Rough weekend...
 

Over the weekend I moved Nicole (02 Boxster S) outside of my garage to give her a good bath and interior detailing. As I walked back in the garage I noticed a dark area on my garage floor and low and behold it turned out to be oil. My heart sunk as I knew this couldn't be good. It was about a quarter sized puddle and the oil was extremely dark (car has 5k miles since last oil change). I continued to wash Nicole and pulled her back in the garage. Sure enough there was an oil spot where I had just finished washing her. I jacked her up and as I feared there was an oil mess right where the transaxle/transmission housing bolts to the engine. UGH!!! To top this off I had noticed a slight oil leak in June and the dealer couldn't find anything. Oh yeah, my warranty expired on August 31st (yes, last week)...

The good news is I called a dealer (had enough of the one who had done work on the car before) and am able to drop it off tonight and use a courtesy vehicle (odd for such short notice). Dependent on the repair I could potentially have it in time for the weekend! :)

Sammy, sorry to hear about your oil leak issue.

What dealers in the Chicago area do you think do good work? Which ones are you not impressed with? Thanks.

Sure beats the heck out of swimming with stingrays! Oouch!!

Thumbs down to Westmont... Thumbs up to Rizza... Possibility of thumbs up to Loeber (in my research seemed to be the best priced in the area for maintenance)

Huh??? Please elaborate as this could make my issue a little less painful.

This should be good... Last time I checked Chicago is near Lake Michigan and stingrays are few and far between... ;)

Steve Irwin, aka "The Crocodile Hunter", was killed over the weekend by a Stingray while filming.

bmussatti's comment was a reference to that, and was in extremely poor taste.

I'm sure bmussatti's comment was using his sense of humor and it apparently does not match your own. I can and will appreciate both sides on this one and hopefully we can let this topic go away. It was an unfortunate incident and I would never wish it upon my worst enemy.

Back to the topic... Anyone ever have a major repair immediately following the expiration of your warranty? Did Porsche step up? I'm keeping my fingers cross for some sort of help if it is a major repair but at the same time I am a firm believer that it is the risk of buying a used car. Any thoughts?

I have never been real keen on extended warranties, however my '03 S expires 9-10-06 and I decided to buy one from Warranty Direct yesterday. Too many things seem to happen to these little buggers after the initial warranty period. Maybe I am just paranoid.
If your oil leak turns out to be a RMS, I wouldn't worry too much about it until it starts leaking much worse. A quarter size leak is not a big deal.

My warranty ended last September and 2days later my car came on with a CEL light...Dealer took care of it as a courtesy.

When speaking with my service advisor at Beverly Hills Porsche, he told me if anything catastrophic happens to the car within 6months that it would be taken care of just as if the car was under warranty.

My experience with Porsche Warranty has been pretty much perfect.

Sammy, what has the dealer told you? What is your loaner car....a base Cayman?

It looks like I am victim of a RMS leak and the quoted repair bill is $1160. I've asked them to go back to Porsche and review my oil leak claim from June (during the warranty period) to see if they will cover the repair.

My courtesy vehicle is a Cayenne... I'm getting quite accustom to Cayennes seeing that this is my 4th one as a courtesy vehicle...

Any advice on what to say/do if Porsche comes back and denies the warranty claim? My warranty expired last Thursday and I guess I'm hoping that the least they would do is cover part of the repair? Any thoughts? Or should I just bite the bullet and fork over the dough freely?

Porsche should pay for it, the district manager just has to sign off on it. Stress to your service advisor that you HAD PREVIOUSLY made the claim that the car was leaking oil. Also bring in the work orders which state this as well to back it up. Sometimes they try and deny it and won’t look into their own records. If anything Porsche should cover AT LEAST 50% of the bill if not all of it.

They like to play hard ball sometimes, don't give into it.

Sammy, I bet Porsche will cover the repair bill. Is the dealer who has it now, the same dealer who did not repair it "properly" a few months back?

I hope you guys are right... This is a different dealer than who looked at the oil leak in June.

Hi,

Sorry to hear of your troubles. Be sure to vote in the RMS poll so we can have some accuracy.

Good advice from TG2K about the Warranty. Good Luck! But, also think about Clutch/Flywheel while you're in there. The Dealer should cut you some discount on this as the engine/tranny have to be pulled apart anyway and the flywheel removed, could ease the pain a little and end up saving you some $$$ down the road...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Thanks for the heads up on the clutch and flywheel! Any advice on replacement in terms of improvement over OEM? Or is OEM the way to go?

I think on this forum, many times the light weight flywheel has NOT been the recommendation. Just an FYI.

The voting in the RMS poll was closed so I wasn't able to add my vote to it...

I'm still waiting for Porsche to respond whether they will pick up the repair bill or not so my car continues to sit idly in the parking lot of the dealer... :( I really hope to hear from them this morning.

I'll have them look at the clutch and flywheel when they pull the powertrain apart. If they say the components look like new than I'll leave them alone but if there is the slightest bit of abuse or bad wear I will replace them.

Porsche still hasn't responded to the dealer about helping with the repair bill. The Porsche guy who makes the decision got back from vacation on Monday and evidently is too busy to address this issue. :(

I'm going to the dealer to pick up my car until Porsche can respond one way or another. They have been gracious enough to charge me $130 for the time it took them to determine that it was a RMS leak (they only charged me 1/2 of the 2 hours they said it took).

Still no word from Porsche... This seems a tad ridiculous that I have had to wait over three weeks and still Porsche has not responded to the dealer in regards to my RMS leak. Unfortunately I don't think there is much I can do except sit back and wait. :(

Or you can call once a day until they take your business seriuosly.

