straka

I was alarmed to find out Porsche’s policy in not replacing under warranty the fan for heating and ventilation on our 991 cars. This also is the policy for 981/982 Boxters and Caymans. This policy applies if your car is under warranty or a CPO warranty.

My experience:

I have a 2017 991 Carrera S coupe, under CPO warranty. Returning home recently on a cool dense foggy night my ventilation fan stopped working completely. The inside of the windshield fogged up so badly that the only way I could see the road and traffic was by wiping down the inside of the windshield with a jacket I had in the car, while steering with my other hand. This resulted in a smeared vision of the already fog obscured road in front of me and the window immediately fogging up again. Lowering the side windows made matters worse.I was on a 20 mile long heavily traveled causeway bridge with some cars still speeding through the fog. I would have been much safer in these conditions had the fan not failed and I had to only contend with the vision obstruction of the road fog. The next morning after these weather conditions cleared the fan still didn’t work. I temporarily got the fan to work using a method listed here on Rennlist – open up the airbox under the front hood and the fan blade cage is visible. Turn it by hand several times, freeing up the fan. This worked for two days until the same thing happened again under normal weather conditions. I repeated the above temporary fix a second time and the fan started working again. I brought it to my dealer service Dept. expecting the fan (and fan voltage regulator) to be replaced. They informed me there is a Porsche service bulletin on this fan problem. I read the bulletin published1/08/2021 8530N0. It states that the fan is not to be replaced under warranty but serviced in the manner I described above to restore operation! Even after several failures! I am now driving a car that can be very unsafe in cool foggy conditions, not knowing when the next failure will occur! Looking further into this issue I found that because of frequent failures of these fan motors Porsche will not pay the cost of warranty replacement. The problem is that the motor is poorly designed in such a manner that in humid conditions condensation forms on the motor brushes, causing corrosion making the fan inoperable. Porsche says that a new replacement fan will experience the same problem, therefore no warranty fan replacement. This is a very reckless decision by Porsche that could result in collision and death! If it wasn’t for me reading this service bulletin I wouldn’t have believed Porsche would make such a decision. I wonder where I’ll be driving when the fan fails again? The parts alone fan + regulator are very expensive. I believe the cost is +$1000. The ventilation fan in my 20 year old pickup truck with over 100,000 miles has never failed to work.

PHLY991

There are a ton of fan brushes and fans for sale on the inter webs, I’d be surprised if someone has not come up with a hack that is far superior to the Porsche design flawed fan.

That being said, I totally feel for you since my defroster stoped working one morning and I drove to work with windows fogging every munute due to the changeover valve failure problem. I bought a few replacements from SunCoast and replaced them, and all is good again.

bb964

File a complaint with NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION. It's a long shot, but if this is a common safety issue, they might force a recall.

CSK 911 C4S

I'd like to see that exclusion in writing.

Heating and AC is included under their warranty guidelines even for CPO cars.

It states:

This limited warranty covers all parts of the following components:

• Engine
• Fuel / Cooling system
• Power train / Transmission
• Suspension / Steering
• Brake system
• Heating / Air condition
• Electrical Systems
• Body
• Comfort Electronics

straka

Not for the heating/ventilation fan. The bulletin above states it clearly. My dealer showed me the bulletin explaining why they couldn't replace the fan motor with a new one under warranty.

subwoofer

That is quite terrible and dangerous. I would just fork over the 1k and get a new fan and motor and hope that it lasts a few years.

WP0

So, in my opinion, which PCNA doesn't care about, yes it should be replaced as part of the AC/heating unit. If they simply made a rule saying that they didn't have to replace it, to save them warranty expenses, that's not acceptable. You could file a claim with CAP Motors if you want to spend the time to do so, or just cough up the money yourself.
Basically, the PCNA CPO warranty has become like a bad HMO, where they deny every claim, and tell you to die of cancer. . .

Jim M.

The fan in my car is starting to act up. Horrible squeal while driving, but not all the time. My 2012 C2S did the same thing and was still doing it when I traded it in. But, at least it kept running, even if noisey.

Porsche_nuts

You life and the life of other is worth more than $1,000+. Get it fixed.

Then get a lawyer to sue Porsche's greed shortsightedness.

straka

I could replace the fan with another, but what I found out is the replacement fan will most likely fail in the same manner as the original under these weather conditions. It's the poor fan design. To my knowledge Porsche has not redesigned a new fan to replace the poorly designed original. The failure risk is still there with the replacement fan. They don't want to keep replacing fans that continue to fail at their expense. My experience was a night weather condition, cool and humid, with a high dew point in the 40-50F range, high humidity 80-90%, allowing fog to form. Porsche says the condition for failure is high humidity. The car sat for about three hours for the problem to develop (the weather system to move in.) Prior to that it was working fine.

NF4710

Get it fixed, enjoy your car, and next time go to a different brand. We need to vote with our dollars or else Porsche/VW will continue this abysmal customer support.

NF