mdrobc1213

Hi gents well it seem our new [to us] 2012 Panamera v6 has a few issues. Vehicle was purchased in April 2012 from our old dealer in Texas with roughly 9k on the odometer and supposedly in great shape and thoroughly checked out and CPO'd or so we thought.

Well first of all the PCM 3.0 failed after about 1 month and dealer had to replace it. Failed meaning it lost all programming for SAT radio, Ipod, BT, etc and would only play FM/AM radio. Dealer replaced it per warranty and then THAT brand new replacement failed 48 hrs later! Dealer had the car for 3 weeks then thru mid June while a 3rd PCM 3.0 was sourced from Germany and replaced. This one finally worked and no issues.

New duty/job for me brought us and the Panamera to WA state and while I was away TDY in Ohio wifey sent me a text saying that the temp gauge had shot all the way up to the top when she started it in the AM on the way to work, then the Oil and Coolant lights flashed red! Then went back down and off. She took the car to the Jiffy Lube around the corner (yeah I know) and they said there was no coolant and filled it to get her to the dealership 10 min away. Dropped the car off and now am told that it has 2 major oil leaks and one coolant failure. Service Advisor says it has 1) coolant leak @O Ring at engine bolt block assembly with pooled coolant in the assembly that had to be evacuated 2) Oil leak and failure at the front timing cover assembly 3) oil leak/failure at the vacuum pump and lines. What the hell?

So I am now upset that the car was presented as a CPO which was not done by the original dealer but very much more concerned with the amount of problems and failures all within a relatively short term of ownership and now with a car confirmed to be non-CPO'd! Current dealership and old one have confirmed that any repairs will be covered under warranty but what about problems in the future? What if my engine has other damage and/or defects and decides to grenade itself in another 10-20k miles?

I've expressed my concern to ALL parties involved and even contacted Porsche NA who have opened a case file for my car. PCNA said the case would be elevated to the regional reps level and I should hear something soon/next week. So given the unsual nature of this what should I expect gents? At min I would think a CPO on someone's dime other than myself...but could it be worse? Would I need a new engine or vehicle? PCNA rep says they will send a message to the local dealership to save all parts to ship back to Porsche AG and engineering back in Stuggart will likely get involved. But what else?

The local dealership did provide us with an 2012 Audi A8L loaner for the duration so that was kind of them...but am worried about the current repairs and long term viability of our Panamera. I mean for such an expensive and high performance car this shouldn't happen!

BTW this is our SIXTH Porsche so we do have some brand loyalty in this as well!

neuneleven

Sorry to hear about your misfortunes and understand your concerns. Keep eyes and ears open. Hope for you Porsche does something to sort this out. Hang in there

mdrobc1213

Thanks all who have commented so far. Spoke to dealer today who said the car had a certified inspection when they got it prior to sale but was not certified as that was an extra cost. Thus the difference between them selling a vehicle that they had inspected using their "certified" inspection and my understanding that I was purchasing a certified pre-own vehicle. If that makes any sense...hopefully Porsche will stand behind the vehicle and engine and CPO the repairs/vehicle but still waiting to hear back from them at this point.

mdrobc1213

Well I just got off the phone with Porsche NA and the offered a "goodwill" CPO of the car as well repair of an items found during their re-inspection at their expense. Also they gave us an additional gift voucher for an undisclosed sum to be used at our discretion. Am happy that they stood behind their product and am looking forward to getting the Panamera back and a painless experience in the near future. Thanks to all!

slider172

It sounds as if you were treated very well by PCNA. Consider yourself very furtunate.
Having had many Porsches before, I'm sure you are well aware how PCNA has treated its customers in the past when problems have occured.

O.B.1

Good for PCNA.....I'm glad the stepped up for you.

mdrobc1213

Yes I was well taken care of. Luckily I have been blessed with 3 very good Porsche dealers in the past 6+ yrs of P-car ownership and would definitely continue with the brand if I have a choice in the matter. A nice 2 yr old 2013 CPO'd Boxster S will be next on my list likely!

Steele

I'm a woman, but can I still add my 2 cents?!!! I have a 2012 pan turbo. This prob is serious and I don't want to recount again. If you want to read it go to my profile. Anyway, it put me and other motorists in a life threatening situation, but when diagnostic tests were run, no codes so no problems. PCNA doesn't get a star when it comes to how they've handled this situation. We too have owned 6 Porsches, 3 have been turbos. My husband raced professional in the 80's and I've been driving since I was 10. (Grew up in small farming community out in the middle of nowhere wyoming) They're giving no credence to the human diagnostic test. At first they wouldn't even let regional get involved since there was no "proof", but I persisted. Then instead of regional looking at it, they sent in a field tech. He did an extensive test, nothing. After that "they had nothing more to add". I talked to supervisor of customer whatever again yesterday and requested this field tech take the car and drive it for a couple months. I'm waiting to hear back if they'll take me up on the offer. Let you know what and if they get a star! Mostly Porsche takes themselves much too serious and unless you're falling over yourself telling them how wonderful their cars are, they don't want to be bothered.

mdrobc1213

Sorry you went through all of this. I went to PCNA direct and didn't fool with the dealership. In fact I let them know what I was doing. Then I basically told the dealership I wasn't touching the car really until I heard from PCNA. They were okay with that and understood and like I said PCA-NA did take care of us expeditiously. Thank goodness or that.

MJBird993

I couldn't find it on your profile, but I looked through your past posts and found it there. The transmission issues, right?

I have noticed that occasionally when I kick it hard enough for a downshift there can be a longer than expected lag for it go from say 7th to 4th gear. I have an "S" non-turbo.

To the OP: I assume that all of your issues were eventually taken care of, and you are now happy with the car? I hope so.

