Interesting thread.

 

To OP. I have an '07 that I have had for a year and a half. I have had a few warranty issues and a few non warranty issues and my car is always out of commission for a week+. The long service times seem to go with the territory with higher end limited cars. I had a BMW 650 before this and every time something needed to be replaced it was at least a week for parts from Germany.
My dealership is awesome, but they only have a few Audi loaners and they are always out of them while the Audi side (they have their own fleet of loaners) never run out and never let the Porsche side customers us their stock. That is Pathetic. Porsche needs to step up and provide decent loaners and an adequate supply. I have been put in many Toyota Camrys. BMW on the other hand always put me in a nice BMW loaner. If you buy a high end vehicle you expect a higher end loaner...end of story!

 

Yeah, no kidding.

 

Had a BMW 135i prior to my P-car. The N54 engine the BMW was notorious for HPFP failures. I picked up my 135 in May 08. In May 09 the HPFP went (4 days to repair). In June 09 the turbos quit. It took 2.5 weeks to repair the car. It is a bi-turbo and the replacement kit only had one turbo in it (wtf?). Had to wait for a new kit from Germany to be shipped. November 09 and the injectors/rails went. Another week in the shop. The SA told me that when the HPFP went the car ingested a lot of metal shavings and that caused the subsequent problems. I don't know if that is true but I was done at that point. That is why I moved to my C2 in April 2010.

When the BMW dealer took my car in he asked if thay had put me in something nicer. I said they had and he was all smiles. I said you have put me in a Porsche. You should have seen the look on his face!

Not that the Porsche is without problems though. Tomorrow I will get my third headlamp replaced in 10 months. At $180 a pop it is getting a bit annoying. I agree with Kona in that these cars do have electrical gremlins.

As to the OPs other choices. I had a MB and the heated seats shorted out and caught fire while I was driving it. I will never own a MB again. I heard that AMs are very unreliable.

Good luck to you. I hope that you settle on a car that makes you happy.

PS. I agree that the loaner cars that I get from Porsche are pathetic. Does PCNA have a deal with Enterprise?

 

The long service times seem to go with the territory with higher end limited cars.

I agree, this was definitely a problem at the start but PCNA seems to have sorted that out in the last year or two - I was told that they shifted a much more substantial amount of inventory to Atlanta in 2010.

The long service times seem to go with the territory with higher end limited cars.

I agree, this was definitely a problem at the start but PCNA seems to have sorted that out in the last year or two - I was told that they shifted a much more substantial amount of inventory to Atlanta in 2010.

Does PCNA have a deal with Enterprise? = Legitimately ! I have no doubt that these relationships are beneficial to the dealership . . . no inventory on the books to impede free-cash and more inventory to sell (without taking the loaner/demo hit). Besides, Porsche pays for all of these cars during wrty service and we pay for it for non-wrty work. Either way, it's win/win for the dealers.

I had a MB and the heated seats shorted out and caught fire while I was driving it. I will never own a MB again. I heard that AMs are very unreliable.


WOW! Makes me re-think the trouble I had with my car. Though my colleagues and I often joked about it (my car's 'curse' become one of the favorite targets of their humor), it never burst into flames.

As for AM's reliability, I can't pretend I'm not worried about that. That's another reason why I decided to buy a second car and not have an 'exotic' as my daily driver. I often wonder if driving the P regularly was part of why I had so many troubles . . . maybe I would have been better off if it was my part time, nice weather car?

 

This is my favorite question...unless it is a safety issue there is NO notice to the customer (BMW as well) within warranty and he is left to find the problem on his own or go in every couple of months and ask whether there are any service/warranty updates. This is for KNOWN problems. Someone else mentioned that if you are going to keep a car past warranty you need to go in prior to expiry and get a once over with you working with the mechanic instead of the service rep.

 

This is good point OP made. Although I use my 911 as DD, I am reluctant to part with my 3rd car, BMW 535, because of the occasional nature of repairs in these high performance cars. As a matter of fact, my Beemer in the dealership for a week now because they replacing damaged tires under tire warranty. They replacing Goodyear OEM with Michelins.

So, point being owning and driving a 911 is luxury!

 

Here's some info on reliability of the 911: http://www.edmunds.com/porsche/911/2...yle=&sub=coupe

Looks pretty good to me.

