Any Porsche exec's listening?

2001saxster, have you tried contacting any of these people?



Heather Foye- Customer Commitment Specialist
C. James- Regional After Sales Manager- PCNA
J. Blunk- Regional Manager- PCNA
L. McGraw- Porsche Senior Customer Commitment Specialist
980 Hammond Drive
Suite 1000
Atlanta, GA 30328
770-290-3500
Fax- 770-290-3700

[Brucelee]

To my knowledge, we have never had a Porsche executive visit our forum. In many ways, that tells you loads about the company and how it feels about you.

If you car was out of warranty and the engine went at say 15K miles, the response would be the same.

Lets face it, this engine has issues and the company clearly does not care to fix or deal with them.

IMO.

[SoCalKen]

it's been a number of years so I can't remember who I dealt with or who I called but I had an out of waranty issue (cracked exhaust manifold), Porsche paid half. I will spread the good word on their behalf.
Ken

Originally Posted by Brucelee

To my knowledge, we have never had a Porsche executive visit our forum. In many ways, that tells you loads about the company and how it feels about you.

If you car was out of warranty and the engine went at say 15K miles, the response would be the same.

Lets face it, this engine has issues and the company clearly does not care to fix or deal with them.

IMO.

Originally Posted by Brucelee

To my knowledge, we have never had a Porsche executive visit our forum. In many ways, that tells you loads about the company and how it feels about you.

If you car was out of warranty and the engine went at say 15K miles, the response would be the same.

Lets face it, this engine has issues and the company clearly does not care to fix or deal with them.

IMO.

Rich, I would remind you that good-will negotiations between Porsche and the car's owner are confidential, documents are signed to such. So, you may, or may not be privy to all of the information and mutually successful settlements and customers.

[Lil bastard]

I dunno, personally, I don't think trying to let Porsche off the hook for poor engine design by intimating that they may be coming to the owners rescue in a confidential manner holds much water - arguement-wise.

It's probably more fair to say that they simply turn a deaf ear, especially to 2nd and 3rd owners when they are fully aware of the shortcomings of this engine series. And, I'd speculate that their 'support' is much more readily available to 911 owners than the economy model Boxster owners.

If any other car manufacturer tried to continue selling a poor design, they wouldn't last 3 years, let alone 12. But Porsche seems to be able to borrow on their past reputation to keep finding new suckers out there. I think that says more about us than them.

It'll be interesting to see how they change in what I expect to be a crash in Cayenne sales (the only product sales which have been continually growing) in light of the current (and not soon to end) crisis in fuel costs. Maybe they'll actually have to address the needed changes in engine design if they want to produce anything more than volkswagens in the future.

[Topless]

Sad but true... Second owner, beyond the warranty period you are 99.99% S.O.L. The same is true of Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Nissan, etc. etc.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by Topless

Sad but true... Second owner, beyond the warranty period you are 99.99% S.O.L. The same is true of Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Nissan, etc. etc.

Well, yes and no.

For example, Toyota did an extended warranty deal on its engines.

Acura and Honda ditto on its transmissions.

These companies had design flaws and took the right step.

I don't see Porsche ever doing that.

[Topless]

Originally Posted by Brucelee

Well, yes and no.

For example, Toyota did an extended warranty deal on its engines.

Acura and Honda ditto on its transmissions.

These companies had design flaws and took the right step.

I don't see Porsche ever doing that.

Some are better than others. Chevy laughed when two of my 305 V8 fleet pickups developed flat cams at 32000mi and 35000mi. Original owner, 30k warranty period, flawless service records. Ford said "Go Fish" when a V6 would not pass a compression test at 56k... original owner, 48k warranty period. I have been buying Toyota's ever since.

Extended warranties are great when MFG flaws are discovered but rarely go beyond the original owner. Maybe someday Porsche will see value in this.

[kabel]

Sorry to hear about your situation, this may be a good place to vent but i doubt any PCNA executive has spent quality, if any time on this forum. What you may be able to find here is moral support and a knowledge base for others in your position. There are a few discussions in this forum that might interest you, here are two:

Poll: RMS and Engine problem questionnaire

Shortlived Boxster engines survey

And if you have not done so already, head over to Rennlist.com & Renntech.org. There you will find even more information and other experiences and recommendations on this subject.

Best of luck to you.

[Kirk]

Would Chevy replace a blown engine on a 7 year old used car? Unlikely. How about Ford? I think it's pretty doubtful that Porsche will step up to the plate, but darn right it's worth a shot and I would try my best to professionally present my case to them.

With cars like this though I would definitely try to keep a little slush fund set aside in case major repairs are needed. These cars are expensive to fix and sooner or later they will need to be repaired in one way or another. I think that's just a given with a highly tuned performance car like what Porsche makes.

One of my co-workers likes to live large. He's thus always tried to own a 911 - even if it was a used one that he could barely afford. Good for him - living the dream. But when pushing your budget like that it's hard to always keep living that dream. He was winding the car out and dropped a valve - CRUNCH! He took the car to an independent shop where he waited three months for the engine to get rebuilt. Then the car sat there for another year because he couldn't pay the bill. Eventually he had to sell the car off at a great loss to a friend who could pay the bill. A couple years later I saw him again with another 911. Hopefully he learned this time and had a little slush fund set aside just for the car so that he could hold on to this one.

[pbanders]

Originally Posted by Kirk

One of my co-workers likes to live large. He's thus always tried to own a 911 - even if it was a used one that he could barely afford. Good for him - living the dream. But when pushing your budget like that it's hard to always keep living that dream.

One of my personal "life lessons" is to never own anything that I can't afford to keep up or replace. You see people all the time who buy Porsches and then flip out when they find out what it takes to keep them going.

Same thing's true of home ownership, but at about a 10X expense level

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by bmussatti

Rich, I would remind you that good-will negotiations between Porsche and the car's owner are confidential, documents are signed to such. So, you may, or may not be privy to all of the information and mutually successful settlements and customers.

You may be right. On the other hand, it seems to me that if the company has as many issues as it seems to with the engines imploding, some more radical solution may be appropriate, say along the lines of extending the warranty period such as Lexus did when it had a sludging issue on its six cylinder engines.

Just a thought. You know, I hold the car makers to a pretty high standard, esp on $60K dollar cars.

[pbanders]

FWIW, I'm the second owner of my Boxster, purchased from i******************************** here in Phoenix. No idea of who the first owner was or how they treated the vechicle. When my RMS went a week after the factory warranty ended, my service rep at Scottsdale Porsche went to bat with the PCNA and got them to agree to pay for the repair. So, at least in my case, even as a second owner Porsche stepped up to cover an fairly expensive repair.

Given the information I learned in this forum about design issues with the Boxster motor, my next step was to purchase an aftermarket warranty from Warranty Direct. I've already made one claim (window regulator and leaky cam cover) that they covered with no questions asked.

When my warranty is about to run out on this car in a few years, I'll sell it and get a newer Boxster with either a factory or aftermarket warranty. I wouldn't single Porsche out - I'd do the same if it were a BMW or even a Japanese luxo-sport car. The cost of major repairs on these cars is high enough to justify the need for warranty coverage, either factory or aftermarket.