Okay, this might sound a little crazy but just hear me out. What are the chances that Porsche would agree to taking the cars back to Germany for the proper repair?

I ask because this might be the only way I would consider keeping my order (very highly optioned PTS).

 

As painful as this is for those impacted, Porsche's supply chain and quality management processes halted deliveries and initiated the recall with only ~10% of the affected vehicles in the hands of customers. No field failures are know to have occurred, they have contained the quality issue, informed customers and regulatory agencies, are in the process of proposing remedies for customers, and no doubt implementing corrective action with the supplier. If this was a non-custom product like the dozens of Macans sitting in dealer lots and they caught the issue maybe two weeks earlier, no one outside of Porsche would have ever known. This stuff happens and companies are judged, not by how they handle the good times but, by how they handle problems. Everyone should have an expectation of Porsche addressing their grievances and concerns, or risk losing them as a customer and brand advocate. That's the way this works........and so we wait.

 

I hope you are right.

I may be a little hyper sensitive and somewhat suspect about communications from a VAG company. I had a TDI Touareg, and that was bad times.

I will hope for the best

 

I'd start car shopping for something else then.

The chances of them shipping a delivered car back to Germany for repair are slim to none, and slim left town.

A dealer would have no problem selling a nicely-optioned PTS car.

 

Where in Germany would that be? Back on the production line? Yeah that’s crazy...

 

That‘s what I tell my SA at the beginning, the only way to make me pay for the recall car is take it back to Germany and fix it… Of course, he tell me porsche will never do it.

 

I'm not so sure it is crazy, it is all whatever ends up being cheaper. Of course, they couldn't run our cars down the line in reverse or something whacky like that. Or even fix the engines on the normal assembly line...it would disrupt their automated processes. They could ship the cars back and leverage existing storage/holding while they worked through removing and repairing the engines with factory trained workers in a factory controlled environment. It wouldn't be the normal line, but doing something like this might be on the list of considerations. To be clear, I'm not advocating for this and I'm not convinced it would guarantee better results...but perhaps it is cheaper for Porsche. Known costs of shipping the cars and the rest leverages existing infrastructure and employees that are known quantities and already trained. They could use the time in transit to get the repair facilities up and running.

I assume that if Porsche is planning on fixing our engines at port or at the dealership, they will have to create detailed training, perhaps some level of certification process or they will need to fly trained people around to do the work. They also need to ship parts all over the place. International travel under covid restrictions could add additional complexity.

Again, pure speculation and I don't think one is significantly better than the other in terms of how I feel about a new car with a rebuilt engine. In either case, Porsche is going to deliver cars they have to stand behind in terms of quality. I just wonder if this approach could be the cheaper way for them to ensure that level of quality and consistency.

 

Unfortunately, RL is only a tiny portion of their customer base, even a smaller sample size within this specific group - Porsche will not go above and beyond to make us whole.

Especially as it sits world wide, there is ridiculous demand for ANY sports car.

I visited the dealer last week to see my car, and they had 9 cars affected by the stop sale; as far as I understand, I'm really only the one who's proactively looking for alternatives.

 

My car is currently at the port now and I hope to hear something from Porsche soon but likely I'll have to start shopping around for something else.

Pretty sad though as I was really excited for this car, being my first brand new Porsche. I checked almost all of the bells and whistles with an MSRP of $160k. Somebody will likely get this car for a significant discount if I pass on it.

 

Unfortunately to say, I don't think this is a possibility because of the logistics and the costs involved. To ship a car back even via boat would be cost prohibitive and PAG would probably just scrap the car at that point rather than deal with shipping back to Germany with customs and then shipping back to USA. I think the best case scenario would be a full engine replacement as others have mentioned that you just can't crack open an engine and repair/replace the con rods in a flat 6.

I assume at this point, PAG is figuring out the logistics of repair vs replace. I know people are anxious to hear from PAG but their lag could be because they're trying to do right by everybody and come up with a real solution. Devil's advocate here for real solution vs the BMW way of solving a problem....

Maybe they're trying to figure out who replaces and repairs the engines? For all of the affected cars, is there a qualified technician capable of actually replacing and/or repairing the engine at each dealership? If not, can we(PAG) send a traveling or group of traveling technician to replace/repair these engines? Maybe they're figuring to say here are the list of dealerships in your region, state, city, or whatever they decide and you must take your car to any of these locations for the repair or replacement to be carried out.

I know PAG hasn't moved fast enough for some to give concrete information about the exact repair in terms who gets which repair vs replacement, who will carry out repair/replacement, done at port/dealership, etc but it seems that PAG moved pretty quick in making this issue public and confirming with NTHSA.

