a dealer service problem, not the car. choose your servicing dealer wisely.

 

Perhaps, but at the end of the day it's McLarens HQ call to either make things right or not. And they chose not to.

 

Did you have an independent PPI done? Also, please clarify what the legal cause of action would be? You bought a 10 year old car that needs some repairs. The warranty long expired and I assume you bought it as is? is the issue the cost of repairs or that a 10 year old car has problems? is the issue that they should have discovered the MCU during the battery replacement?

I understand your frustration and I’m not trying to downplay the problems, just trying to understand the issues. As consumers of cars, I think we all understand that mechanical things. (Ie., Cars) even new or used can have problems. I’d assume if repairs were done there would be a warranty for the repair work. did they determine the second MCU issue was unrelated to the first problem.

Again, not downplaying anything just gathering more facts since you posted.

 

Did you have an independent PPI done? Also, please clarify what the legal cause of action would be? You bought a 10 year old car that needs some repairs. The warranty long expired and I assume you bought it as is? is the issue the cost of repairs or that a 10 year old car has problems? is the issue that they should have discovered the MCU during the battery replacement?

I understand your frustration and I’m not trying to downplay the problems, just trying to understand the issues. As consumers of cars, I think we all understand that mechanical things. (Ie., Cars) even new or used can have problems. I’d assume if repairs were done there would be a warranty for the repair work. did they determine the second MCU issue was unrelated to the first problem.

Again, not downplaying anything just gathering more facts since you posted.

I’m not an attorney by trade so i wouldn’t be qualified to answer that, but when you turn your car in for a $150,000 (possibly not needed?) repair and they return it to you with another broken part (that wasn’t broken before) that costs an additional $109,000 you very well might have a case. We’ll find out.

I didn’t buy a 10 yearold car that needed some repairs.. i bought a $1.6m 10 year old car that had undergone multiple inspections (by mclaren) and was sold to me with a clean bill of health. So yes, the frustration has grown quite a bit since June.

 

I'm wondering if the MCU issue WAS the initial problem, but misdiagnosed .... ????

 

You and me both

 

Wow!! Completely unacceptable

 

It's a P1, it costs a lot of money to keep it on the road. Cars break. Move on.

 

That’s the plan thanks

 

Listen to me and listen good, ship the car to the UK to V Engineering, thank me later, you arnt going to find better. These guys are ex McLaren HQ on the mechanic side who actually know what they are doing, no offense but I wouldn't trust any US McLaren dealership from what I have been hearing and to be honest, globally, even our local one here in Dubai..

At least make the phone call to them, they might be able to guide your dealer to the issue.

 

another service option would be Apex Motorsports, Buffalo Grove IL. www.apexmotorsportsil.com The Owners James Le Porte and Doug Foster are both factory certified McLaren mechanics and currently have several P1 customers. James was also the service manager for Chicago McLaren and Doug was a master mechanic. At minimum might be worth a conversation and hope this helps.

 

I definitely understand your frustration and the expense to repair would be damaging to most people, including myself. Would it make sense to have them do the "final" repair for 39k even if you don't agree so that you have a working car, hopefully? I assume you can still go after them legally, unless you feel that paying the extra 39k is "accepting" their offer. When spending that type of money, even if it is used, I would also not expect to have 200k of repair bills. Good Luck with whatever you do.

 

Exactly, it’s not about the money, it’s about the principle and how they’ve handled the situation. Doesn’t matter if i pay $109 or $39 - the point is - I shouldn’t be paying anything considering i just spent close to $2m over the last 6 months on a car I havent had, and the issues occurred while in their possession - not counting all the other expenses that come along with it (insurance, reg, etc). Ironically i also did a 10 year service on it while the battery was getting replaced. Cars are a pain in the ass and i’m used to it having owned some high hp cars in the past.. but inheriting something directly from mclaren and having to deal with and pay for all these things right after the purchase just isn’t right.

 

I have somewhat ambivalent feelings about this thread. On the one hand, it's horrifying to hear that even on a $1.6m car, dealers are apparently dropping the ball or cutting corners. On the other hand, it's comforting to hear that people spending $1.6m aren't treated any differently from the rest of us.

