Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local and we’re here with Bernie Pawlik of Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver. Vancouver’s highest rated, most loved and 17 time winners of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver as voted by their customers. How’re you doing Bernie?
2007 Porsche Cayman
Bernie: i’m doing pretty well, put a big smile on my face when you said that, yeah I’m doing really well this morning.
Mark: Good, good. so we’re talking about a 2007 Porsche Cayman, that’s getting a little longer in the tooth, that’s, what is that nine years old, you did some maintenance on this, what was that about?
Bernie: Oh the vehicle was due for a maintenance service, the customer actually brought it in, it was due for an oil change but he mentioned that his oil level had gone low too, so it had been burning a bit of oil which is not untypical of Porsches as time goes by. Yeah, so we did a level two maintenance service on this vehicle.
Mark: So what is a level two maintenance service?
Bernie: A level two maintenance service for us and I mean I know different dealerships have their A’s and B’s and C’s and different codes, some have 1’s and 2’s, but for us in our shop, we basically break it down into two things. A level one service is basically an oil change and a basic maintenance inspection, so adjusting tire pressures, looking at lights, fluid levels, that sort of thing. The level two service is more involved. It’s an oil change, it’s inspecting all the fluids and then it’s a full vehicle look over so brakes, wheels off, brake inspection, steering suspension, pressure testing the coolant system, testing the battery charging system, as I mentioned a visual inspection all through the vehicle. What else do we do on that? We move the door locks, hinges and latches, rotate the tires if necessary or if possible, a lot of cars you can’t rotate tires because they’re different size tires. But we will do them if necessary and possible. So that’s kind of an overall look. It’s good to do that service about every once a year, maybe once every two years depending on the mileage of the car and how often it’s driven, you know, the usage of the car, really depends. So once every year or two depending on the car.
Mark: So, just to digress for a second, how many items are there that you guys, because I know you guys follow a pretty rigorous checklist to go through. How many items are there on that list?
Bernie: Currently our inspection sheet that we use has 150 points on that inspection. The other thing that is actually on that sheet too, it’s not just all about the 150 points, there is also maintenance items. So we’ll actually look at the manufacturers maintenance schedule, we’ll see based on the mileage what is due based on that maintenance schedule as well. But there’s also other things, this could be a separate topic, but there are other items that we recommend that are not on a manufacturers maintenance schedule that if you want to keep your car running in top condition for a long time there are other things to do that the manufacturers don’t recommend. That people in the after market, experienced technicians, shops have found that it will help your car run better so recommend those things as well. But yeah, it’s 150 points, but we also as I mentioned, lubricating door locks, hinges and latches which is not an inspection item but it’s a maintenance item that we add in there, it tends to get forgotten if you don’t do it and your doors creak when they open so regularly little things like that don’t happen.
Mark: So how often do spark plugs and fuel injection cleaning have to happen?
Bernie: Well on these vehicles, around a hundred thousand kilometres is good, fuel injection cleanings are even beneficial at 50,000K’s. So just to digress a bit, that’s one thing we did find from doing a service, was the spark plugs were due for maintenance, replacement and also a fuel injection thing was recommended just based on mileage and usage of the car. So spark plugs around every 100,000, the fuel injection cleaning that I mentioned every 50 to 100,000 is good. Fuel injection cleaning you’ll not find in the manufacturers schedule, that’s something that a lot of aftermarket shops will do and I will say there are different kinds of fuel injection cleaning, we could discuss that another time, but the machine we use is really good and thorough and most of our customers notice pretty good results in doing it.
Mark: So did you have any pictures of this?
Bernie: I got one nice picture of the car, let’s have a look, yeah so do we have a nice looking, not sure if my screen sharing is working properly, yeah so there we go. So there’s a nice 2007 Porsche Cayman hardtop, nice little reliable car, sporty and fun to drive.
Mark: Well they’re reputed as being one of the best sports cars on the road, so…
Bernie: I really like this car, I find it fun to drive, you know when I usually start you know when the first Boxsters came into our shop quite a few years back and I drove them and I was kind of disappointed, I don’t know why, but I just found it hard to get in to, it just wasn’t that much fun to drive. But I’d have a Cayman which is a very similar car, its just a lot more fun. I like this car. It’s and this is just a base model, it’s not an S so you can get even more power if you like, but it goes well and it’s fun. It’s a really nice car.
Mark: Yeah, mid engine so it handles extremely well.
Bernie: It handles extremely well, it’s a real pleasure to drive.
Mark: So there you have it.Looking for service for your Porsche, you want to make sure that it’s maintained properly Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver are your guys. Call them to book 604-327-7112 or check out the website pawlikautomotive.com. Thanks Bernie
Bernie: Thanks Mark.
