I think one of the reasons people stay clear of the 996 is evident in between the lines of the "What's this trans" link, if you read into it carefully.
There seems to be a strange factory purchase system with Getrag transmissions.
As I read it, it works like this:
Lets say for example that I make cars and I now want someone to supply quality gearboxes for my new car but I can't justify the cost of R&D to production `in house` so I go to Getrag to see what they can offer me.
Getrag give me two pricing options:
Option `A`
Supply of my transmission units to my factory within a given time frame and quantity production period at `X` amount per unit. (now this is the attractive option because it also covers supply of `factory exchange units` at a greatly reduced price that we both know are new units but will go out as `exchange units` because we've already covered costs in the initial deal and don't expect huge demand for them).
Or option `B`
This is all of the above, plus the supply of `rebuild and service parts` for the transmissions supplied to me, a spares package basicaly.
As a car builder you need to sell a huge amount of cars to justify the extra cost of deal `B` because the difference in initial cost of the deal is massive.
This is why if you're the owner of a late model Porsche (or a Mitsubishi GTO as a great example, (etc!) or for that matter any `low volume` production car fitted with a Getrag transmission) you'll not be able to get your gearbox repaired when it goes wrong, the official dealer network will be able to offer you a `factory exchange unit` or nothing.
Bearings, seals and the like are covered very quickly by the aftermarket suppliers but when it comes down to hard parts such as gears/shafts these can be a nightmare to get hold of.
It does look as though the `996` box will be as well supported (by the after market suppliers) as the G50, but it's likely to take some time.
In the mean time if it goes wrong you'll need to find someone that really knows what they're doing to get it fixed!
This has got me on a roll so I'll go a little further in order to explain:
I used to work in `Dealer Network/Customer Support` at the UK General Motors warehouse in the UK.
This involved looking after the Vauxhall/Opel/Beford Trucks (then AWD) parts supply network in the UK and northern Europe and essentialy sorting out parts quantity and quality and supply issues for the dealerships, the people actually selling the vehicles and responsible for servicing them (all franchises by the way).
Now this warehouse had a staff (including office staff, cleaners, drivers, the lot) at a total of around 800 people, it's not far short of that still to this day (it was nearly ten years ago that I left).
If we assume (and the books show it to be) that this one warehouse made it's money supplying parts in the main to the Vauxhall car dealer network, you may be a little suprised to learn that it's profit was well above that of the two factories building the cars, combined.
Vauxhall used to have both the main Luton plant and the Ellesmere Port plant with this warehouse as part of the `Vauxhall Network`.
For the last couple of years I worked for G.M. (and before production ended at the Luton plant and was down scaled at Ellesmere Port) on average the Luton plant made around 17 million pounds profit a year and Ellesmere Port made around 14 million profit per year.
These were very big plants with staff levels in the thousands.
Now compare that with the parts warehouse (with a staff of 800ish) that made between 50-60 million pounds a year profit, every year.
If you can sell enough cars in the first place you can justify the full parts network to support them, and really make it pay.
Even if the spark plugs aren't expensive if your selling them by the million it's one a hell of a profit when you add it all up!
If on the other hand you expect a relativly low production figure for your cars and you know you'll not sell the parts volume to make any really good money to justify supporting a large parts network (not without making very unreliable cars and consequentialy getting a `reputation` and then selling even less of them) this all has to be taken into account in regard to any outsourcing and supply deals you make before production even begins.
As a car maker you've two ways to go, you either make the bulk of your profit selling the cars themselves with limited parts back up, or you can sell the cars cheaper if you're sure you'll sell enough of them that you'll claw the profit back in servicing the parts (all the better if you own all the official dealerships through franchises).
This come down to your customer, how much can you get out of them?
So lets take the likes of Porsche as an example, they will sell you a car, they know if your gearbox goes wrong you'll not be expecting to get under it, drop the gearbox out, strip it and then go down to your local dealership and buy a couple of bearings and a synchro ring for 30 quid, go home, put it back together and drive away happy (dirty and with no skin left on your hands but you get the picture).
Ford (and the after market volume parts producers) on the other hand know that within the service life of the Ford (for an example of a mass produced vehicle) this is very likely to happen, esspecialy the older it gets, and the more vehicles they've sold the more old ones will still be about with owners (or garages) still buying parts for them.
The average Porsche owner isn't getting under his car, even if it's ten years old, it's still worth ten times more than the Ford and his desposable income reflects that, he'll still generaly have a garage or dealer sort it out (he's not spending that 30 quid so the multiplus to make the parts profit therefore don't apply).
It's assumed that he'll have the money to be in a possition to pay for the `factory exchange unit` and if not, well it's a ten year old sports car, if he wants to drive a sports car/supercar there's a price to pay and he's got no other option than the exchange unit.
After all, he can't buy the parts elsewhere because the after market producers didn't feel the volume sale were there to bother copying the factory parts either, unless they knew of a very, very common failure, and in those cases they'll have those parts available.
So if you want to use parts for a `kit car` go for the (probably cheaper and) more plentiful option, probably a mass produced vehicle as the parts supply and support network will be exellent, the more specialise the gearbox you go for the less likely you be able to get parts for it when it goes wrong.