As I've said before, these cars are phenomenal, absolutely second-to-none as driver's cars, but the ownership experience is absolutely miserable. I totally get that impulse to just sell and wash your hands of them, that's a feeling I've had on several occasions after having been disappointed by the support for customers. To own a car at this level of expenditure and risk, you want to feel that someone has your back. Sure, there's still risk and cost involved, but for me there was an expectation that the dealers and manufacturer would do the right thing. After nearly 4 years of ownership, I no longer have that expectation, but so far I've resisted the impulse to bite my nose off and simply sell the car, which says a lot about how good the cars are when they're not in the shop.

 

It’s gonna be hard to support the company after an experience like this, but we’ll see.

 

I am truly sorry to hear about this issue. All the above are excellent ideas. It may be too late, but consider having Sean with McMedics look it over???

 

.

 

Shame to hear this but like others have said, its a huge toss up on even the cheapest McLaren to buy used...

Hybrid supercars scare me to the point where I dont even get excited to see them in the wild.

I hope the OP gets it sorted and even considers keeping his dream car but finds an independent shop that can handle the work. McMedics or Cannonball Garage are an asset to us on this side of the pond.

 

Seems like a misdiagnosis as it still flashed up imo after they deleted the codes so they should therefore refund you for the first none fault and you should pay for the new fault correct ?
cars hey nothing but a pain in the arse especially expensive ones

 

Sounds like a serious pain in the butt. Sorry to hear about it. Please reach out to me via DM.

 

Is this the car owned by Randy? If so, God only knows what he would have done to the car and not reported. No scruples.

 

locals would know what this car is like.

 

Just to clarify my frustration with all of this.. if I had owned the car for some time, got to drive and enjoy it, and then ran into some issues - it would be fine. Cars break. I’ve been a car enthusiast for a long time and have dealt with my fair share of car problems. However, the issues started right after the purchase and havent stopped. Granted the car was purchased directly from Mclaren, had undergone all of its scheduled maintenance - at Mclaren, had undergone multiple inspections - at Mclaren, one would hope that they would stand behind their work and handle things differently. I’m a business owner myself, and I can guarantee you that I would. But that hasn’t been the case and that’s the point of this thread. It’s not about the money, just disappointed with the company and how they treat their life long clients.

 

This is exactly my complaint about the CPO cars. Until they find a way to force the dealers to make CPO actually mean something, residual values are always going to be a problem. My current CPO car came with a v-module leaking both oil and coolant.

 

Its difficult to have technicians up to date with so few cars in the market. I have seen a similar issue, locally, where the actual problem was a easy fix. If it only was a routine service, but a tech needs to recall how-to-do when a P1 shows up.

 

To my knowledge there’s only a few techs that work on these cars, so one would hope they don’t have to recall anything. Especially when most of the cars have similar issues (battery related).

 

I sympathize with you going thru this after dropping that much coin on the car. I think I've said this before, but I believe these inspections are over-rated. I'm all for it, believe me. However, we can't sit here and say a ppi will save us from an unknown bill down the road. Even though we'd like it to. There's just too much gray area.

 

It’s a difficult situation and certainly not fun for any owner to deal with. The cause of the problem is also hard to pinpoint. Could be a mis-diagnosis, could have actually just randomly gone bad or possibly something else. Anyone who buys a P1 has to be prepared to put $200-$300k into it at some point…new battery and $65k for accumulators. They will ALL need this at some point.

Recently (past 6 months) 3 close friends bought P1’s…and all of them chose the $45k, 1 year warranty. Why? Because they’ve owned enough McLarens to know better. A lot of things can happen in used cars…sometimes it’s a poor PPI, other times it’s just age and other times just bad luck. In this case, while I don’t know the details that 1yr warranty may have saved you…maybe not.

