Any Porsche exec's listening?

[2001saxster]

I know you guys must be on these forums and Since PCNA won't return my calls I guess this is my best option for getting in touch with you. My story, in a nutshell, is this...2001 Boxster S purchased 5 months ago from an authorized Porsche dealer, had always been dealer maintained prior to me purchasing it, I got the 60,000 mile service done right on schedule at another authorized dealer, 1 month later the engine is blown (coolant mixing with oil). The authorized mechanic at the dealer even admitted that the problem was a result of a manufacturing flaw. The way I see it is this...I am 27 years old, I'll be pruchasing a lot more cars in my life. PCNA can go either of two directions. 1, give me a reasonable good will offering, or 2, outright deny any such an offering.

In scenerio 1 I walk away somewhat disappointed at my bad luck, but overall pleased that a repuatble company stood behind their product. I continue to get my car dealer serviced and strongly consider said company for my future car buying needs. I see this as a win win scenerio.

In scenerio 2 I get an outright denial. The way I see this is that Porsche finds it absolutely acceptable for their engines to fail at 60,000 miles (even when properly maintained to their own specifications). My reaction to this possibilty is "Why give Porsche any more of my money?". So what do I do? Have my car trucked from the dealer to an independant garage to be fitted with a used engine. I lose and Porsche loses any further revenue from me. Furthermore, I become a Porsche basher for life.

My question to any Porsche exec that may be listening is this...Is it really in your company's best interest to ignore my problem? If this sort of engine failure is as rare as you would have everyone believe then wouldn't it be best to stand behind your product? The way I see it, replacing my engine would be a relatively minor "cost of business" write off for Porsche which would result in my continued patronage. On the other hand, lack of any type of negotiation by Porsche would result in me becoming an anti-Porsche spokesperson for life. I will freely admit that math was never my best subject in school, but I am pretty sure that if you study the numbers you would find that if I am able to convince just one person not to buy a new Porsche that the amount of lost revenue for PCNA would be far greater than that of an engine replacement.

Well, if you guys are listening I'd love to hear your reactions either through this foroum or through private correspondance. Just let me know if you want my email address, or look up my car...It is at Concours motors in Milwaukee. Hopefully it is the only blown box there at the moment.

[renzop]

Its a shame that your engine blew. I feel for you and I know that in your shoes I would be upset and would feel that Porsche should step up.

I would wager that you went to the dealer service dept with a blown engine on a 7 year old car and they told you that its out of warranty and there is nothing they can do for you other than to have you pay for a new motor or rebuild.

That sounds reasonable to me. Then, I would wager that you asked them if Porsche would stand behind their product and they said its out of warranty, sorry. I recommend you start your discussions with PCNA customer service by calling them 1-800-PORSCHE. It will probably take a long time to get to a human and then a longer time to get someone who will say anything meaningful.

But that's what you will have to go though. Remember, they don't legally owe you anything. Should you have an expectation that a 7 year old used car should run more than 60K miles? I don't know. I think I would.

But I would also know that when I buy a used car I take some inherent risks. I have no idea how the car was treated, whether it has its original engine, whether it was in an accident, whether it sat underwater for 6 months. I just wouldn't know and Carfax and dealer service records can't tell all. Given all that, I would never expect Porsche to buck up.

Just my opinion,
Alan

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[TriGem2k]

Chevy Trannys have no problem going out at 60k miles. Chevy has known about this since 94-95 and still won't do anything about it.

[senna21]

I think Autofarm in the UK estimates that about 5-10% of the 996/Boxster engines wind up having a some form of major engine issue.

Good reading here.

http://www.autofarm.co.uk/pdf/Total911_July06.pdf
http://www.autofarm.co.uk/pdf/911PW_Apr06.pdf

I'd love to get a Boxster S and sell my MR2 Turbo but the engine failures just scare the h@ll out of me.

I'm sorry to hear about your poor misfortune 2001saxster but I doubt you'll get any kind of compensation.

Do you know if it was the oil to air separator that failed or was it the dreaded cylinder wall failure. I also know of a gentleman on Rennlist that bought a second hand Boxster at a dealer for his wife and the engine ate itself within two weeks. He bit the bullet and just bought a crate motor from Porsche. I think it was $10K out the door and had everything ready to go in. The only items I don't think it had was the flywheel and A/C compressor. His failure was caused by the oil pump gear digging into the housing and eventually a large chunk of metal caused it to size up.

Good luck.

[blinkwatt]

Porsche doesn't care about customers if the car is out of warranty period. Check Rennlist,MANY people have had their 996 3.4L engine go out.....Porsche has done nothing.

[renzop]

Chrysler mini-vans have notoriously faulty transmissions. They fail often and at low mileage. The problem existed for at least 10 model years. I have had 2 friends who between them have owned 4. All 4 had transmission problems after warranty was out but before 75K miles. Chrysler never lifted a finger.

[Lil bastard]

It's all well and good to point to failures in Chryslers, Chevys and Toyotas, but they're not Porsches, nor do they command Porsche Prices, nor are they as expensive to repair as Porsches.

Not just that, but how does a failure of another manufacturer forgive Porsche of theirs...???