Nick Murray is a guy like many of us. He has a dream car, and he's worked hard to finally get it. In Nick's case, that car is a Porsche 911, and he managed to realize his dream. Well, with only one small catch: He says his Porsche 911 is a total lemon. Here's everything wrong with this sad, sick 911.
Nick's been documenting the saga of his painfully-citrus flavored 911 in a series of videos that outline and show the issues he's having: strange error messages on the dash, whistling sounds from the windows, self-dropping mirrors, battery depletion, water leaks through the dash, the entire car cutting off for no reason on the highway or the whole dash fritzing out over bumps, and, most alarmingly, acrid smoke coming out of the dash. There's so many gremlins in this thing that you probably can't eat in it after midnight.
Most of these issues seem to point to comprehensive and widespread electrical issues throughout the car — maybe this was a special one-off collaboration with Lucas electrics? It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the issues are, because he claims there's so many and so many systems are interconnected.
So far, Porsche has repaired the car numerous time, replaced many parts, but to no avail. Nick wants Porsche to either buy back his car, or replace it with a comparable vehicle. He says Porsche has not offered to do either of these things, and has, in Nick's words, issued "thinly veiled threats" if he does not accept their settlements and goes into arbitration.
These videos have been racking up huge numbers of views, we've been sent this by multiple readers, and it's getting lots of attention on Reddit right now. Many gearheads are very willing to sympathize with someone — a not particularly wealthy someone —who saved up for five years to buy the car they've always wanted. To have the realization of that dream spoiled by what appears to be a deeply and profoundly fucked car is downright tragic.
You can see in Nick's eyes as he speaks an intense sense of frustration and helplessness. He seems exasperated, desperately trying to retain his composure. And who could blame him?
I would think the smartest thing Porsche could do right now would be to get this man a new 911 and take his old one back and tear it apart and try and figure out what the hell went wrong. It'd cost them money, sure, but it's not like they're hurting for it, and there's a genuinely important lesson to be learned here.
Porsches are relevant because of men like this man, who genuinely love the car. If people like Nick can't be made happy in the purchase of a car they already love, something is considerably wrong.
We'll keep you updated on the story, and here's hoping everything works out. We've spoken to Porsche North America, who said that their "customer relations team is in contact with the customer and we are working to resolve the issues with his car." Here's to hoping for a speedy resolution.