911 Turbo S.  Now, for over a year, he consults me on everything he buys.  Watches, wine (he's buying a lot more cheaper wines thanks to me), whisky, and cars.  And we both think Porsches have just gotten too expensive.  He's definitely enjoying his 911 Turbo S.  But he definitely wished he had all the information before making an impulsive decision.

In America, the rule is that they're supposed to charge you for parts and for the regular number of labor-hours that job usually entails. A "Master Book" lists all of the typical services and the number of hours those services are supposed to be billed for. Dealerships are supposed to set a "standard hourly rate." Unfortunately. Service writers have a wide discretion on what they can charge. So let's say the typical labor rate is around $250 an hour. And let's say the book states an oil change is a 2 hour affair. The dealership will charge you $500 or so for the labor. Possibly more if they can find some other way to pad the hours. Then you have to pay for parts. Parts has no rules. A dealership can charge whatever markup they want on parts. So for instance, at my Mercedes dealership, the parts cost significantly more, about 150% to 250% the normal "manufactured suggested price." For instance, a Mercedes wheel cap used to retail for $17 on Mercedes' website. My dealer charged $37. My dealer also has a Porsche department, and the markups there were even more astronomical when the economy was good. And the markups are slightly lower when the economy was bad. Thus, it can be very inconsistent. A quart of oil, which costs around $5 a quart retail is often marked up to around double at the Mercedes dealer. And I'm told around quadruple at the Porsche dealer. Funny thing, the two dealerships are owned by the same conglomerate, and Porsche and Mercedes both use the same spec Mobil-1 oil. Some clients are stubborn and thus they negotiate on the pricing somewhat, and my service writer is already aware of what I am accustomed to paying. Some new clients are completely unaware, and especially at Porsche, they are fleeced. My dealership is in a more middle-class part of town, but there are dealerships that cater to the wealthier citizens of the area and they take even more advantage I'm told. I don't remember specifics, but I recall seeing other vehicles being serviced and I was amazed, the costs were higher than that of an Aston Martin! Apparently the Aston Martin dealer isn't taking full advantage while the Porsche dealerships were.  Car brands need to make servicing costs more public and clearer.  It's very opaque now.  Especially as electric cars are coming, and electric cars have lower maintenance requirements.  But while I bet the Porsche Taycan is amazing, I'm just scared that they'll try to take advantage since the dealership business model at Porsche is to make BIG money in sales and to make even more margins in servicing.  Tesla's service model is different; make big margins in sales and make minimal margins in servicing, and even smaller margins in Supercharging - Supercharging costs are so low, that they don't even fund the expansion of superchargers (superchargers are Tesla gas stations that offer high speed electric charging).  Although the servicing costs may change one day at Tesla if they decide they want to make more money off it, since very few places can service a Tesla vehicle.

I haven't paid for a service at a dealership in years, I remember it being bad but this sounds like it's really gotten out of control. That said, I have gotten some freebies from the dealers I've had car trouble away from home a couple times, once in Montreal and once in CT, and both times I pulled into the closest Porsche dealership and they were super accommodating, took my car in to be scanned right away without an appointment, and did what they could before sending me on my way free of charge. The techs all seem to love working there compared to other brands, the fat service fees must go a long way in employee sat and customer service. I use an indy. He's a little cheaper and better but it still isn't cheap... he has his own plane.... so..... I should have become a mechanic.....

We have a number of Nissan dealerships in USA. Maybe they'll bring Alpine franchises to Nissan dealerships. But most Nissan dealerships will think twice. The cost to train a service staff to know how to work on the vehicle is costly. And if there's not enough volume, then there's not enough revenue to justify it. Plus, the dealership will have to send three technicians to Alpine training. They need three because 1 may quit eventually and you always need 2 in case one takes a vacation or a sick day. Customer can't wait 2 weeks for a technician on summer holiday to get a car back... The Nissan GTR was a difficult proposition for most Nissan dealerships. And thus, the servicing was not entirely agree-able for most Nissan GTR owners.