I think my engine just took a #$%!!

[Tool Pants]

Wendelin Wiedeking must be an amazing person.

In the mid-90s Porsche sold very few cars. In some of the books it is said the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, or being taken over. I would joke that Honda made more cars in 1 hour than Porsche sold for the entire year.

Porsche is still in small company, with lots of cash. It now owns 31% of VW.

The Boxster turned the company around. It was a big seller for such a little company. To keep up with demand production was out-sourced to Finland for model year 1998. Not that it matters, but that was the same year defective engine blocks were sleeved, to keep up with production of a fast selling product.

When I started Boxstering there was no truck. Now there is going to be a sedan. If you believe what you read, most of the profits these days come from the sale of the truck, the Cayenne.

Porsche is going to be the next BMW. Porsche does not care if you ever buy another car from them - there is someone standing in line behind you. In my mind this loyalty thing to the brand is a one way street.

[Brucelee]

It is a mistake to assume that the present extends in a straight line into the future.

Porsche is having a good run, hats off to them.

Never piss off the customer. It ALWAYS cost you something, even if you can't measure it.



IBM, GM, Motorola, Sears, should I go on? Arthur Anderson, Digital Computers etc etc.

[smiledrs]

Guess what I just read in my Nov 2007 issue of Road and Track. Starting on page 140 and a 5 page spread. They talk about the 1997-2004 Boxster engine failure.
Here is an excerpt:

"Then, beginning in late 1998, with model year 1999 cars, there was the dreaded cylinder liner failure. If a Boxster owner was lucky, the engine would merely blow a head gasket and dump it's coolant. For other owners, the engine would self-destruct in a catastrophic failure. It's rumored that as many as 50 percent of the 1999 Boxsters had liner failure."

"Boxster engine swaps became common enough that Porsche mechanics began referring to the CEL on the instrument panel not as the "Check Engine Light" but as the "Change Engine Light".

I'm taking this article straight to the service manager tomorrow and throwing this in his face about there is no proof of early engine failure on early gen Boxsters.

[pinball22]

I drive a 99 and never had the engine light on once. 80k plus miles.
solid car

[Tool Pants]

With a 1998 PCNA in Atlanta is not going to do anything for you, and your dealership's hands are tied.

Just think, 1997 and 1998 only had a 2 year warranty. At least now it is 4 years.

1998 did not have sleeved engines.

I bought Road & Track so see what they had to say. If I had known they were doing a Boxster article I would have sent them pictures of a sleeved engine that went boom.

Or, better yet, I would have told Porsche that if they did not pay me big bucks for the pictures I would give them to Road & Track.

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by Brucelee

It is a mistake to assume that the present extends in a straight line into the future.

Porsche is having a good run, hats off to them.

Never piss off the customer. It ALWAYS cost you something, even if you can't measure it.



IBM, GM, Motorola, Sears, should I go on? Arthur Anderson, Digital Computers etc etc.

This engine's been in production for over ten years now. These issues have been around since the beginning. If it was going to effect sales, it would have happened by now.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by blue2000s

This engine's been in production for over ten years now. These issues have been around since the beginning. If it was going to effect sales, it would have happened by now.

Why would you think it hasn't???

Boxster sales (excluding Cayman) are down sharply over previous years.

You can run, but you cannot hide.

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by Brucelee

Why would you think it hasn't???

Boxster sales (excluding Cayman) are down sharply over previous years.

You can run, but you cannot hide.

Because the Boxster, Cayman and Carrera all use the same engine and these are issues for the Carrera as well.

[prOk]

People honestly want porsche to warranty or throw a discount on a failure of a 10 year old engine? My god. The car itself is only worth 15k or so.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by prOk

People honestly want porsche to warranty or throw a discount on a failure of a 10 year old engine? My god. The car itself is only worth 15k or so.

The issue is much deeper than that. The IMS failure that recurs here on frequently is a design failure that Porsche fails to deal with, except to keep replacing the engine.

That is, if it is still under warranty. Ditto RMS issues.

[smiledrs]

Originally Posted by prOk

People honestly want porsche to warranty or throw a discount on a failure of a 10 year old engine? My god. The car itself is only worth 15k or so.

Time is not the issue here. It's that they were putting out defective engines out there and never issued a recall to save themselves money. They knew very well how many engines were experiencing early engine failures. People were getting them with just 4,000 miles and when I was at the dealer, another at 10,000 miles. These aren't even making it to the first scheduled oil change. That's why we expect them to take care of it. The engine's they were putting out there were destined to fail due to a serious defect, which they kept hush hush and now deny ever existed. It's not "if" it's going to fail, but "when". I know everything eventually fails, but come on, at least let mine make it to it's first scheduled maintenance of 30,000 miles.

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by prOk

People honestly want porsche to warranty or throw a discount on a failure of a 10 year old engine? My god. The car itself is only worth 15k or so.

When the 2nd hand market is afraid of buying your out of warranty Porsche, it affects/lowers the resale value. Lower residual values tend to scare off NEW buyers who don't feel like dealing with selling a car that everyone is scared of.
Not all new car buyers trade in their cars, some actually hate throwing away money.
A HIGHLY profitable company has it in their interest to throw out some good will. Promoting a new image of Porsche being a reliable 'exotic' car company that stands by their modern(liquid cooled) line of cars can only help the bottom line.
These stories of people buying their modern cars and getting the shaft does them no good. But when you consider the average income of a new Porsche buyer is well into the six figures, Porsche thinks it can put all their eggs in this high net worth basket and tell those in lower economies to have a nice day and don't let the service department door hit you in the ass on the way out. Porsche made that mistake back in the 90's when they sold less than 1,000 Carreras in North America in one production year.