I am looking for advice on my unfortunate situation, and appreciate your help.

My background: I am a small collector with several modern-era turbo Porsches, and some classic 911 models. For used cars I usually plan to spend 20-30% of the purchase price to restore them to near mint condition with mechanical maintance, parts replacement, and paint work.

I purchased a 2011 Cayenne Turbo from an out of state, non-Porsche car dealer. The car looks nice in photos, and has many options I was looking for. I do not get a PPI in this case, due to the size of dealer inventory and history without any negative information online. The car gets flatbedded to me, and parked in a private garage overnight. The next morning the car starts up, but before it makes it even one block, the engine makes a strange vibration and sound and cuts off and then illuminates the check engine light. Attempt to restart the car but it makes a bad sound again and immediately turns off again. Call a flatbed to tow the car to the nearest Porsche dealer.

After a few days of investigating, the dealer informs me that they used a bore scope and determined the problem is with engine bank 2, cylinder #8. They say the valve is hitting the Piston, and that for the next step in the diagnosis, they need to remove the engine from the chassis and disassemble it at an estimated cost of $7,500 in labor, not including any parts necessary to fix the problem if it can be fixed (or maybe engine needs to be entirely replaced?), and not including labor to reinstall the engine in the chassis. The car was delivered for less than 24 hours and has less than 5 miles since the official bill of sale recorded odometer reading, and was not mistreated in any way.

Fortunately, the state where the dealer is located has a law that requires dealers that sell used cars to warranty that the cars are fit for purpose for the first 15 days or 500 miles, whichever comes first, but neither are near the limit. The legally obligated warranty obligates the dealer to fix anything related to the power train, with a $100 deductible for the first two claims, and overall liability limited to the full purchase price. I have notified the dealer that I am invoking this warranty, and provided the email with initial diagnosis from the Porsche service dealer. The selling dealer contacted the service manager, which is fine with me, and due to the high cost of this issue, I would even be fine if the selling dealer wants to have the car towed to any other Porsche dealer of their choice to get a second opinion. I see on eBay there are some used Cayenne Turbo engines for around $13k.

Overall, based on this situation, what do you recommend I do to resolve this matter? Also does anyone have technical experience with a valve hitting Piston on these engines or with cylinder #8 problems? My preference is to have the selling dealer satisfy themselves that the car legitimately needs these repairs and that it was truely bad luck (if they didn't know the car had pre-existing issues) and then they pay to fix the car (I estimate $10-20k in total repair costs). Next best option is that they take the car back and refund all money including any diagnosis costs and shipping, but in this case they get a non-working car back, so they will need to fix it anyway, and I would be satisfied if the car was fixed/working.

 

The car has about 70k miles. First owner: new, second owner: Porsche CPO, third owner: me. The fact that the car was previously a CPO reassured me that the prior owner would have maximized replacing parts and getting the car serviced to get value out of their CPO premium.

 

Do a search on Porsche recall AH-08. One of your Variocam adjusters has failed and Porsche gets to eat the entire expense of making it right, up to and including a replacement engine (approximate cost - more than you paid for the vehicle..) Once they break they don't get better on their own, and there are typically no symptoms beforehand... so the selling dealer and even the person trading it in undoubtedly had no knowledge of it. A recall is "forever" no mileage or age stipulations. It breaks - they've gotta fix it.

There is info here in the 958 subforum - but for an in-depth discussion of what's going on and what Porsche is doing see: https://rennlist.com/forums/cayenne-...cam-bolts.html

After you check this out and find it's true - you owe me a case of beer. PM me for my address.

Sleep well tonight (and the dealer should have recognized this immediately and told you about the recall.) Call them up after you've read up, and mention AH-08 and that you expect it back in great working condition, and you want a Cayenne loaner in the meantime.

 

Hi, thank you for this information. I had the AH-08 recall performed on my Panamera before the engine had any problem, but I didn't connect the dots that the recall failure is what occurred on the Cayenne. Indeed AH-08 had not been performed on the Cayenne yet. Thanks - you deserve a keg, not a case!

I spoke with the servicing dealer, and they are still trying to give me a hard time. Their position so far, is that they don't know for certain whether the failure was caused by the recall issue or something else not related to the recall. They claim they can't know until they remove and disassemble the engine, and since they don't know if it is recall related until after disassembled, they want me to front $7500. If they say it is related then they say Porsche will cover it all, but if not then it's my problem. I asked what else they think could cause this if it wasn't AH-08 related and the service manager told me maybe the oil wasn't getting into the cylinder - but when I told him oil doesn't control valve positioning because it is only the timing system that does this, he backed down on that argument. 🤣

It seems outrageous and unlikely that Porsche would really require their customers to spend such a great amount to prove that an issue is due to their recall issue. I have searched the web and links you suggested but it seems all the cases where engines died from the recall failure were treated with immediate service and no hassles (besides the delay in recall parts to dealers in 2017). Do you have any advice about the dealer's proposal to have me front the diagnosis costs? I greatly appreciate your help!

 

The dealer is stringing you along with a bunch of BS. I'd get the car away from that dealer and to a reputable one, then report that dealer to Porsche Cars NA.

In the simplest case - if the bolts on the passenger side of the engine failed, they can determine this by opening the oil filler and looking at them. They are easily visible using a small dental mirror. Worst case - they have to remove the valve cover on the other bank of the engine - and for that - the engine does not have to come out.

Since they're stringing you along like this - if you want to play the game - insist that AH-08 be performed on the vehicle. That requires them to physically examine the bolts, and does not call for engine removal to do so.

If you want to continue with this dealership (I wouldn't..) you should at this point be talking to the Service Manager and then escalate it to the General Manager. Make it clear to them that your response to the Porsche customer service survey will be negative and detailed. That costs them money.

Bastards.. they know exactly what it is and want to play games.. because you didn't buy it from them.

BTW - eventually the engine will have to come out if a valve hit a piston - but on the turbo engine the clearances are such (due to lower compression for the turbos) that the valves generally can't hit the pistons. They collide with each other.

In any case to repair this sort of damage the engine will have to come out.

At a minimum that head will require rebuilding. Good practices would be to disassemble both heads and check all the valves for bending. That also ends up with a better running engine since the carbon buildup will be removed from the valves on both sides.

 

BTW - eventually when you get it to a good dealer.. who correctly diagnoses it and then removes the engine to perform the recall (at Porsche's expense) - contact me via PM and I'll outline some other issues that could well be addressed while the engine is out. Easy to do with the engine out and disassembled - costly to do if it goes back in with them undone and you eventually have an issue with them. Mostly cooling system related.

 

Thanks! Does anyone have a recommendation for an honest Porsche dealer in the Washington DC, Maryland, or Virginia area?