I feel for ya, man. My car was in the shop for nine months, and although everything came good in the end, it was a frustrating period. You could try Anthony Joseph in New York, he's still the boss of McLaren America (I think).

 

They are building 5-10 cars a day, so where the fuck are my parts?!

Being used for new cars?

 

Something tells me they don't get their parts the same day the cars are built...

 

I'd have to imagine that if they are building 5-10 cars a day, they have parts ready on the 10th for a car that is going to be built on the 30th. I doubt they are working with a level of parts availability that would stop the line should something have an issue.

In any case, apparently it's not a case of not having the parts. Some parts can only be ordered based on need and has a VIN associated with it that has to be cleared before the parts shipped. For some reason the part wasn't unblocked for my order and so they only shipped some of the parts. They received the order for the parts, but only sent some of the parts because they others were not approved in their system. No one knows why it happened, but it did. They are overnighting the other part now.

I'm not sure where the parts come from (probably not McLaren factory directly,) but they do come from Europe via DHL. Apparently DHL shipping sucks. Whereas they get next-day parts from Europe via Fedex and UPS all the time, the DHL boxes often come with security tape on them, meaning they're getting opened and inspected by customs which causes delays as well. So they are being shipped now, but whether or not they arrive next-day is unknown.

 

So what exactly is your beef with HQ, then?

 

Sorry noone, that's a long time to go without your ride. Hope they resolve it soon.

 

PM sent.

 

This seems entirely unacceptable, I would start rattling some emails around, you've been pretty patient..

 

Didn't McLaren make as part of their advertising campaign prior to releasing the 12C that every dealership would have one set of parts for every part of the car, inventory enough to rebuild an entire vehicle?

 

Ha! Indeed that is exactly what they said, but as I was recently advised by someone who knows, "that's bullshit....official bullshit, but still bullshit"

 

Yes, it was an official policy. Until the first car came in and needed a part!

 

Definitely not true, though I can't say I ever would have believed or even expected that either. There are an absurd number of parts on any given car with almost zero likelihood of needing replacement. For example, my firewall insulation was something that very rarely needs replacing. No way they are going to carry that kind of stuff. On the other hand, when the driver's side window broke, they told me they had to check in storage to see if they had one. Sure enough the did. Do they have another windshield? Probably not considering how expensive that is.

My guess is they have a lot of the stuff that's known to be an issue or required by service campaigns, assuming it's on the cheaper side. Some stuff, as I unfortunately found out, is only available on a special order basis as well, so you can forget about that stuff being in stock.

In reality though, I'm surprised they wouldn't just implement some sort of local supply of parts. I don't care if a dealer has a part so long as the part I need is within a few hundred miles from me. Only takes a day or two to get a part if it's already in the country. However, I still wouldn't expect them to have many multiples of random and expensive parts. No way there is going to be a motor and transmission waiting for you.

I honestly don't know where all the slack in my repair/service time came from. I can only assume it was on McLaren's end though because I don't think my dealer has any interest in keeping my car much longer than they have to and having me calling every two days asking what the hell the hold up is. When I called the other day, they said they had 5 cars in there waiting on stuff. IMO it's an issue of logistics and management. I'm almost certain it took several weeks to get approval to replace my tail lights and do the paint repair even though the issues were well known and the problems documented. They had me send McLaren pictures documenting the water in the lights, so I was surprised to here it wasn't instantly approved.

Unless you work there though, who knows...

 

Three months in service is too long. One month is too long, but within the range of something a nice guy could still be pleasant about.

At the three month mark, no matter how nice people have been, something is broken in the system.

This is an opportunity for McLaren and the dealership to work together and figure out what parts of their process aren't working and fix them, BEFORE they seriously piss off another customer.

Thank you for raising this issue at a level where it can get proper attention, hopefully all current and future owners will benefit.

 

Would it not be unreasonable that McLaren offer a free warranty extension in this situation? It would be an extension of good faith, and not necessarily cost a significant amount provided the factory was offering the warranty themselves, rather than the third party that they will be offering in the upcoming weeks.

 

Did you get your car back yet? Did McLaren offer any king of consideration for the time lost? My car just had a similar and lengthy visit to the dealer. It was sent mid-december and came back just this week. It went in for annual service but also for a variety of other warranty issues; soft paint repair, air bag fault, IRIS, starter issue etc. But what surprised me was that the dealer paid me for the time lost. I had a check overnighted to me for 4k once everything was done. Hopefully it all got worked out and you're happy now but if your car was gone for three months, I'd maybe be asking for a little $ for your pain and suffering.

 

My car recently spent eight weeks getting minor stuff sorted. It came back and within two weeks it was back at the dealer to fix all the stuff they didn't do properly the first time plus the bunch of new crap resulting from the useless iris upgrade. It is getting on for two weeks now, and I have three days tracktime at COTA coming up, if it ain't home soon and totally fixed I will be one unhappy customer! JG, How did they figure out how much to reimburse you?

 

They offered to cover the payments for the 2 months it was with them so I sent them a statement and that was it.

 

I'd say you won the dealer lottery. Never heard of anything like that.

 

John, now I am jealous, you mean you can communicate with others via the mic of the Bluetooth??? Everyone keeps asking me to repeat myself many times over, but I can hear them though they all have a base voice...
You and Texas get an IRIS II for free, I am still waiting for mine to be replaced, I have complained about it since day one. Recently they set part of the upgrade backwards to see if it helps the NAV screen not going into color mode so I also get the loud pops again to blow both my eardums and the speakers and the radio stations require my going to a different one and then back again when they individually stop working. I can go on if you like such as the rear camera is a joke, only covers part of the screen, cannot resize it and the quality of the camera appareas to be one sold for $3,000.00 USD but not up to par with those selling elsewhere for $30.00
I do find McLaren Service seems to want to try a lot of things before they get around to performing a real repair or replacement on many things. 4th trip on Tuesday just to replace a sensor.

 

Sorry to bring an old thread back, I will be sending my car for the 6th time to service in my one year two month ownership. The car 2012 12C ) keeps getting codes and limp mode to the extent that I have paid track days ( and other expenses ) without being able to use the car at all. I live far from my dealer( 600 miles )and it is extremely frustrating that I am not able to use the car.

The question is, should I go directly with phone call to mclaren headquarters or should I go straight to my lawyer and send them a formal letter?

I know the phone or mail is in my books but is there any shortcuts to the right people?

Please advise.
Thanks!

 

I would like to add that I bought the car as a certified pre owned from a mclaren dealer. Same dealer that performs my service and same dealer that sold the car to the original owner.

 

v8ray, have you tried another dealer for service? I realize it will require further shipping but really 1000 miles is not much different than 600, just wondering if it would pay to get a second opinion?

 

Actually I have another dealer a little closer but the one Im using is more convenient. At this point I will try one more time but for sure I will contact headquarters before they do anything.