 

My personal rule is that the more "crap" you have in your car the more can break down. Keep it simple. For example, having a manual transmission (despite higher fun factor and engagement with the car – not to dismiss PDK) lowers maintenance and chances of huge repairs because no matter what the brand is automatic with Tip-Tronic or PDK and all such complicated and highly engineered transmissions will result in high priced repairs when it happens and create issues. Electric rain sensor, forget it. Keyless entry, forget it. Air-conditioned seats, nice feature but really necessary? I could go on and on like that.

Before I got my 997.2 I had a 6 year old Boxster with 60K miles, 5-speed manual loaded with luxury features (like full leather etc) but no gimmicks. Guess what, not a single repair in all those years and when I sold it the car was flawless. Only replaced a battery once and all four tires due to normal wear and tear.

What are you thinking guys? My hypothesis would be that a GT3 is less maintenance than a normal Carrera with PDK and 100 gimmicks.

My family has a Mercedes SL and a BMW X5 and it’s ridiculous what needs to be fixed. And it’s always the same unimportant little extras that need to get fixed for $2,000.

Save yourself 30K in extras and order yourself a sleek looking Porsche that has what you really need and enjoy the car.

Plus I really doubt that Aston Martin is more reliable. It’s a boutique firm after all much and more so than Porsche. God forbid you have repairs on that one $$$$$

 

Totally agree... You try an F1 transmission on a Ferrari / Maserati and you are in it for 5-10 K after 15K miles....So just shoving that gear yourself saves you a bundle and gives you oodles mehr Spass und Fahrvergnuegen!!

 

Sorry about your experience. My first pcar was a 99 996 that I leased used. Had several issues and the dealer in Columbia SC would keep it for weeks. Returned at the end of the lease with no regrets. After 4 years and driving MB, BMW and lexus went back and bought an end of lease 07 C2S. I now deal with the dealer at Hilton Head Island and could not be more pleased. I have done many mods. to the car with them and always on time. Only issue has been a bad thermostat in 4 years. Not bad. Better dealer, better experience.

 

I have owned 4 911'a - 87, 93cab, 97 and 08cab - and the 93 was basically a lemon. I had such a long list of issues in the 3 years I had the car that, after I wrote PCNA and the dealer highlighting my issues and disappointment with the car, Porsche and the dealer stood up and replaced the car, with a brand new 1997 993.

My experience ended on a very positive note and endeared me to the dealer and Porsche, not so it appears in your case. At any rate I am sorry to see you give up after one try since this type of thing happens in all the brands.

 

God I love reading these kinds of posts. You read so much more about the problems with Porsche than with the satisfaction they bring to the majority of the people... Your 93 was a major disappointment that was resolved by your dealer and Porsche... just as it should have been.

 

Honestly, I think it's just more satisfying for the complainers than it is we happy customers who'd have to struggle upstream against the cynics.

Personally, we've found Porsche service to be exemplary at two different dealers in Southern California, and the stories I've heard suggest at least two or three others are just as good. Probably those and half a dozen others I don't hear about if I'm honest. Lots of Porsches in our area and you have to be good to compete when we can so easily drive down the freeway to alternatives.

The car itself has needed no work except the HPFP replacement. That was scheduled for an all-day job until I mentioned when signing in that Cindy got worried if I was away that long. The subject came up because they remembered us from the day we bought the car and asked how she was. After learning she was at home alone, they bumped me in the queue and had the car done in... memory fails. Three hours I think. Maybe four. While I waited, they loaned me a C4S Cab because I wanted to try a PDK. When I got tired of driving that around the local canyons, their driver took me to the local country club for lunch and came back to pick me up at my leisure.

Porsche customer service is just fine in our market. And the car's reliability is all I could ask of any car, let alone an exotic used as a daily driver.

Gary

 

First thing, Herb Chamber is one of the biggest ****** bag in automotive industry. He owns a lot of the high end dealership in and around Boston so he basically has the market to himself (2 MBZ / Maybach, 1 BMW, 2 Porsche just for starters). The service departments and body shops that he operates all suck. It took them 2-3 months to fix some minor body damage on my E55 and it still came out flawed. They contracted with Enterprise to manage their loaner fleet and the manager had the guts to call my cell to harass me when the at-fault party's insurance company won't pay for the rental charge and I disputed the 4000 rental bill on my c/c. It took my attorney a couple phone calls to their corporate office in Boston to shut them up.

When I lived there, I would drive to Peabody to get buy and service my BMW at BMW Peabody. I had driven all the way up to Nashua (same group as BMW Peabody) to look at Porsches. That's how much HC has pissed me off.