by Doug DeMuro
4. When he picks you up from the airport to buy the car, he is listening to conservative talk radio. He asks if you like “this stuff.” Before you can answer, he turns up the volume.
5. As he drives you back to his home, he comments on the attractiveness of women he sees on the street. He has been married eighteen years. He has a thirteen-year-old daughter.
6. Despite all of these traits, he insists on being paid with a notarized cashier’s check in the presence of a bank employee who can do a verification of funds. “Gotta protect myself,” he says. He then spends an hour looking for the title. He says: “I know it’s around here somewhere.”
People like me will be nodding along with every one of those statements. This is because people like me do not think in this manner, but we know people who do. People like me would never lose a vehicle’s service records or its title. People like me keep these documents in a manila envelope in a desk drawer. And not a random desk drawer. The “manila envelope with car documents” desk drawer.
People like me also reply thoroughly to e-mails. And people like me don’t force loud political discussions or remarks about random women on someone we’ve just met. Meanwhile, Those Guys will not be nodding along with any of this, because Those Guys don’t read books. What Those Guys read is text messages from a girl named Lexi who they met at their friend’s bachelor party, and who they’ve added in their phone as “Crazy Mike” to throw off their wives.
But sometimes, Those Guys have the car you want to buy.
This was one of those situations. I can’t even come close to remembering the name of the guy who owned the 911 Turbo I wanted, but I’ll call him Mark. Mark was selling his early-production 2001 model, black on black with a six-speed manual transmission, for about $32,000 on Autotrader, and I—fresh off of owning my Lotus Elise—really wanted to get back into a Porsche to go along with my job at Porsche’s corporate headquarters. It was a match made in heaven. Except that every single thing about this purchase was straight out of hell.
This was the plan: I was going to fly down from my house in Atlanta to Mark’s house in Florida, with my girlfriend in tow. Then I was going to buy the car and drive it home, all in one long but doable day. In comparison to driving my Lotus across the country, this should’ve been easy, like going to Italy and finding a painting of the Virgin Mary.
Before I flew down to Florida, however, I got the sense that the seller was one of Those Guys—a sense I had honed through years of knowing people who would use the last staple and then set off in search of a new stapler, rather than attempting to refill it. (“There’s a guy for that.”)
As a result, I decided to send the car to a dealer for a thorough pre-purchase inspection before I bought it. Fortunately, it wouldn’t be just any dealer, but a dealer where a friend of mine worked. And not just any friend, but one I had met through my job at Porsche’s corporate headquarters. This guy was a kind, intelligent, attentive Porsche salesperson—a rare breed in the industry—and I knew his dealer would do a great job on my inspection. So I told Mark to take it over there, and Mark did it, and a few hours later I got a call from the dealer.
“The car looks good,” said the service advisor, “with a few exceptions.” He then listed the flaws: the automatic raising and lowering spoiler wasn’t functional (who cares?), the center console bin was loose (who cares?), the factory 2001-era navigation system wasn’t working (who cares?), some interior trim was fading (who cares?), and there was excessive wear on the back of the front seats (who cares?). This was an easy decision: the car had only minor issues and it was well priced. I negotiated a bit with Mark, we reached a number, and then I booked tickets to fly down to Florida and buy the car.
A few days later I landed at the airport and walked outside to find … nothing. I was about to hand Mark a check for something like thirty grand, and the guy didn’t even show up on time to the airport to pick me up. Add that to the Those Guys list.
Eventually, Mark arrived in the car and drove us straight to a bank, where the transaction would take place. Despite Mark’s utter incompetence in other areas of this transaction—for example, he had listed the car for sale with the wrong model year—he was highly attentive to the part where we exchanged payment, and he wanted it to be entirely on his terms. I chalked it up to his status as one of Those Guys. I would soon find out how right I was.
When we left the bank, I got in the driver’s seat, and Mark climbed into the passenger side. There it was: I had just bought my very first Porsche—and not just any Porsche, but a 911 Turbo. And not just any 911 Turbo, but a sleek black coupe from the “996” generation, which I absolutely love even though most Porsche purists believe that it’s the ugliest thing ever to come out of Zuffenhausen, and that Porsche would’ve made a more attractive car if they had stuck an engine on the back of a pink fairy armadillo.
I will now pause for you to look up pink fairy armadillo. It is the ugliest creature on our planet, and it is worth the break from my book. If you are on a plane, it may even be worth paying for the Wi-Fi, because otherwise you will forget to look it up, and you’ll say to yourself, when you land: What was that creature DeMuro was talking about? The ballerina anteater? And you will never know what true ugliness really is. Unless, of course, you are a Porsche purist, and you happen to spot a 996.
So anyway: I’m in my very first 911, and this is a huge moment, and I’m grinning from ear to ear, and I turn the key for the very first time, and … noises. Struggling. Whirring. The battery is dying.
That’s funny, I thought. The dealer didn’t say anything about the battery.
