Fanatec, I apologize for the sarcasm, but I couldn't help myself. I need a little cheering up because I'm getting frustrated with the quality of this wheel.
If you want me to give you detailed feedback about these issues, you know where to reach me, I already reached out to you guys on your support page.
Wow. I like the G25 even more now. Anyway, with regards to the high-pitched squealing, are you sure that's not just the motors making the sound? If so, that's normal. All motors do that (G25 included... ...I KNOW!) when they are held still at certain power levels.
I Had a G25 that did that, the sparking, it lasted me about... 6 months before it died a week before the last 24 hour race. Atleast I know that Logitech Customer Service is good, and I had a new one in my hands in 2 weeks.
I got extra careful with my new one. I have it plugged into the wheel before I plug the power into the wall, although it doesn't exhibit the sparking, better to be safe than sorry.
I will test G25 specifically for this, but I can swear I have never heard that sound out of it for the 2 years ive owned it (and abused it).
Ive only had the 911 wheel for 3 full days, and it started making that sound only yesterday. The 4 screws fell out yesterday as well, and today its making the rattling sound. Maybe the 4 screws were supposed to hold something in place, and now its rattling?
I dunno.
I want to vent some more, so here we go:
On top of these issues, im a bit disappointed with the ergonomics of this wheel. I cannot find a comfortable position where I can sit, see my computer screen, and be able to press the pedals without them lifting off the ground.
The wheel doesn't fit well into my home made cockpit, because its angled much more than usual, and the when I shift gears, the added torque from the side feels like it will destroy my cockpit, and causes the wheel to come loose.
The best fitting position ive found is clamping it to my desk, but the driving position is anything but natural and after a while I got tired from sitting upright.
On the flipside, once I clamped it to my desk, I discovered how easy it is to attach and detach from the desk, making it very convenient to stow away and set it up again. But again, whats the focus of this wheel, to provide a realistic driving experience, or to let the user put it away faster??
I also can't stand the flex in the shifter. It actually causes me to misshift. The sequential shifter seems to solve that problem, but then what's the point of the H-box??
The wheel does have some very neat features, like the LED, the PC/PS3 buttons, nice round grip, a Porsche logo, but honestly, none of these features contribute to driving faster laps. Remember, you're targeting simracers, not a bunch of mooks who want to show their friends how they can't afford a porsche at the moment, so they got the next best thing.
The buttons are also placed a bit odd. When I hold the wheel in the 3 and 9 o'clock positions, the edge of my palms hit the 1 and 7 buttons. Also the paddle shifters align with neither my index or middle fingers, only my 3rd and pinky (the most useless fingers we have), so it makes it inconvenient even to use the paddles.
I can't get the pedals to stay in place!! I tried it on the carpet, yes it grips great, but when i heel toe, the whole pedal set tips forward!
How can I be on the clutch, the brake, and the gas at the same time and not have this super light weight pedal set not give in to the forces of my feet??
The clutch pedal is very nice. The only mass production wheel that actually attempts to simulate the feel of a real clutch. But getting 1/3 pedals right isn't good enough. The brake shouldn't stop functioning, where the real life brake begins to function! And whats up with this super flimsy gas pedal? It's like I'm stepping on air!
I'm only this frustrated because I'm trying real hard to like this wheel, but with every attempt to like it, I find more and more faults with it.
I've decided that if the G25 carries the same quality as Gran Turismo does for the playstation, where its not perfect, but its pretty damn solid, this 911 wheel is like Need For Speed, plenty of special effects, but the true real feel is left out.
Fanatec,
This wheel needs a soul, and you need to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to put one in.
There are some very simple and practical things missing from this wheel that prevent it from being what its supposed to be.
We can tell you what those things are, and its not hard to figure out what they are. If you guys want to compete with the G25 look at all the things its doing right, and improve only on the things that its doing wrong. Look at other wheels as well, but the G25 is pretty much the market leader where your product fits in.
Only then you will be able to win the market over and expect people to pay you a premium over your competitors.
Personally, I think this wheel needs a lot of work, and I will be sending it back to you. Again, I will be happy to sit down with someone from your team and give better and constructive feedback for the issues I've experienced (because obviously this is just a rant), and we all want a better wheel, so if this is something that will help in your process of delivering such a product, then its worth it.
If you don't feel like the issues here are legitimate enough and you just want to sell some units, then so be it.
At this moment, my G25 is far superior in quality to the 911 unit I have and I do not wish to pay anything to keep this wheel. Sorry
I really like this shrug icon. I feel like its been very appropriate for all my posts ...
All power plugs on the wheels spark. Mine aswell. Looks like your is failing apart. Didnt you loose 3 screws ???. I think by the sound it makes it lookes something is oose. Did you open the wheel yet ?. I think 1 of the fans is loose.
I haven't tried, but even so that wouldn't fix the rest of my issues with it. I've acknoledged that all technically related issues, such as falling apart components, impossible to install drivers, etc... will be fixed.
My major qualms are with the design decisions made for this wheel, and these hardware issues which clearly live up to their "Made In China" logo are just to boot.
heh
So I guess I've sort of lost interest in trying to fix these, other than rant about how much this wheel sucks. Which probably makes the worst person to give any sort of objective comment on how this product fairs.
I'm ready to give a long list of improvements on how this wheel can be made the best wheel ever, but so far no response from Fanatec, and therefore no real incentive to do so.
I'll stick around just in case im convinced otherwise. I'm not a G25 fan boy, even though I love it now more than ever, I just think that for the promises Fanatec made and the price tag they slapped on, this wheel is crap. If on the other hand this wheel cost $100, I'd be saying "This wheel is the best shit ever!"
nice to hear that and i know that is one of many reason, it was just my thought.
i didn't speak about that with the Logitech italian administrator.
I agree with Skills, if Fanatec can low the price this will be a good wheel to buy....300€ is too much imho, the G25 can be bought around 200€ in Italy at the moment.
The screws are supposed to be fixed with Loctite according to the correct production procedure. I know the type of screw but if they are really missing you would have noted it. I guess they put in some extra screws at the production line and it guess I will have to discuss that with Mr. line leader...
We are not 100% sure about the root cause of the moving centre psoition but we can reporduce it. It does not appear on all wheels so it is likely to be an assembly problem of the wheel sensor.
Tomorrow I will post an FAQ will all known issues to the 911wheel.com and I will also post some pics how to solve those issues if possible.
We are not quite sure if we really have an "inertia" problem. I agree that there is some resistance in the wheel if you are not in the game and you turn the wheel. This is because the enginge acts as a generator and slows you down. In the game, the motor gets power and this effect is gone.
Does anybody else thinks that the wheel moves too slowly inside the game in comparison to other wheels?
The reason why we do this test is to get exact feedback on what we need to imporve. The reason why i cannot reply on a daily basis is the you guys gave us tons of work to do and that is great.
You know I can even understand if you call the test units crap. And in fact they should have been in a much better condition. Many problems appear only on a few wheels but that does not make it better. We will find the root cause for each problem and fix it one by one.
Of course if there are so many major flaws, the tester get the tendency to everreact on smaller issues but why not?
We will show you that we work hard on making things better and my goal is to convince every single one of you. Just give us a chance please and continue to work with me on solving the problems.