Picked up a new (2017)Mac S last week. On the way home and currently it abruptly pulls right or left while driving at speed. Does that suddenly. It's like a mini swerve. It is not a suspension issue. Feels like something in the drivetrain. TIA for any help. Frank

 

A new vehicle? Take it back to where you bought it, or a handy dealer, and have this looked into. That's what the new car warranty is for.

 

I did. You know the deal. Can't reproduce the problem. That's ok at least we have file/history started. They are trying to accommodate but can't fix what they can't find.

 

A very important responsibility is that you as the owner/driver are able to clearly state under what conditions the event or anomalous behavior occurred.

This is in order to help the tech reproduce the anomalous behavior as quickly as possible. Techs are often anxious when they feel -- rightly or wrongly -- they are on a wild goose chase. Things are piling up back at the service bay and the tech wants to get back to that ASAP.

It is always best to start out this way, but it is not too late: My best advice is when you take the car back in stress the behavior has you concerned about the road worthiness of the vehicle, its proper operation and safety, and because of this you are therefore concerned about your safety and that of any passengers, and as a result you have lost all enjoyment from the vehicle.

Stress one reason why you bought the car was the fact the dealer's excellent service department, factory trained personal, and close communication with the factory were stressed to you and thus were you were led to believe that no real problem -- and this is a real problem regardless if the tech can reproduce the behavior at this time -- would ever leave the dealer stumped.

The dealer, the Porsche dealer, owes you a reasonable level of skill, experience, and care in servicing your vehicle. You have so far received just 1 out of 3 of these.

You have to be prepared to leave the vehicle until the behavior has been reproduced and addressed and the service manager (or a tech) can explain to you in layman's terms what was wrong and what was done to address this behavior.

If the dealer can't/won't do this then you have to ask how you can get your money back so you can then go buy a vehicle from a dealer that can properly service the product it is supposed to be able to service.

Don't bother talking with your salesman. You need to speak directly to the service manager and it is best if you and the service manager are in the GM's office with the GM present.

As to what is possibly going on it can be a number of things. A new car can have well, any number of things wrong: a missing part, damage during transport, a wrong part installed, installed wrong, bad adjustment, or one of the nanny gadgets is acting up.

A tire could be bad, installed wrong way around, under (or over) inflated.

There are other possible causes but only improperly inflated tires can you do anything about on your driveway.

There is another possible explanation: I do not know your background, but some first time owners are caught a bit off guard by a new vehicle and especially ones that come with wide/high performance tires.

Road surface features less sensitive vehicles with narrower tires passed over many times before with no signs of any problems the Porsche can react and it can be a bit upsetting to the owner.

And even experienced owners can be caught off guard. For example even with over 300K miles on my Boxster occasionally I'll encounter a bit of pavement that has the car acting like a tire is low. Of course, I remind myself that is probably not the case and drive on and in no time behavior goes away and I forget about it. Until next time.

But once in a while, not often but it does happen, the behavior is so unsettling I pull off the road and check tire pressures. I feel like a bit of a fool when I find them ok but remind myself better safe than sorry.

(And once, in the Turbo, when I did a hard brake at speed and the car got all squirrelly and I pulled off at the next exit to check tire pressures I found the right rear tire 6psi low and after filling it up and getting to a dealer to have tires check the tech found the tire had several pieces of metal in it.)

 

In for service. It went the way I expected. I explained the best I can in simply terms.....tell the service advisor the pulling is when the LKA is off and driving at speed. It's intermittent but realistic. A problem does exist. The call I get later in the day. We can't find a problem. LKA is suppose to re-steer and correct the lane drift. When he finished his bit I (repeat) tell him that the LKA was not active and had nothing to do with the problem. I can see the circle coming so I say document my complaint and we'll go from there. Obviously they can't fix what they don't experience. I have a file/history and we'll go from there. They are trying. There is nothing worse than an intermittent problem.
I did get the Mac back washed about 95% and only one grease foot print on the door. How come I was not surprised. It wiped off however...... To Be Continued