So I try it again. And again. Eventually, on the third or fourth turn of the key, the car barely coughs to life. There’s a little battery left, like the amount that’s left in your car’s key remote when it’ll only work if you’re standing next to the rear taillight and you’re pressing the unlock button like a woodpecker.
Whatever, I think to myself. A battery should be no big deal. I’ll fix it when I get home.
So we leave the bank with Mark in tow. I’m going to drive him back to his house, and then my girlfriend and I are going to continue the rest of the way to Atlanta. Until, a couple miles down the road, I stall it. Now, this isn’t entirely uncommon when you’re driving a new stick shift for the first time, so I didn’t really worry about it that much. Or at least, I didn’t really worry about it that much until I went to turn the car back on.
Noises. Struggling. Whirring.
The battery has just died. I’m sitting in the middle of a busy intersection in a crowded Florida city and the Porsche 911 Turbo dream car I bought thirty minutes ago is unable to move under its own power.
It was about that time when the honking began.
At this point, Mark hatches a plan. We’re only a quarter-mile from his house. He’ll run home, get another car and jumper cables, and come back to give us a jump. Then we’ll drive to an auto parts store, and he’ll buy me a new battery.
What a gentleman.
So Mark takes off, and the reality of the situation dawns on me: I’m now sitting in the middle of an intersection, in my new car, my new Porsche, with my girlfriend (who was told this would be a fun trip), and I’m eight hours from home, in an unfamiliar city, and the car categorically refuses to start, and I am watching the guy who sold it to me literally run away down the street.
This is what I am doing. This is where my life is.
Stunningly, however, Mark eventually returns with a lifted 1970s Ford Bronco and a pair of jumper cables. The jump is enough to get the 911 started, which we do, and then he follows us to a nearby auto parts store to buy me a battery, which he does. This should be the end of Mark’s role in this event, except that as he’s walking away, out of my life, gone for good, sayonara, he decides at this moment that he wants to keep his license plate. He never mentioned this to me in the dozens of e-mails and phone calls we exchanged during the sales process. It has only occurred to him as I am seconds away from beginning a
n eight-hour drive home through rural America in an exotic sports car. I tell Mark I will happily mail the plate back when I get home. Mark refuses. Mark was a good guy.
So we’re finally leaving the auto parts store, ready to begin our long drive home, and I’m happy once again: I have no license plate and we’ve already broken down once, but at least I’ve got my cool new Porsche. As this was the first 911 Turbo I had ever driven, I decided to give it a triumphant stab of the gas pedal on the way out of the auto parts store parking lot, just to see the monstrous acceleration on this thing. The car responded to this in two ways. Number one, the revs shot to the top of the tachometer. And number two, the vehicle speed increased only slightly.
That’s odd, I thought. I thought it would be faster.
Is it supposed to do that?
As it turns out, it wasn’t supposed to do that. I drove the car eight hours home, occasionally pushing down the gas pedal in a rural, empty part of the interstate, and each time I was confronted with the same problem: the revs would rise, and the car wouldn’t really accelerate all that much.
Maybe that’s just how turbos are, I thought, trying to convince myself that there wasn’t some catastrophic problem with the powertrain. I’ve never driven one before! I assured myself, in my naiveté. It’s probably fine!
I arrived home in Atlanta that night, just as I had planned, and I Googled the issue.
That’s not how turbos are.
It wasn’t fine.
The car needed a new clutch.
I brought it to my local dealership the next day, and they diagnosed the issue: the car did indeed need a new clutch, which would be a twenty-hour job to install. In order to even access the clutch in a 996 Turbo, the dealer has to remove the transmission and the engine from the vehicle. The total cost would be around $2,500 in labor, plus around $2,000 in parts, for a grand total that was just shy of $5,000 with taxes.
I felt like a new driver who was slowly, carefully backing up in a parking spot, and I accidentally ran over one of those decorative rocks they use to hide utility boxes, and I knocked out power to fourteen businesses and an elementary school.
I also felt like I was screwed. This was a private used car sale, an as-is transaction that I couldn’t get my money back from. In fact, I couldn’t really do anything except pay for a new clutch and hope the issues stopped there. So I ordered the parts with my Porsche employee discount, and I sent over an e-mail to my friend at the Porsche dealer, explaining what had happened and noting that maybe, in the future, they should check the cars just a littttttttle more thoroughly when someone pays for a pre-purchase inspection. But I was resigned to my fate: my brand-new 911 Turbo had already cost me $5,000, and I had only owned it for two days.
The next day, I got a call from my Porsche dealer friend. He felt bad about what happened. The entire dealer felt bad about what happened. And they devised a plan: they wanted to fix the car for me, entirely free of charge. They wanted to have a shipper pick up the car, they wanted to bring it all the way back to their shop in Florida, and they wanted to do a twenty-hour job that requires the removal of the engine and transmission … completely for free.
I was elated. This was customer service. This dealership wasn’t run by Those Guys. And so, I loaded the car on a truck bound for Florida, and the dealer spent four days with the car, installing the new clutch. And when the trailer came back, I finally had my new car.
