Is it worth it to prepay for Porsche scheduled maintenance? They offer 3,4 and 5 years plans.

 

Not really. Most things tend to go after that time frame, and routine maintenance is quite "routine".
In addition, there are quite a few things that are not covered.
Between your warranty and regular oil and fluid changes / flushes, I wouldn't bother.

Just out of interest, what are they charging you?

 

Would need to know how much and what's covered in each case. I assume oil/filter etc. but what about brakes, cabin air filter and also other things done at regular service.

Personally, as I won't be putting many miles on the car (which is on the way) I wouldn't go for it as I don't expect to put more than 12,000 miles on in first 3 years max. and am going to do oil changes at half the required number of miles.

John in Vancouver

 

I dont know the pricing, still waiting for car to arrive. I am leaning to pay as I go.

 

Prepaid maintenance essentially is buying into an insurance pool. If you end up having lots of maintenance and non-warranty repairs, then you probably will have saved money. If not, then you have funded someone else in the insurance pool who saved money. The dealer (or group of dealers) who sponsor the pool know their average costs of coverage for each model of car, factor in reimbursements from PAG for warranty work and add a factor for investment or opportunity float on the cash they receive up front from people who buy the coverage. What's left is a reasonable profit that may or may not exceed what their profit is on servicing non-maintenance plan cars.

Then there is something called your "headline" risk. That's the risk of waking up one morning and reading in the newspaper that the underwriter of the pool (the financial backer to the dealers' maintenance plans) has gone out of business. The capital is gone or has been exhausted by excessive claims, and there is no money left to pay for maintenance during the last 14 months of your 60 month maintenance plan. Do some research; this has happened.

 

The prepaid maintenance plan has nothing to do with the warranty. It's just what it says - paying for the scheduled maintenance ahead of time. It doesn't include non-scheduled maintenance. (e.g. if you want the oil changed at more frequent intervals)

Just find out what the routine service costs are and then decide if it's worth it to you. For my Audi R8, it was only $1000 for 5 years - definitely worth it. From what I recall, the Porsche plan is something like $2900 for 4 years and $1900 for three years.

As an aside, the plan will either stay with the car if you sell it or you can get a pro-rated refund.

I can't imagine four years of routine service is more than $2900, but with everything in the new car hard to access, who knows?

 

You're thinking of pre-paid extended warranty, not pre-paid maintenance. In these plans, it's through Porsche not a pool and it's tied to the VIN number and goes with the car at any dealer.

 

Back to your question- it depends on the dealer, their labor costs, where you're located, etc. I got the pre-paid maintenance plan for my Cayenne diesel because the pricing was done when the recommendation was for oil changes every 10k miles. Then they changed it to 5k miles and the plan pricing didn't change so I got it. I didn't get it for my 991s. There is a guy in NJ who got his oil changed at 5k in his CD and it was over $500; my dealer said $179...

 

Don't want to hijack this thread, but I'm really interested in extended warranty options - seems to me that's where the nasty surprises could happen or be avoided.

 

The 3 year plan for 1400 sounds reasonable for 3 full years of maintenance. My guy said he will take off 20%.

 

Hawkman- good question. I've never been brave enough to own a Porsche outside of the warranty. You should start a new thread.

 

I've owned 9 of my 12 Porsches to date beyond warranty. Some by 25+ years. Only ever had two problems, with my '82 had to do new brake calipers at about 20 years and the other, a problem with the chain tensioners (a '72) at 9 years. I've found that if you adhere/exceed service recommendations (I never go more than 3500 miles without changing oil and filter for example) they are extremely reliable. For example my 996 TT Cab which has been out of warranty 3 years now has only needed routine maintenance items.

I plan on keeping my incoming 991S Cab for at least 8-10 years and I'm not terribly worried about that as it too will get oil changes etc. at about 3500 miles or once a year. Whichever comes first.

John in Vancouver

 

Thanks just done, as I could not find any other threads on this.