[Ferrari Fissatore]

Wow, I'll take it you're right then

Seems like a hell of a lot of ECU's to replace, are they that fault prone?
I was told $5k a pop on my 360 when they replaced both under warranty after the car left me stranded FIVE times *sigh*

I've done it during fault diagnosis....

And only ever found one faulty ecu, an abs one, and that was only faulty cos it had been spiked by a wiring fault...

And the wiring fault was caused by a dealer mechanic installing a battery charger port...

Even all the racing cars.... Other faults caused ecu swaps to happen, but ecus have been incredibly reliable.

[360c]

Murphy's law that my car would need them replaced then *sigh*

It really pissed me off because the dealer kept piss farting around trying to avoid the expense of replacing the ECU's. Each "fix" they tried left me stranded each time it didn't work. Eventually I complained to Lenn Kench in Sydney and the ECU's were replaced- problem solved.

[app]

Not to to get in the middle of this argument and I do not intend to make any criticisms. I also don't have any experience with this so I also have no dog in this fight.

I am well aware that Aussies have to bend over while they are given the prices of exotics with options from the dealer or distributor. But one thing that strikes me as being curious, in the case of mass produced cars, is do people feel they owe it to the marque not to buy imports simply because they are cheap? What I mean by this is there appears to be a perception that cheap imports attracts a certain buyer, not the buyer of an Aus delivered exotics. An argument which in turn suggests that the reputation of the marque is diminished.

Does this sort of sentimentality exist?

[Ferrari Fissatore]

Murphy's law that my car would need them replaced then *sigh*

It really pissed me off because the dealer kept piss farting around trying to avoid the expense of replacing the ECU's. Each "fix" they tried left me stranded each time it didn't work. Eventually I complained to Lenn Kench in Sydney and the ECU's were replaced- problem solved.

I.d bet it was a wiring fault, that happened to get fixed along the way while changing computers.

The EXACT SAME bosch engine computers are used to power 996 Porsche, just with different programming

[360c]

Wouldn't be surprised; but all I cared was that I no longer ended up standing on the side of the road at the most inconvenient times. That sort of crap was once part of the fun of owning an "exotic", now it's just a PITA.

[AshSimmonds]

Perhaps if you were the one spending hundreds of thousands of dollars you might display a lot more anal/know it all tendancies.

I wouldn't give a shit if I were spending $20k on some POS bland car either 

More than just cars - I'm in the online industry stuff, do you see how much money is thrown around - even now in this "GFC" - without any investigation? It's kinda ridiculous. Tonight I was chatting to a chick I met and she's just signed up to get a website done for $20k - sure $20k isn't much money for a company/govt, but she's a solo operator, so I broke it down for her - ie the average wage in Oz is what - $60k? - so that's enough to hire an average intelligent "office professional" for 4 months.

I asked what she wanted out of it - 90% of it is something I could slap together over a few bottles of wine. Not that I want the work, the point is no matter the industry - there are still people outlaying 10-100 times what something is worth without doing even the slightest due diligence, just trusting the person who's selling it to them.

[993tits]

More than just cars - I'm in the online industry stuff, do you see how much money is thrown around - even now in this "GFC" - without any investigation? It's kinda ridiculous. Tonight I was chatting to a chick I met and she's just signed up to get a website done for $20k - sure $20k isn't much money for a company/govt, but she's a solo operator, so I broke it down for her - ie the average wage in Oz is what - $60k? - so that's enough to hire an average intelligent "office professional" for 4 months.

I asked what she wanted out of it - 90% of it is something I could slap together over a few bottles of wine. Not that I want the work, the point is no matter the industry - there are still people outlaying 10-100 times what something is worth without doing even the slightest due diligence, just trusting the person who's selling it to them.

What you're saying is right but what you're leaving out is equally as important. Just as much as there are a number of your $20k website people paying way too much for their stuff, there are 20 x times that number of suppliers for the service the punter consumes. We have moved away from the manufacturing economy and into a service based economy and everyone has "consultants disease".  There is a perception that you can make your fortune and everyone elses by providing a non tangible "advice" based product.
With no specific tangible goods being handed around, and a high level income expectation from our ever growing workforce who simply shuffle paper or move electronic signals around, the end user has to pay the 100% markup to support the towering infrastructure above them. 
Anyway, I know a lot of you guys are techies who generate your income by selling intangibles, but there can only be so much intangible product change hands before you need some sort of tangible goods to provide "real time" value to the economy. At the moment, Australia sees itself as a service based economy outside of the mining industry and I wonder if we have the population, demand and geographic positioning to support that view? If we dont, then we have to demand higher and higher prices from ourselves to fund our living standards.  

[looney]

I guarantee 99% of current owners would have NFI that the km's are recorded on the ECU's as well as the odometer.
You're spot on about PPI's and anybody who doesn't get a decent PPI done by an expert deserves what they get. Plenty of pitfalls in that though. It takes a lot of time to do a proper PPI and that costs money so shortcuts are often taken by both dealer and buyer. Then there is the issue of legal liability for faults that didn't appear in the PPI; but were discovered post purchase. Try finding someone to do a PPI in the USA as a result. They love law suits over there and PPI's are more trouble than they are worth for the tiny $ made from conducting the PPI.

Yeah PPI can be worth nothing, i've had cars inspected at great expense, only to find a mountain of things wrong with the car myself.

[dkabab]

In my industry, there are only maybe 2/10 people who pay the retail price on something. Most of our customers drive us down to the last dollar. And if we don't play their game, they shop elsewhere. It's a cycle we started, but it's spiraled to our own slow death.

People relying on me to tell them what they want and how much they need to spend keeps our business alive.

[amgsl55]

Hey Looney

is that a new car i see?

nice!