[TerenceHill]

Hello all,

I've taken delivery of my McLaren MP4-12C last thursday and now want to tell you about my first days of ownership.

First, I haven't got the supercar background some of you have; until now I've driven a Lotus Evora S as well as a Nissan GT-R, the latter I traded in for the McLaren.
Having made the decision to spend part of my hard-earned money on a supercar I have also considered and driven a Ferrari 16M, which is also a great car. In the end, I was also looking for daily-driveability and the modern technology of the McLaren convinced me, besides I prefer the looks and the interiour.

Driving experience is great so far, its just so capable and strong I'm actually a bit afraid of it (which is a good thing I think because I have yet to get used to the car). I also like the sound a lot. In contrast to the Ferrari which felt familiar and quite easy and fun to drive from the beginning I'm not yet familiar with the car's limits because they seem to be so ridiciously far away. But I'm working on it

However, I have some minor problems and complaints.Perhaps someone has experienced similar things?
* The sound system screen sometimes stays black and doesn't react to any input (although it sometimes plays music when that happens)
* There are two glass windows between the cabin and the engine; when the engine gets hot often there is damp on the inner glass, but on the rearward side, affecting rear view.
* Sometimes when shifting or when load changes occur there is some strange noise from the drivetrain, hard to describe, perhaps something between grinding and whistling noise. I guess that's normal.
* I have to get used to the pre-cog feature, however I do not see through the normal gear-preselection logic of the transmission (without using pre-cog). The GT-R always had the lower gear pre-selected when driving at low RPM and the higher gear when driving at high RPM, which seemed logical to me. Just something I have to learn and get used to, again.

Overall, it is simply a gorgeous driving experience in a great car, and I am a really happy and proud owner.

 

[Squirrel]

CONGRATULATIONS!

* The sound system screen sometimes stays black and doesn't react to any input (although it sometimes plays music when that happens)

I've not had this issue but to be honest I am avoiding using the system until Iris arrives, as at the moment sound quality is awful. (I believe there have been some improvements for more recent cars though!)

* There are two glass windows between the cabin and the engine; when the engine gets hot often there is damp on the inner glass, but on the rearward side, affecting rear view.

I've not had this issue at all, sounds like a faulty seal on the double glazed unit which should be sealed!

* Sometimes when shifting or when load changes occur there is some strange noise from the drivetrain, hard to describe, perhaps something between grinding and whistling noise. I guess that's normal.

I haven't experienced this either, so best to get your dealer to investigate...

* I have to get used to the pre-cog feature, however I do not see through the normal gear-preselection logic of the transmission (without using pre-cog). The GT-R always had the lower gear pre-selected when driving at low RPM and the higher gear when driving at high RPM, which seemed logical to me. Just something I have to learn and get used to, again.

GT-R 'box is good in manual mode but I much prefer the 12C. Pre-Cog grows on you!

Overall, it is simply a gorgeous driving experience in a great car, and I am a really happy and proud owner.

Agreed

 

[brotherharry]

Hello all,
* The sound system screen sometimes stays black and doesn't react to any input (although it sometimes plays music when that happens)

Yep, I've had this two or three times. Seems to require a full ignition off/on restart to reboot. Sometimes holding down the power button seems to work to trigger a reboot.

* Sometimes when shifting or when load changes occur there is some strange noise from the drivetrain, hard to describe, perhaps something between grinding and whistling noise. I guess that's normal.

The whistle is almost certainly the turbos, although grinding doesn't sound good unless what you're hearing is dump valves sounding wierd - take it you're used to hearing that sort of thing from the GT-R though?

* I have to get used to the pre-cog feature, however I do not see through the normal gear-preselection logic of the transmission (without using pre-cog). The GT-R always had the lower gear pre-selected when driving at low RPM and the higher gear when driving at high RPM, which seemed logical to me. Just something I have to learn and get used to, again.

Remember reading somewhere else on there that the next update has some tweaks to the gearbox around down shifts, maybe that's what's going on here? I know I often experience a significant pause on down shifts before full power engages at lower revs e.g. cruising behind someone in 5th then trying to call up a couple of down shifts to overtake when a gap suddenly appears is a bit clunky.

Overall, it is simply a gorgeous driving experience in a great car, and I am a really happy and proud owner.

Welcome to the club, I had similar history to you of reasonably fast cars before this leap into serious car territory. Bit scared (although give it a few hundred miles and you'll be throwing around like a hatchback) and loving it too!

 

[LimeyBloke]

Yep, I've had this two or three times. Seems to require a full ignition off/on restart to reboot. Sometimes holding down the power button seems to work to trigger a reboot.

Is your aforementioned "full ignition reboot" done with the radio still in the 'on' postion or, is the radio in 'off' mode (when you switch the ignition) .... and, then you turn the radio back on to complete the re-boot ?

 

[Vernor75]

I have the same issue with the radio. I think if you hold down the power button for several second, it will reboot the system. When it happens to me, I do this and wait approximately 1 minute for the system to come back on.

I've also had the black screen with the radio still playing. Ignition cycling didn't work so I just started driving home and nearly 5 minutes into the drive the screen came to life and the system was functioning again.

Fortunately I did not buy this car for the radio/nav but the issues are certainly something that takes away from the overall experience when driving the car. By that I mean if that system worked right and offered similar innovation to what was engineered into the rest of the car, I'd love it that much more.

Haven't had any of the other issues you mentioned.

Glad you're enjoying it!

 

[LimeyBloke]

It's bizarre how, with such a technologically special car, they can't get the car's radio to operate properly.

 

[brotherharry]

"full ignition reboot" with radio still in on but otherwise nonresponsive position.
Think that this level of integrated system is basically a custom PC riding around in a car (running some variety of Windows I believe), so by nature there will be more bugs involved. No matter who you are, when you hit the critical mass of lines of code you get emergent properties like bugs which no amount of testing will uncover. It's not like the 'good old days' when there wasn't a computer and you just had a tape deck built by some guys who specialised in building tape decks and all the manufacturer had to supply was specified power in and audio out signals.

 

[TerenceHill]

Thanks for all the feedback, and also glad to see some guys with "normal" garage history (no offense meant to the other guys, I honestly admire people being able to chose from a garage full of supercars. That's still a dream for me.)

I have paid more attention to the sound I mentioned and now I'm almost sure it's from the turbos when load is suddenly reduced. Will ask the dealer anyway. (GT-R did make much more drivetrain sound, of course - and 370Z is worst in that regard)

Thanks for the hint with the reboot of the sound system, it's a bit annoying to stop and restart the whole car in order to get it working again.

There's also some more thing I noticed with the gearbox: Occasionally it "swallows" input - so I hear the clicking sound of the paddle but it does not shift. This happened with upshifts as far as I remember, perhaps two or three times, at mid-range RPM, so upshift was possible (and it did after shifting again)
What I like on the other hand that it does remember when I hit the paddle twice and then do two consecutive shifts.