yojimbo007

Cool.... and cool RS color!!!

My Cayman GTS( 2016) never had any issues ( except little annoying glitches here and there in the PCM programming and blues tooth issues. etc......had them in my Macan Turbo and still have them in the RS.... but nothing debilitating)
I Pushed my Cayman real hard on the track on hot desert days.... never any over heating issue ... it may be because the GTS had bigger cooling intakes in the front..!?
What a sweet car it was... in some ways i truly miss it!

bigkraig

I’m on my third 991 and this is the only one that hasn’t had the thermostat replaced at least once

yojimbo007

What year and model is it? How many miles so far?

neanicu

Wanna talk about reliability of Porsche and German cars in general? I hope you have patience to read 10 plus pages. Lol. Get yourself a nice Lexus if you want reliability...
And it all comes down to absolute terrible parts suppliers. I would think some major lawsuits would be happening right now between German manufacturers and parts suppliers. But no...crickets...it seems that they all have their hands deep in the pot and all they care about it's more money for cheaply made garbage. It's not really Porsche's fault that companies like Wahler,Mahle Behr etc are manufacturing all over the World because it's cheaper...and the quality control su*ks. But they certainly condone their policies because I don't see them doing anything about it.... And German cars continue to fail...and fail...and fail again ridiculously and extremely expensive. To the point it has dragged the entire German manufacturers fleet down in terms of reliability. And you can see this on the secondary market. Of course GT cars are an exception,but that's because they are not made in large numbers,are not driven a lot of miles and are the pinnacle of what a company can do at its best. Unfortunately that doesn't completely save them from bad parts...
Regarding the thermostat in these cars,I have written an extensive post/thread on Rennlist about how they operate...too lazy to search right now. Basically they're still " Stone Age " mechanical units that now have a heater element which is pulse-width modulated by the computer.

Jimmy-D

Make sure when they change your thermostat they are flushing the coolant ect.. It is not just a pop in thing. Their is a procedure they should be following

yojimbo007

Thanks Neaniku

Good insight and Sad insight!

but i would think Porsche would enforce a certain level of quality control.. specially on an issue that has been around for this long.

yojimbo007

Jimmy.. my thermostat repair got extended by another week. ....Now they say next week.. which will make it a 2 week repair and down time for a thermostat repair.. ..just ridiculous.

Service claims they have been in touch with US headquarters and that they have been instructed to replace some other parts as well, some hose, thermostat housing, and couple other parts i dont remember...

When i asked them why they don't carry these parts in local inventory knowing it is an issue and that not doing so passes the burden on to the paying customer...
their answer was a simple ‘we cant’ ........when i asked "what u mean u cant, it is a thermostat Not a whole engine block...." they simply could not answer and suggested i contact Porsche US headquarters directly and take on the issue with them and that it would be more fruitful that way.
I will.. but am waiting to see if more BS will be thrown in my face before it is all repaired and delivered.

I will bring up the flushing issue with them....but i would think, being a Porsche dealer, they would follow correct procedure..
Thanks for the pointer !

neanicu

2 weeks for a thermostat repair is absolutely ridiculous! I know the car just sits there without them actually doing work on it...and as soon as the parts come in the actual repair takes 2-3 hours max.
There's this very common thinking that the best place to repair the car is at the dealership that carries the name of the manufacturer. That can't be further from the truth these days. And I'll tell you why : dealership technicians work on " flat rate ",which means every job is paid by the hours that the book says it needs to be paid. So if for example,a job pays 2 hours and the technician finishes it in 1 hour,he has 1 hr to do another job,but he is still getting paid for 2 hours on the initial job...and so on. That's how they build a lot of hours in order to make more money. Nothing wrong with that,except that a high majority of technicians are cutting corners. Being fast and doing the job correctly is one thing,cutting corners and half as* jobs is another... Now let's talk about warranty work : the " book time " that establishes flat rate pay is much lower for warranty work. What happens then? Technicians hate warranty work because it doesn't pay.
So think again before having your car done at the dealership,where all the " correct procedures " are followed... This is how you end up with loose screws,oil drain plugs not tightened,trim that doesn't get put back in place,broken tabs,clips,misdiagnosed cars etc. That is why dealership technicians have invented the " parts cannon "...meaning they will throw parts at a problem until they eventually change the right one. It doesn't actually pay for them to spend the time and diagnose a problem,because they are either not paid properly,they are lazy or they are missing the knowledge.
OF COURSE,there are still exceptions to the technicians I've described above,but their number is getting smaller and smaller...

