Any Porsche exec's listening?
 

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.

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

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.

:mad:

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

:)

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.

:)

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...???

:eek: As much as I've loved my Porsches (earlier ones) this whole engine thing has me second guessing a Boxster of any sort. New is way too much for me and used comes with no safety net, except for my wallet :( .
I've been loyal to the brand for a while, but now I think I might jump ship on my next sports car (keeping my 86, 944).

Oh the horror stories...
 

Please don't let this example deter you... You'll miss out on a great car. When everything goes fine with the ownership of a Boxster, one doesn't post that "everything is going swell." These engine tragedy cries are often the loudest. I'm not debating the whole "Should Porsche do something" riff. I'm just mentioning to read a few posts of engine failures and decide the car is no good is premature. But it's your call of course.

Another thing; those that have these problems usually aren't on the message board for long... not because they have no use for it due to engine explosion, but because it's first (and last) thing they post about. These posts are like grenades.

I've seen some with over 100,000 miles on them and this is a good thing. I havent writen a Boxster off yet. I drove a 2001 last Sunday and WOW :eek: the owner let me open it up once and that was enough for me (I tried to hide my grin).
I just wish there was a way to catch the problem before things go bad.

I agree with Jeph. I was on another thread talking about over-revving these motors and how that's not a good idea. A couple of people wrote back saying if these cars couldn't take banging off the rev limiter or shifting at redline repeatedly they aren't worth the cost of owning one. They, of course, don't care about their cars in my opinion. Abuse is abuse and you will pay the price for it. With that said, buying any used car without checking it out first "thoroughly" is like picking up a girl at the neighborhood dive and having her tell you she doesn't have any STD's. :barf:

Good thing about Porsche though, you can look into the diagnostics and see the abuse. Those are the cars you stay away from.

I don't think we are overeacting on the engines. Having said that, it is a great car. Just not out of warranty.

:)

I don't think anyone is overreacting. I'd post my complaints about my engine failing.

I will disagree with your statement that these are only great cars during the warranty period (and a majority of forum members would side with me). Mostly because that's a pretty vague statement. Every car is great under warranty!

Am I wrong to say the main difference between a car under warranty and car out of warranty is who pays for repairs? If one can't afford the maintenance on the car, they can't afford the car. If one can't afford the car, then your statement would be accurate. Otherwise, what makes it not so great? The chance that the engine might fail?

@Jaxonalden
I think even a car with a clear/desirable history can still crap out, as in the case of 2001saxster.

The issue isn't the cost of repairs. The issue is the cost of a $10K engine failure on a car that's currently depreciating like a rock. Maybe you think a total engine replacement is a "normal" repair I certainly don't. Window regulators, torn rear windows, ignition components, rear wheel bearings and even having to replace 4 catalytic converters before 100k miles I would consider general maintenance but certainly not complete engine failure.

As far as the abuse question goes I'd say if Porsche isn't engineering its cars to test out the rev limiter at least once a day then they certainly don't deserve the price tag they've got. My little Toyota's got a redline of 7k. It's widely known within the MR2 community the actual redline is closer to 8.5k. It came with 200hp but the stock internals have been proven to hold up to 500hp. The turbo is set to run at 10psi while it could be run to 17 safely. My point? Toyota over engineered the car and then detuned it to be reliable. I'm sure Porsche does the same. If you read the article about the engine failures I'd posted one point they make is none of the track cars they have have ever had an engine failure. Porsche designs cars that will have to be driven on the Autobahn on a regular basis, do you really think they would factor that in to the engineering?

But, as we all know they made a mistake. Either in the design or the manufacture of the engine. I've only driven a few but I can tell you that I do believe they're wonderful little cars. I know an owner with over 150k on his odometer and has never had any problems. And he has no hesitation to hit the rev limiter every now and again. I also have a coworker who's got over 60k on theirs and I doubt it's ever been brought above 5k. Their only issue was with the top not working at one time.

Like I said I'd love to have one. But, I'm not happy about having to roll the dice on whether or not I might have to replace the engine before 200k miles. If there were a rebuild option like Autofarm's here in the US I wouldn't have a problem at all. But when the option is $10k to Porsche or $3,500 for a used motor that might also take a dump on a car that's depreciating quickly that's not a good financial option. Whether you've got the money for the repair or not.

Well, this is all subjective. I don't think having a car with an engine that is overaly at risk for grenading is a great car. We of course are not talking about the cost of maintenance, we are talking about the cost of a new engine.

Large difference there, at least to me.

Can I afford to replace an engine? Certainly I can. Do I want to? Ah, no!

Would I own a used boxster without a warranty? No, I would not. Anyone is free to take that risk, just not for me, thanks.

