My last 3 P cars have had no spare tire: 911 4S, Panamera S and 2 month old Panamera GTS. With each car, my dealer in the DFW area told me that if I had a flat tire, they would send Porsche Roadside assistance to bring a donut tire. This actually happened about 5 years ago when I ran over some road debris and bent the rim.

Yesterday, my wife had a flat tire on her Cayenne S and called 1-800-Porsche. They told her they were sending Auto Rescue (a third party company) to help. The Auto Rescue guy shows up 1 hr and 20 minutes later. He cannot unlatch the spare tire out of the trunk. He cannot figure out how to use the lug nut lock key. Long story short, 35 minutes later he leaves without doing anything. She called the dealer and they did nothing. My wife had to rely on a good Samaritan to help her. I called the dealer this morning and they informed me that effective last year, Porsche is outsourcing Roadside assistance. Has anyone else heard of this?

Funny thing, this change in policy was not mentioned when I bought the GTS 2 months ago. It seriously may have swayed my purchase. My issue is that I drive my GTS as a daily driver. When I asked the dealer this morning what would have happened with my car, they said it would have been towed on a flat bed. Does anyone else think the change in policy is reasonable for a $145K car? I know Mercedes still provides their own Roadside assistance.

 

I would have been LIVID!!!

I'm sorry your wife had to go through that. Sounds messed up.

 

well most dealers have their own support but lets face it they cant cover every emergency so the need to involve additional help
while not as good, trained or well equipped at least someone was able to show up for your wife to help, better late than never??

 

I think the issue was - the supposed trained person to help couldn't do anything.

So it wasn't better late than never - it was, in fact, never. ... The biggest problem with outsourcing.

 

I always have AAA membership for that reason.

 

You are right and it was ashame it turned out that way

 

So, I was able to talk to the manager at the Dealership (who I know well) and management at Porsche NA and the issue has been resolved. Porsche NA was very responsive to me once I got them involved.

They require the dealers to offer trained Roadside Assistance (they have to go through x number of hours of training). But the dealers have a choice as to whether to use someone inhouse vs outsource. In this particular case, the dealership was purchased by AutoNation last year and AutoNation uses Auto Rescue, a third party. While this may work for more conventional makes like Toyota, Porsches are different animals. I was assured that if this happens again, their new Roadside assistance partner will merely flatbed the car to the dealership. Per Porsche NA, the technician was obviously not trained as is required in the Dealer contract. As of this morning, Porsche of Plano no longer uses Auto Rescue. Porsche NA says they have kicked some Dealers off of their network for this reason.

In future, especially if you are buying a car without a spare time (4/4S / GTS/Turbo), it may be worth finding out who your dealer uses for Roadside Assistance. The dealers make it seem like the decision is made by Porsche NA, but it is actually made by the Dealers. My dealer was even nice enough to comp the tire. All in all, this was a huge hassle, but hopefully no one else in Dallas goes through this.