Personally I think Pat is doing the best he’s ‘allowed’ to do in this case…his hands are tired as well…$109 down to $39 isn’t chump change…Unless there is a smoking gun to defacto prove it was McLarens fault it’s tough. Ive had my ‘battles’ with them over certain things…as have friends of mine. Sometimes things aren’t fair…but that’s also perception as well. Not suggesting it makes your situation better, but I’ve seen FAR worse screw jobs at McLaren than this…

Btw…Carrera GT’s had a stop drive in them for how long now?? How much is that ‘worth’ to the owner? Hard to quantify isn’t it…Sometimes we need to just deal with it and move…Enjoy your P1 and don’t sell the 765. Everyone manufacturer has many examples of ‘your’ situation. It’s not right sometimes…but it is what it is.

 

I forgot about that part. 109 down to 39.. is.. quite the help honestly.

 

Bought a used 11 yro car out of warranty knowing it needed the battery replacement, which was on order, and you even got $40k credit. Whelp. That should have been deducted from the sales price or other factored into your cost basis. You knew that at time of purchase. I really don’t have a lot of sympathy on the battery replacement issue since it was obvious pre-sale. Using it to lead into your real issue is prety trolling.

Later, you have an unexpected repair bill of 2% for an 11 yro out of warranty car. That sucks, and I am sympathetic, but it’s hardly out of bounds or something to rage over. If my bmw ownership experience had only been so smooth …

Anyway, buy an out of warranty 918 or LaF and have fun.

 

Kudos for completely missing the whole point. Cheers

 

@650 I am sorry you have a bad experience with where you serviced the P1. As a McLaren dealer technician for several years, a P1 certified technician, and now an owner of an independent shop that specializes in McLaren and Ferrari, I have worked on over 20 different P1s throughout the years. Unfortunately, the P1 is a very finicky car. I have performed a full yearly service and all of a sudden, the radio amplifier stopped working soon after. I have seen the MCU burn a hole through the case and almost set the car on fire. I have also removed the high voltage battery and had the McLaren factory tech replace two of the 6 modules on the HV battery. After installing the battery, another module failed within a week. Because the dealer technicians are not allowed to tear down the HV battery to that point, the McLaren factory tech had to come back out and replace the failed module. As much as this sucks, things like this do happen. As these cars get older, more and more will start to fail. McLaren isn't the only manufacturer to have these problems. Ferrari has the same issue with the La Ferrari. The Koenigsegg Regera has constant issues. I don't know of any customer who owns a Regera that hasn't needed to take it in for hybrid issues and other issues that continue to plague those vehicles.

I have provided some of our P1 customers a little help from bad dealer experiences such as yours. We can rebuild the HDA, replace certain hybrid components, replace and bleed the suspension system components, and other services that most shops outside the dealer are not able to provide. I know Paul Saunders and Steve Spender with V Engineering. These guys know the P1 vehicles inside and out. We have purchased HDA rebuild kits and PCCU Race Mode 2 modules from them and have zero complaints. Feel free to DM me and I am happy to discuss and hopefully provide you options and/or my opinion for your P1.

 

Thank you for your feedback. I’ll DM you

 

I didn’t see the point at which you learned of the previous owners battery replacement having already have been ordered. From your post, it appears that you learned of it after the purchase of the car and when you learned that you needed it.
Surely thats not the case because the dealer would have had full knowledge that the car was unwell when it sold it to you with a clean bill of health?
That’s a fraud claim, no?

 

The battery was preemptively ordered by previous owner as it was going to be needed sooner or later, so it wasn’t a red flag during the purchase. It was actually a good thing from where i was sitting at the time. The timing of everything else and how things were handled - not so much.

 

Thanks for sharing. I hope you will keep us updated on your progress. I agree above that these hybrid cars are complex and maybe not as well engineered for long-term use. I took a long look at Artura but went 750s because of the ongoing issues with the hybrid system. Sure the ICE cars are not bulletproof either but maybe a little simpler to maintain in the long run. The P1 was their first hybrid if I'm not mistaken and maybe there's a learning curve in building for longevity. Probably a lot of these one-off million dollar cars like the Elva and the Senna will have future issues especially if people intend to actually drive them into the long term.

 

Agreed with above. I’d be furious.

 

@650 Can you contact me. I am dealing with the same exact issue and would like to talk to you about few things on this matter.

 

Dm your number

 

Any update on this?

 

Still at it. Ordered MCU. Hoping to get it all sorted by end of summer