Don't even worry whether they are following procedure and replace the coolant,you have a fairly new car...the coolant they're using these days,whether it's OAT(organic acid technology) or HOAT(hybrid organic acid technology) can last up to 7 years and 100K miles.

Jimmy-D

You will catch more flies with Sugar than with Vinegar which I bet you know.

I have dealt with PCNA, in Atlant,a and have found that they can be very reasonable/resourceful if managed properly.

They took very good care of me with the 2014 .1 GT3 fire debacle and my car stuck at port for 7 months.

yojimbo007

Holly crap . ..7 months.. !?
and what fire debacle?

yojimbo007

Neanicu

Again.. very good insight.. thank you!

......and yup.....of course the car just sits there.. they dont claim its a complicated repair.. they just dont have the parts and when i ask why ...they suggest i contact Porsche US Headquarters as to why they dont stock parts locally at the dealer for a known problem !
Its Pretty screwed up.... they are simply screwing the customer over to help their inventory efficiency by not stocking parts locally!
My car should have been ready in one day had they stocked the parts... and we are taking about a freaking thermostat.. not an engine block.

They way i look at it.. they are ripping me off of money and use of my car for their gain.
If my car was leased( it is not .. but that makes no difference really) i would be paying around 3000$ a month for it....that is 100$ a day... that is approx 1400$ for two weeks that i pay( one way or another)....yet i get no use of my car ..
All this just for one occurrence... some have had 6-8 occurrences in their ownership duration.... just do the math.

And all of this is strictly imposed on me by Porsche , by them not stocking parts at their dealership for a know problem!

They are saving at my expense!

That is not what i expected of Porsche Customer service.. ( Kia offers better).
They did not even offer me a loaner.. any loaner.. let alone something close to what my car is. Just offered an Uber ride.. which i gladly accepted thinking my car will be there for max a couple day.

Needless to say im pissed a bit.. and Porsche USA will be hearing from me.. to what avail i dont know.. but im defintly not going let this go by without trying my best to address my concerns.

This has definitely tarnished Porsches reputation and value for me!.


As for not going to Porsche for repairs.. I'm with you.....but this is all warranty work.. my car is 2019 with 6k miles.. i have to take it to Porsche as far as i know.. i doubt any independents will take on warranty work .. will they?.

neanicu

You definitely have to go to the dealer for warranty work! If you went somewhere else you would have to pay from your own pocket for parts and labor.
I wasn't making a point that you should go somewhere else in this case,I was just painting a general picture so that everyone realizes what it actually means when they think " taking it to the dealer because they know best "... And this point is valid with all dealers that carry the manufacturer's name,not only Porsche.

As to what it's happening with some parts,in this case the thermostat : just as an example,I was trying to help a friend with a relatively new BMW 750...for some reason the front right air strut fails on those cars...on a lot of them. Apparently the part is out of stock all over America with no clear date when it will become available. My friend has been out of the car for 2 months because the damn dealer can't get an air strut! And so are many dealers across the US. I suspect what it's happening is that BMW has had enough with customer complaints and the air strut supplier,so they completely dropped them to use another supplier or asked for a redesign. And of course that takes time! And who are the only ones paying for their failures? Well the customers of course...
Back to the point : I'm wondering if Porsche perhaps doesn't experience something similar with the thermostat parts supplier... If you go back in the thread,SanDiegoDavid explained that the thermostat has been redesigned,but he couldn't offer any details about a part number or pictures of the new part. Perhaps that is why Porsche doesn't stock the part anymore : if a part is anywhere in their storage facilities across the US,they can have it at any dealership within 24 hours,definitely not 2 weeks...

ipse dixit

People should just relax.

It's a freaking thermostat.

Life is not going to end.

It's going to get fixed.

Life's too short.

Move on.

bigkraig

normally its pretty easy to get parts in socal, they have the warehouse/distribution center over in Ontario. I've toured it a couple of times

yojimbo007

Its not the thermostat my friend.. it is the recurring nature of the problem.. and the inconvenience of taking the car to service and being out of a car for a week or two on each occurrence.
Nothing relaxing about that....
and you are absolutely right.. life is too short ... hence i want to maximize my drive time.. not have the car sit at the dealer‘s service shop all the time.