Love is Blind: Porsche, J.D. Power and Reliability

By Patrick Morgan - October 1, 2015

“It adds character.” Sure it does. I’m talking of course about the trickle charger attached to your Porsche because if you leave it alone for more than three days, the battery will go dead. Or the fact that most visits to the dealership involve a repair bill that conveniently has a comma placed in it. Yet despite this, Porsche consistently ranks highest in J.D Power reliability survey readings. What sort of black magic goes on there?

In an article by former Porsche boffin, and Jalopnik staffer, Doug DeMuro, Doug explains this in a little more detail. To sum it up in a slightly more succinct way, Porsche’s customer service goes above and beyond. Perhaps it is similar to what I call (and suffer from) – iPhone syndrome. We know that the droid is an equal, if not superior platform for doing smart-phone things, but people clutch on to their iPhone very near and dear. I admit I have a droid phone, but I also have an iPad and a MacBook which I enjoy because of exemplary customer service from Apple stores. These J.D. Power results are finally where I can make my nonsense earlier in this paragraph a bit more clear. It’s all down to customer service and what I also contribute to Porsche being a ‘halo’ brand.

When you have a problem on your standard car, you do genuinely start to get annoyed with it. You don’t buy a Camry because you enjoy valve lash adjustment, you buy it because you expect it to work all the time, every time. Porsche ownership experience is a bit different. Perhaps a blind eye can be turned to when your Boxter emits a questionably large puff of smoke after sitting in your garage for a while. Or when something goes wrong on your RSA. There’s just a little more room for forgiveness.