Of course, that isn’t a very good story. It’s a decent story, but it’s not a great story. It would’ve been a great story if the dealer had also missed some other major issue, like there was a family of hedgehogs living in the taillight assembly, and we had to send the car back down to Florida so it could be fixed by a hedgehog repairman.
But it isn’t over yet.
A few months later I was at a Porsche training event, which I knew would also be attended by my Florida Porsche dealer friend and a service advisor from his dealership—the same dealership who inspected my car and then fixed it for free. So we all had dinner together at the event, and we had a great time discussing cars, and Florida, and family, and career prospects, and it was a wonderful meal that lasted several memorable hours. At the end of the meal, the service advisor went to the bathroom, leaving just me and my salesman friend.
“So,” he asked, “how are you liking the 911 Turbo?”
“I love it!” I told him. Then I added: “Hey, by the way. The guy who screwed up the inspection. He didn’t get fired or anything, did he? I’d really hate to be responsible for something like that.”
My friend chuckled for a second before he said: “Nope, we didn’t fire him. No worries!”
I was relieved to hear I hadn’t been the cause of some poor technician losing his livelihood.
Right at this moment, the service advisor walked back from the bathroom and asked what we were talking about. We told him we were discussing my 911—the one that had its clutch replaced for free earlier at his dealership earlier this year.
“Oh, the one with the bad inspection?” he replied. “Yeah, that mechanic … thank God after that we fired his ass!”
For those of you keeping track at home, the sum of this car purchase is: one dead battery, one bad clutch, one jump-start in a busy intersection, two full round trips to and from Florida, nine hundred miles on the back of a flatbed, $2,000 in parts, and a job loss. Thinking back on this experience, I realized something: You know your car purchase is bad when one of Those Guys tells you to check out the knockers on that girl, and it doesn’t even earn a place in the story.
Automotive Press Launches
Throughout the last few years, my job has required me to attend numerous automotive press launches, which usually involve an all-expense-paid trip to a luxury resort somewhere in the United States or across the globe. I attend these events at great personal peril, in the sense that I, Doug DeMuro, may accidentally consume an undercooked piece of filet mignon—or perhaps a particularly raw bite of fresh lobster—at an all-inclusive, entirely complimentary four-course dinner. However, I place myself in this serious danger so that I can deliver a thorough, fully unbiased, highly objective automotive review to you, the reader. You’re welcome.
Actually, the truth is that press launches aren’t quite as glamorous as they may seem. What basically happens is this. First, the automaker flies you to wherever they’re having the event. Then, they pick you up at the airport, and you’re delivered to dinner with a bunch of sweaty old journalists who have been writing for The Western Massachusetts Eagle-Aardvark for so long that their original column was a three-way comparison between a Delahaye, a steam car, and the continued use of the horse and buggy.
Also present is a group of automaker public relations people, who are now going into their second week away from home and their fourth group of journalists, many of whom have complained about the size and texture of the asparagus that accompanies the second course.
After the dinner ends, you go right to sleep. You do this because you have to be up at 6 a.m. the next morning in order to attend a press briefing, where they tell you every single detail about the new vehicle they’re launching, including a wide array of technical information that might be made up. Nobody really knows, because the room is full of journalists, not engineers, and most of us couldn’t tell a U-joint from a battery-powered Christmas ornament.
Next, you drive around in the new car for about five hours with some journalist you barely know, who tells you all about some of the other press trips he went on, where the food was much better than this, the hotel was much nicer than this, the bed was much softer than this, and the flight was much smoother than this. “But that’s what you get these days,” he inevitably says. He does not clarify what “these days” means. I think he is referring to the Internet.
Then there’s lunch. That part is nice.
Eventually, you return to the hotel, and they bring you to the airport. You don’t really get to take in any local flavor, unless of course you get pulled over by
Scenic Press Launch County Sheriff’s Department, who wonders why two unrelated young men are cruising around in an unregistered vehicle with out-of-state vehicle manufacturer license plates.
Fortunately, there have been a few unusual incidents over the years that have helped break up the press launch despair and monotony. Here are the highlights.
Stupid PR Speak
Although it might be hard to believe, some of the stupidest things you’ll encounter at an automotive press launch actually come from the automaker’s public relations people. I say “it might be hard to believe,” because you’d normally think that the stupid things would come from other journalists, who use automotive press launches as an excuse to get a) airline miles, and b) drunk.
I clearly remember my very first press launch. It was for the 2014 Lexus IS at a high-end resort near Austin, Texas, and I was absolutely mortified. I had just quit my real job to become a car writer, this was the first one of these I had ever been to, and I’ve never felt more like the odd man out: everyone else seemed to know everyone else, and I felt like I had a sign around my neck that said “new guy.” As I walked out to the hotel’s banquet room for the press briefing, I think I was more anxious than Neil Armstrong was when he stepped out of his spacecraft and onto extraterrestrial soil.