I'm curious is my early ownership experience is normal with this brand, or perhaps I have too high expectations for Porsche?

My initial experience with Porsche after committing to purchase was one of frustration. Their ability to reasonably predict when a vehicle will arrive at a dealer lot is sorely lacking. They missed the date by about two weeks. The entirety of that miss was comprised of time spent as the port in RI and trucking time. Which seems absurd. No North Atlantic storms. No labor walkouts. Just bad information. I understand that Porsche relies on a logistics company once the vehicles reach port, but why aren't they being held to some performance standard?

Next up was my parts order for a cargo mat and custom floor mats.

The cargo mat that was shipped to me was the wrong one. Right label on the bag, wrong part inside. OK, that's not a huge deal. But still a waste of time on my part. Had to document the error. Bring the box to a shipper. Etc.

Then I wait six weeks for the floor mats and they arrive not as ordered. Wrong stitching, wrong piping, wrong logo. I need dark mats for the car. Not more trips to the shipper and more frustration.

Couple this with the ongoing alarm saga, and I have to say that this has been one less-than-stellar first experience with this brand.

Is this normal for the brand?

 

I don't really know what the baseline is for transport times from port to dealership. Bear in mind that consumers are rarely exposed to this. Almost all car buyers purchase cars off the lot, so they have no idea how long transport takes, or how accurate delivery estimates are.

Porsche has a lot more special orders than most, mainly because of the laundry list of options, but I'm still pretty sure most buyers are still purchasing off the lot. My SA delayed about a week before acknowledging that he'd have to order my wife's Cayman S, that he wouldn't be able to find one in stock that matched her requirements.

I have one ongoing issue, which is that my dealership did not activate Porsche Car Connect on my Panamera on delivery, and still hasn't done so 9 days after I brought it up. I understand why they're unfamiliar with the option, since almost no cars ship with it. It seems a trifle much that they're taking them this long to figure it out, but I chalk that up more to my local dealer, not something I can generalize to the brand.

We've had no problems with either car otherwise, and nothing I'd characterize as a failure of QA so far.

 

Sorry to hear. Generally customer service has been poor during the 5 years I have owned a Porsche. Totally different than the high quality the car suggests. When I bought my first car, I was promised a 1:18 model car for the kids. It never came, although I asked for it, so I complained to Porsche contact. Instead of the model car, I received a long letter Hand Signed by 2 high Porsche officials telling me how the matter was investigated etc, and because there is no evidence that the dealer had not sent it, they cannot do anything. Funny thing was that they also had no document of posting, which I asked for and am sure they had if they would have sent it. Never got a model car...