Compare this to BMW many years ago when they first introduced the twin turbo N54 and the high pressure fuel pumps were failing left and right. If you want to know about a manufacturer dragging their feet, search the bmw forums. People were reporting HPFP failures left and right for many months before BMW even said anything. I took my car in and asked the SA about it to make small talk and he said you're the first I've heard of this issue. Give me a fu**ing break. BTW, BMW SA are the absolute worse of the car industry! (If this situation happened to me while I was purchasing a BMW and the option was to either replace or repair an engine using a BMWNA technician, I would walk away from the car without even hearing what BMW corp had to offer.) It took BMW many months (read like a year later)to come up with a repair that actually worked. They didn't even know what the problem was in the beginning because people were getting new HPFP, then HPFP with different serial numbers from a different supplier, then remanufactured HPFP, and then software updates. It ultimately lead to a formal recall and people ended up with extended warranties and any costs paid out of pocket for previous HPFP repairs to be refunded.

I know PAG hasn't reacted to some people's satisfaction but in my opinion, they've done good so far in that they've acknowledged the problem. They've given some preliminary ideas of their repairs with some preliminary timelines but unless I missed something, hasn't still confirmed 100% exactly how the repair will be carried out. They've just mentioned repair and replacement along with being done at dealer or port within 3-6 months. This is still WAY better than how BMW handled their situation and it affected every single car sold with the N54 engine which was their bread and butter at the time. PAG's situation is only affecting about 900+ cars.

 

I'm sorry that this is affecting you. I'd say hang in there to wait for PAG to formally announce their solution before jumping ship. It'd be hard to find a reasonable replacement for these cars and I know you've spec'd your car pretty heavy. I was looking forward to seeing your car. Still hoping it happens sooner rather than later for you (and everybody else) with an agreeable solution for all.

 

I agree with the others who think this is unlikely, but the response Porsche gave to the inquiry from the German forum PFF.DE indicates the undelivered cars would be repaired at the factory:

"996 vehicles worldwide are affected. However, only 206 of these have already been delivered to customers. These vehicles are called back to the workshop via a customer letter. All others will be updated at the factory before delivery."

Maybe a translation blip, or maybe they're referring to cars in Germany, but they are clearly speaking about the entire population of affected vehicles here.

Edit: Or, maybe port = factory in their way of looking at this.

 

All the car makers obfuscate the problems. To Porsche’s credit they identified this problem proactively. Sadly, they haven’t come forward with a solution. I think they have identified two possible solutions: repair engines in place or install replacement engines. I bet they have a high degree of confidence they can do either successfully. The problem is figuring out which they can successfully execute in the three to six month time frame they have set for themselves. This would be bad in normal times but service departments at dealers are swamped and the production lines are also. Not to mention that the supply chain is overwhelmed. I really think they want to give us the best solution but there are a lot of constraints.

 

A couple of observations to comments above

The suggestion of shipping a car back so the factory engine builder can take it a part and replace the Conrods does not make sense for a few reasons

1. The factory worker who builds the engines has not been trained to take them apart and put them back together. I would not want him/her to try and learn, different process.

2. disruption to the whole production line (not just engine line

3. disruption to the supply chain of every component that goes into the cars

Another suggestion above, is to send a team from Germany to rebuild the engines in the US. This is a big challenge with the COVID pandemic.

Not an easy problem to solve. Give Porsche a chance to figure this out, hopefully they can do it your satisfaction.

 

I may be a bit late to the party here but in the sake of sharing information. I received a call from the Sales Director at my local dealer and he told me that they had a conference call with Porsche that morning (Tuesday, April 13th) , my understanding is that it involved everyone in north America (I am in Canada) and he basically called me to tell me that they were instructed to have consumers opinions on what they wanted. He said it is basically negotiation. He told me that we are looking at two options. However, they will not be a choice once they set on on. This is for the owners with undelivered cars: option 1: rod replacement (completed in mid-June), or option2: engine replacement (completed in Sep or Oct). I informed him that engine replacement is pretty much the only option for me. He said he agreed and he told me that this is exactly what pretty much all dealers want Porsche to do! Replacing the part will take 16 hours of work!!!
I think that it is very sad for owners that cannot drive their cars outside of the summer as Sep, Oct, its pretty much over. So we will have a 2021 vehicle that we can only drive in 2022. Makes no sense! What I think is also very sad, is that they are still at the planning process with this! Still probing for options, which tell me we are very .. very far from actual planning and execution.