Now, to make sure that no one thinks that I am totally risk adverse, I have a Lexus with 128K miles on it. Love the car, and it has no warranty. I am worried.

Not really. Could the engine go tomorrow. Yes.

Will it cost 12K for another? No.

Its all pereptual, nothing here is really factual as only Porsche has the data and they ain't talking.

Touching redline when shifting under WOT isn't abuse. If it were, every PCA and BMWCCA DE event would be littered with broken engines. It doesn't happen. Abuse is exceeding redline. Abuse is going to high revs with cold oil. Abuse is repeated drop-clutch full throttle starts. There is a difference. BTW, touching redline or briefly engaging the rev limiter is not the same as exceeding the maximum specified engine speed.

I drive my car is it was designed and intended to do, as do I suspect most owners here. As for "paying the price" for doing this, I have owned Porsches since 1982 and have never had any problem with engine failures, including signficant track time. I encourage other Porsche owners to fully utilize their car's potential, and do so without feeling the need to "baby" it.

I agree completely. Data shows that the Boxster engine has significant design flaws that result in an unusually large number of engines failing (e.g. cylinder liner, IMS). These failures are due to design problems, and are not due to driving our cars hard, but within specified limits of operation. This has been clearly evidenced by the number of owners who have rarely (if ever) driven their cars hard, who have clean OBDII records, who have still had engine failures.

Porsche's reluctance to extend support outside of warranty for those failures has been lamentable. It is for this reason that I've done the same as you, and purchased an aftermarket warranty. IMO, it's cheap insurance.

I don't get the sense that the older air cooled engines imploded at anywhere nearly the rate as these newer designs.

Any thoughts on that? :)

There were problems with the cam chain tensioners that plagued engines for years (finally fixed), issues with the 2.7 L case, I"m sure there are gobs more issues. That said, the bottom end of the air-cooled sixes were capable of going as much as 300K before rebuilding.

However, I don't think that any of the air-cooled six variants had the failure rate of the early 996 motors, but Porsche isn't talking so facts and figures are hard to come by.

Other significant Porsche engine problems: early 944 cam belts (snap!), 928 Nikasil blocks, etc.

I used to have a 944, I loved it, very easy to drive hard. The Turbo's are still really incredible track cars, especially for the money.

I don't think a Boxster motor is that much worse than a 944 motor in terms of issues. 944 repairs are what used to keep my buddy Rich Bontempi in business! Water pumps, oil leaks, cam belts, etc.

Boxster's are a really good deal, you can pick up a fairly new car for a good price, and then spend $2K of the money you saved (or less) on an aftermarket warranty to cover any engine problems.

I think all of us should print this thread, and mail it to Atlanta. That might get some attention when hundreds and maybe thousands start showing up in their mailroom.

Let me be the first one here to say that, "It's in the mail!"

:)

Did you seriously mail it?
If so, post the address and I will too! :cheers:

That is all true, but I can do all the maint. on the 944, from front to rear. My current one is at 217,000miles. I can afford my warranty on this car (944), ME. I have a lift and the whole 9 yards (I am a mechanic). But when a Boxster engine go's (IMS etc) with no warning it becomes scrap from the looks of it. :confused: .

If there was a "fix" for this I would have no problem with that. If I can't prevent or fix it, it scares me.

I don't think engine replacement is "normal." Nor do I think the occurrence of this problem is "normal."

Many of you make it seem like it's 50/50 -the car may or may not explode. That's annoying. Debbie Downers...

http://www.fluxw.com/debbie.gif

Mail to:

Porsche Cars North America
Attention: Customer Commitment
980 Hammond Drive, Suite 1000
Atlanta, GA 30328

Air cooled 911s require a lot more regular maintenance than the motors Porsche sells today. Some air cooled 911 owners pull their motors every 15,000 miles to adjust the valves.

Today's motors make more horsepower per cubic inch, get better mileage and in LA actually clean the air.

IIRC, Porsches used to have a 1 year 12,000 mile warranty.

Yesterday's Porsche 911 motors leak oil. Today's owners go ballistic when a rubber seal on the back of the crankshaft allows oil to drip on their garage floor.

I encourage every Porsche owner to do their own maintenance, most of it is very simple. Even the 60,000 986 service is easily doable by anyone handy with basic tools.

Bottom line, we've bought a toy, enjoy it anyway you like, replace it if you break it. If you can find more fun, for less cost or financial risk, buy another toy.

I haven't shifted mine above 7000 yet today, but the wife just asked if we are going to later this evening.....

I do my own maintenance. 60,0000 miles would be great if the engine makes it that far.
A toy? I'm glad you think of it that way. I know it's not an investment but, when you finance or lease $30-$50,000 and for a new one more to me it is no longer a toy.
At the cost of parts (new or rebuilt engine) they should "almost" be bullet proof.