I finally heard back (well... I actually called the dealer and they told me what Porsche's response was) today and Porsche is declining any help with paying for the RMS repair. Personally I think it's BS that an unrepaired oil leak from June is not covered 1 day after the warranty expired, but I guess this is the risk I take with buying a used vehicle... :(

Oh yeah, the dealer told me that Porsche's response was that "good will" (this is what they called it because I'm not the original owner of the car) is a thing of the past.

I have contacted Porsche NA and am going to at least get a direct response from them. If nothing else I will gladly let them know what I think of the situation.

I guess I have to sit and wait "no more than 5 business days" to see what Porsche says...

Well, after almost 2 entire months of trying to get the RMS repaired covered I am finally taking it into the dealer to have it repaired. Porsche and the selling dealer have offered to pay for 2/3rds of the total cost.

This has been quite a saga:

1) complained of an oil leak in June - no repair made (note that this was during the warranty period)
2) 1 day after warranty expired noticed oil leak again
3) took car to dealer on September 5th and confirmed RMS leak - received loaner
4) no word from Porsche - take loaner back to dealer on September 15th (paid $130 for labor up to this point)
5) finally hear back from Porsche on October 9th denying payment for the repair
6) contact Porsche "Customer Commitment" on October 9th - informed that someone will contact me no later than 5 business days
7) no word from Porsche
8) contact Porsche "Customer Commitment" on October 17th - informed that someone will contact me no later than 5 business days
9) no word from Porsche
10) contact Porsche "Customer Commitment" on October 24th - informed that someone will contact me no later than 5 business days
11) Porsche finally contacts me on October 25th and says they will pay for 1/2 the bill - I disagree and ask for more
12) Porsche contacts me on October 27th and says they will pay for 2/3 of the bill
13) car is finally going in tonight (October 30th) :)

Might I add that no one would give me the phone number of the regional service manager from Porsche that denied/approved my warranty claim. Might I also add that the "Customer Commitment" consists of a few people shooting emails off to these regional service managers. They informed me that they have no phone numbers that they can call/give out.

This whole thing has been a crock of dog dooky!!! :mad:

I am happy that they have finally decided to help out with the bill, just very disappointed that I had to deal with this for 2 months!

BTW - I was going to have the oil changed by the dealer but they were going to charge me over $200!!! Not worth $200 to me so I'll be doing it myself.

Sammy, glad to hear that you are making progress. Sorry to hear about your problems and poor treatment from Porsche. It should not be this way

Good job negotiating a higher participation level from Porsche. Excellent persistence on your part. Unfortunately, that's how you get results. A "lesser" owner would have given up. And I would suspect that Porsche know this and uses it to their advantage.

FYI- Barrington Motor Werks charges $110 for an oil change and about $67 if you supply your own oil.

have you posted this on Rennlist yet?
I would post it in the 986/987 and 996 forums and say that you are only doing so because you want to hear from people who have had experience begging mercy from Porsche on the all too famous RMS saga.

If you say you are going to call me on Friday, call me on Friday.

Sammy, sorry you went through such a horrible experience and glad you finally managed to get a somewhat satisfactory resolution. You showed amazing patience and frankly I'm surprised it worked so well. I just wouldn't have been able to do it. Had it been me, I'd have probably started threatening with an all out media/internet campaign about my situation and escalated the issue at a much faster pace -- which would have probably ended with me leaving messages to the CEO in Stuttgard within a couple of weeks. :)

"Let me talk to your manager" is golden.

Hope the repair goes well.

Z.

The "let me talk to your manager" avenue was tried with Porsche but since all they can do at the "Customer Commitment" center is email people, it doesn't have the same effect. I eventually went for the "this is complete bulls%#t" avenue and it got me results a little faster. ;)

I'm very disappointed with the owning experience (customer service, warranty repairs, quality of repairs, cost difference of maintenance items between dealers, etc) in the 8 months I've owned my car... I wish they would've sold me the jar of Vaseline when I bought the car... Of course I would've needed to call the 6 other dealers in the area to find out who had the best price; otherwise, I probably would've paid $200 for a $5 jar...

On a more positive note, it sure is a lot of fun to drive when it isn't in the shop! :)

No, I haven't posted this on Rennlist. I typically spend my time at this forum and anyone who searches for an RMS problem or Porsche customer service will probably end up at this site anyway.

Now you're just talking crazy!!! What?!? You expect them to do what they say they're going to do??? :eek:

Sammy,

Glad to hear you finally got this issue resolved, but I don't understand why they will only pick up 2/3 of the bill ?

Rizza quoted my $951 for a RMS repair at the end of May of this year.

So, are they charging you $317 for your 1/3 ?

Nick

The reason they won't pick up the full bill is because I made my claim after the warranty expired. They believe that when the oil leak was looked at in June that their dealer confirmed that nothing was leaking. I didn't notice/see the oil leak for another couple months so I would imagine that they think it is a new/different leak which I reported after the warranty expired. It just stinks that I didn't notice it until immediately following the expiration of the warranty.

Of course not, the cost quoted to me is $1160... I'm responsible for 1/3 of $1160 which ends up being $387.

If you have a formal quote than I would love to get my hands on it!

Sammy,

PM me your fax # ( or I can scan and email if you would prefer ) and I'll send you what I got...

Good luck !

Nick

Scanned and sent...

Thought ya'll would find this interesting :

Looks like 8.4 hrs at $110 an hr + $27 in parts.

Nick

Thanks a lot NickCats! I forwarded the quote to the dealer to see what their response will be. I wonder if it has something to do with the age/engine difference in our vehicles? Not sure how or why, but it seems very weird that there would be a $200 price difference in less than 6 months from the same dealer?

I'll be sure to keep you updated as I know you and I aren't the only ones in the Chicago area trying to keep the dealers honest... :)