MJones

Due to heavy demand, Porsche has advised that option 450 (Ceramic Composite Brakes-PCCB) will no longer be available on new orders for the remainder of model year 2007.

Existing orders with option 450 will not be affected but may be delayed in production due to supply issues of this option.

Guess demand has exceeded supply...

Nordschleife

aka........damage limitation..........protecting the bottom line.........

R+C

whakiewes

I don't think so. The number of PCCB orders/sales far exceeds the problems. Furthered by the fact that GEN2 PCCB has had nearly no problems out of the norm, and the new setup on the GT3 and RS are said to be problemless. Porsche identified the problems with Gen1 and created Gen2. The current PCCB's are even further evolved over Gen2.

Porsche is back ordered on a ton of parts right now. New 997 GT3RSR sequentials are backorder to August/September with a price of $27k I think. PCCB's are sold out. RSR engines are nearly NLA. Porsche is tongue tied in its motorsports divisions that now the public division is taking a toll.

If you were refering to bottom line cutting to the fact that don't want to have orders for parts they can't fulfill then I understand. I am nearly sure that they aren't removing the option for liability issues with a 'said' faulty product. Ferrari, Mercedes, Konigsegg, others are having no issues with evolved ceramic rotors, as I don't think Porsche is either.

Are 997GT3RSR's running PCCB setups? Cups are on steel brakes, but if RSR's are on ceramics, it might explain the backlog of parts.

Wes

mrpc12

I guess I just made it. My car completed production last week - with PCCB's.

BobbyC

This should add at least another $10k to the market value of current cars with PCCBs

Nordschleife

now I have a lovely piece of paper, in fact a whole damn book that talks about lasting for 100,000 km, whatever the treatment.

Just talk to the Supercup teams about how much it costs to run these rotors. Why are they in the Supercup - to make ordinary customers happy to trouser up large amounts of wodge for the things.

I still say to anybody buying them, get a separate written warranty signed by two authorised Porsche signatories and counter signed by two signatories at the dealership. If they won't give you that - what does it tell you?

My brakeman will not issue an invoice for fitting ceramics, he will do it cash only. He knows his customers will destroy them.

I am currently in two minds about having them fitted to a car that is having a lot of weight saving work done on it - wouldn't even consider them otherwise, its a weightsaving issue.

R+C

These brakes are still too expensive to be widely adopted in motorsport, and the last time I looked there had not been any pressure on series organisers to allow them into the GT2 class.

PogueMoHone

But you are considering them....WOW! That's quite an "endorsement" from you (even though you may be half hearted about it).

Once you get over the hump, in no time at all, you'll be a true convert.

Nobody warrants wear items!

whakiewes

So I am assuming by reading your post that they run PCCB's, or a variant of, in the 997RSR's? This would confirm my theory that the motorsports division is so overwhelmed right now that the public clientelle is taking a hit. I would also assume that Porsche doesn't make that terribly much money on the PCCB's, thus why they are still priced so high, so to them its not worth the hassle to try to force producers to work harder.

In the end, I don't think PCCB is a deciding factor for someone looking at GT3's and RS's. The braking performance is marginal, and for the cost someone could easily run a Brembo Motorsport setup and have way more brakes than PCCB offers. I will be curious how it pans of for MY08.

Wes

Nordschleife

Well I do have a 'cast iron' signed guarantee, which removes the financial pressure....... My reguaar pattern with (the best) iron rotors is to junk them every 8,000 kilometres, having them remachined every 4,000 - the rotors are so hard at this stage that the machine shop hates me for destroying their tools.

But the attractions of having the most powerful and lightest Cayman on the street are huge......

We are in the market right now for a well priced C-GT...... should you know of one, but seriously, no silly money.

R+C

Robert Linton

In fact, the Type 997 GT3 RSR does not have PCCB. Further, ACO Rules for Class GT2 (the class for which the GT3 RSR qualifies) state as to brake discs:

12.3.2 - Material : ferrous exclusively

Nordschleife

Nope, they are banned from ACO and FIA GT racing.

The only reason I am even considering PCCBs is that I have a fixed cost for two years, whatever I do, and I am trying to build a really light car, the cast iron custom rotor/6 piston monobloc system from my brakeman outperforms, but it isn't as lightweight as the PCCB system, and Ti doesn't work as rotor material on road cars.

R+C

Likemystoppie?

Where the hell is this coming from? We've been issued no such memo stating that PCCB's are not available for the remainder of the MY07.

Who told you?!

frayed

Robin, you always bring up some great points, even when they are wrong.

In this case, I have a tough time believing the reason they are NLA to cap potential warranty coverage. This would make sense only if PAG is seeing or is concerned with a high failure rate. Reports of the GenII don't support that.

The explanation more feasible is parts supply issues.

My background is in advanced ceramic materials, and I know from experience and now from my clients that throughput on products such as these rotors (similar in some respects to Si/SiC semicontor processing components) is limited, and very hard to scale quickly. Demand cannot simply be met by cranking up the assembly line.

As to the merits of PCCBs, that horse has been quite well picked over.

MJones

See: Vehicle Distribution Bulletin 24/2007 Date: April 11, 2007

Likemystoppie?

Okay, well now. I stand corrected! That's what I get for not opening up my pcnasource and looking at my daily memo's!


Gotta eat crow on that one!