To Steele: I've had issues like you report, with BMWs, and my treatment from them ranged from "concerned and we'll work with you" to "quit yer bitchin'". So in the first case BMW bought back the car and sold me another (of my choice) at dealer cost. In the second case I sold the car back to the dealer at a huge loss and BMW is now dead to me. If my next car isn't a Porsche, it will be a Mercedes or Audi. But I digress.

Sometimes these problems - especially those that don't set codes - can be difficult to describe, communicate, diagnose and fix. It's worse when the technician drives the car and reports "operates within specs". Sometimes you can push it and they'll admit that it's probably not as it should be, but "they all do that". Then it becomes an uphill battle. These PDK transmissions are a wonder of engineering, but there is an awful lot of technology in there, lots of computer code, and sometimes things happen; circumstances that were not accomodated in the code and never tested. I say this as a software engineer.

That probably doesn't make you feel any better. I spoke once with a woman who had an E65 BMW that would occasionally slam itself into park. BMW has this extremely stupid feature that if you try to drive off with the door open, it goes into park. Well, for her, it would do it even with the door closed. You can imagine the horror of being in traffic and trying to pull out only to find the car has gone into park after you moved 10 feet. Anyway, she never got any satisfaction from BMW either. I'm starting to think it's just the luck of the draw, who handles your claim and how you present yourself and the issue.

Steele

To MJBird993, this is a recount of the incident that is still unresolved. My husband emailed and put a call into pres PCNA this past wk, but have heard nothing back and it's his opinion they're not going to do anything. It's now 5/4/13 and they've done everything required to cover their necks so they're off the hook. It passed every diagnostic test as well as when the techs took it out on the road.
Just to clarify, this lag would only happen when accelerating at a normal rate, never when you punched it. We suspect its an electrical defect in the steering wheel that controls the manual mechanism, but that checked out. This is def an defect that's falling btwn the cracks and Porsche isn't going to do anything they don't have to, especially since it checks out, but we're still trying.
Not to minimize the trauma you suffered after your accident, but there's a dif btwn not wanting to return to the scene of the accident and not being able to get in a car all together. I can now ride in a car if my husband is driving, but the thought of driving myself causes an anaphylaxis shock reaction. I have nightmares of dying by drowning, being suffocated, etc. I have flashbacks of the incident where I become incoherent and lose touch w/reality and am trapped in my car seeing the other car approaching knowing I'm going to die. These episodes hit w/out warning making it difficult to leave my house for fear it'll happen in public. I'm spending hundreds to thousands on therapy to treat my ASD (Acute Stress Disorder, precursor to PTSD) so it doesn't progress into PTSD. I've lost my independence and don't know if I'll ever be able to drive w/confidence something I took for granted as do so many. I can't jump in the car and run to the grocery store let alone take my kids to school or a drs appt. this has had a very detrimental affect not only on me, but my family's as well. Fortunately my husband is self employed and only spends +/- 10 hrs/wk working on the computer at our house, so he can pick up the slack. However, if that were not the case, our lives would be terribly affected.

Recount. *I own a 2012 Panamera Turbo. It's the 6th Porsche my husband and I have owned. '78 911 Weissach Coupe, 928S, '04 Cayenne Turbo were my husband's. I owned an '05 911 C4S, 2010 911 Turbo and now the 2012 Panamera Turbo. We never have had one complaint about any of these cars until now, in fact, nobody loves the drive of a Porsche more than myself!
I took delivery of my Panamera Turbo Feb '12 and from the beginning the transmission didn't perform correctly unlike that of my 911 turbo, which worked seamlessly. I also know the PDK is set up a bit differently in the 911 than that in the Panamera, Besides having experienced the beauty of the PDK in my 911 turbo, I drove 3 Panameras extensively before ordering mine. The shifting in all these Panameras was seamless as well.
The problem I'm having and have since to beginning happens randomly while accelerating. There's a lag between one clutch disengaging and the 2nd engaging, approximately 1/2-1 second. When the 2nd clutch does engage its very hard and will jolt the car. Another problem we've experienced is when putting the car in reverse, if you don't wait for it to "click" into gear, which sometimes takes 1-2 seconds and take your foot off the break, it will roll as though its in neutral with the engine turned off.
We took the car in last April to have this checked out. The service manager and tech drove the car and didn't experience anything like we were experiencing, then ran diagnostic tests to which no codes came up. We we let it go at that given the pros outweighed the cons.
Then on March 15, 2013 I was driving on a curvy mountainous road, I was in the left hand lane in moderately heavy traffic moving approximately 60 mph. As we came around a curve, the 2 cars ahead of me braked slightly, which I did also. I looked in my side view mirror and saw there was room for me to move to the right lane. So I started to steer into the right lane while simontaneously accelerating, except when I applied more pressure on the throttle nothing happened. Once again it was as though the car was in neutral with engine turned off. I was now drifting into the right lane to oncoming traffic losing speed. I looked in my side view mirror again to see a Mercedes S500 coming around the curve behind me heading straight for me. It was approximately 3 seconds before it went into gear, but during those few seconds, I didn't "think" I was going to die, I "knew" I was going to die. When the gear engaged it jolted the car so hard I suffered a whiplash, because at that point I was instinctively looking over my right shoulder at the Mercedes approaching me. It was very obvious to the other drivers it was the car that had the problem, not the driver. Had the Mercedes hit me, it would've caused a multi car pile up do to amount of other motorists and the speed at which they were traveling.*
BTW, you spend a lot of time on rennlist, is this your hobby? I could always teach you to knit, it's much more productive!!!

MJBird993

Funny girl! It's not a hobby, but I probably should spend more time knitting. I wish I could come up with a solution for you. Hoping therapy and time will help. Best wishes!