Houston_991

I am new to this forum, but not new to Porsche. The 991S I bought in February is my 5th and last Porsche. 4 repair attempts by the dealer - Porsche West Houston - who have treated me extremely badly. Now attempting to get my money back under the lemon law. Porsche say the car is now fixed, but I have no confidence. Very sad to be in this situation. Porsche Cars North America are not cooperative and are forcing me to go to arbitration. Very unhappy with the whole experience and will stick to trading stocks and driving a VW in future.

bspears

Details?

GSIRM3

You're driving a VW now.

DrJay

D'OH!

Houston_991

I posted this with additional details as a reply to another post: I have had multiple problems and 4 repair attempts with quality problems affecting the suspension, lights / front control unit, glovebox and an incorrectly repaired fuel line (recall repair) on my 991 CS bought in February 2012.

The car I bought has keyless entry and the trunk opens when I wash the car with a hose. Unclear if it opens in the rain when driving and I refuse to drive it now having had so many problems with it. The dealer (Porsche West Houston) were horrible which is quite surprising since I bought 5 cars from them. Sonic provided no recourse. I have always been a loyal customer and very polite to this dealer; apparently this means little to them.

Trying to get PCNA to buy back but they are being extremely uncooperative and trying to drag out the process for as long as possible. Not impressed and now planning to get rid of this car one way or another (I bought a VW!).

4 repair attempts is within the allowable for the Texas Lemon Law and apparently PCNA will only do the very bare minimum as required by law and this does not include buying the car back since they say it is now successfully repaired, but I have now have no confidence in this early production vehicle. Will not buy another Porsche. Congratulations Porsche on punishing your customers for your poor quality control!

carcommander

Mine has been flawless. Sorry your experience is different. I had the fuel line problem. They fixed it and I have had no further issues. Hood does not open in the rain.

Houston_991

Flawless is definitely the way things should be for close to $120k. They tell me that the sensor for the trunk is disabled when the ignition is on, which may well be the case. The trunk does open faithfully every time I wash the car though, even if the only thing coming into contact with the car is water. This is the least of my concerns however - some of the other faults I have experienced could have safety implications.

I was a little naive in thinking that a new model Porsche would not suffer from the same early production life issues that other car manufacturers contend with and even more naive to think that the dealer and PCNA would "do the right thing" and buy back the car, or change it for another. If nothing else, I am cured of buying expensive cars for a while!

SSST

I can understand the frustration. Every manufacturer makes a lemon from time to time. 10 years ago we got my wife a new LX470. Lexus had an excellent reputation for quality and service, but this thing spend 4 of it's first 9 months in the shop with electrical gremlins and paint problems. The most bizarre thing was you'd be driving it and all of a sudden the steering wheel, seats, and mirrors would just start moving randomly on their own.

Lexus finally bought it back after I filed a formal compaint with the AG under the Texas Lemon law.

My wife won't even consider another Lexus even though many of her friends have them with -0- problems.

Sorry you got a bad one. Hope you get your money back.

BTW. My DD is a VW. Great cars for the money.

LastMezger

I believe there is a proximity feature (new feature so you don't have to press the trunk button on the fob) for the front trunk release. Is the key in your pocket when washing the car?

Houston_991

Yes there is a proximity sensor.

I won't leave the key in the car when I wash it in case someone jumps in and steals the car (the car will start even if the key is just in the glove box and the dummy key looks just like the real thing). I don't think the insurance company would pay up in these circumstances, so this is not a risk I will take, even though the dealer said that would solve the problem. This is essentially just an annoying side effect of a very clever design feature, but not one I am very happy about. I also have no way of knowing that this feature really does switch off when the ignition is on and do not want to find out on the highway in the rain that the trunk indeed does open. But again this is the least of my worries.

Early production life failures are statistically more likely, as are end of product life failures - the classic reliability bath tub curve. This is not really news. What is disappointing is that PCNA do not acknowledge that a car with multiple problems is not their best work and do the decent thing towards their customer. It's a shame that they cause a customer to drive a rental car for 3+ weeks and waste lots of time writing multiple letters and making phone calls, not to mention the patronizing and unhelpful attitude of the dealer. Buying a car like this should be a pleasure, not a battle that causes lost sleep and a large financial hit.

aamersa

Wow! Really surprised to hear about your lexus story because toyota and lexus are the most trouble free brands out there.

To OP, my car was built in Dec and I got it in Feb, and it was in the shop 16 days when I took it in for recall (fuel line). It failed to accept software updates and as a result the steering control unit was replaced which took forever to arrive from Germany. Before taking it for recall, the car was perfectly ok, making me wonder why I even took it in, and since then it has been fine, but to be noted is that I believe I have a tighter steering now since the shop visit.
We get almost no rain here, so I can't say if it would open the trunk.
The jury is out in my case, but if I am to get another porsche it would have to be the turbo. I am also tempted by the the 458 but will have to convince myself to stretch that far financially.

n2cars

Sorry to hear you are having problems with the new car. I'm surprised the dealer isn't being more helpful. I've had lemons from Ferrari, Porsche, and Toyota. The Ferrari and Porsche dealers bought the cars back. I had to takeToyota through the entire Lemon Law process before they finally settled. If you think you have a case then follow it to the end. It's not uncommon for car manufactures to buy back a car. Years back, BMW bought back a couple hundred 7 Series because the MMI caused too many electrical problems.

neanicu

Sorry to hear about your experience.
Even though I see the trunk sensor thing is a big issue for you,I would be interested to hear more about the other problems you're having. Is it possible to elaborate about your suspension,lights,front control unit and about what has not been fixed properly with the recall? You made me curious since you're thinking about the Lemon Law,I guess the problems are serious...
Thank you.

DrJay

I had the same thought and was just coming to post it. Here is my idea for a solution. Park the car in the driveway, get out, bring the keys inside the house, go wash it and see if the frunk opens. If it doesn't, you just solved your problem. If it does, it is something else.

Houston_991

Taking the key out of range of the front sensor absolutely does stop the trunk opening when the car is being washed. I do not know what the precise range of operation of the proximity sensor is, but I have tried experiments where I got as far away from the car as possible with the water hose and I would say the range is over 1m, perhaps 1.5m. Having the key in the interior (say the glove box) is potentially within this range, or very close to it.

I won't regurgitate everything I put in the letter to PCNA, but here is a brief summary of the issues on this 991: The day running LED lights were switching on and off by themselves when the car was locked and nobody was in the car. This is presumably a drain on power and certainly made my building security guard wonder about whether he was losing his mind. I was never able to establish what was happening with the lights when I was driving the car, but this could potentially be hazardous if the lights are blinking on and off and, for example, someone thought I was signaling for them to pull out in front of me. As far as I know, this only affected the day running lights. The dealer ran diagnostics and there was no fault reported on the computer. They were able to see the lights going on and off by themselves when the car was in the workshop so agreed there was a problem. They ordered a new front end control unit from Germany. The installation of this required them to recalibrate the steering settings (including the end-stop if I remember correctly) and various other functions controlled by the same unit.

I thought there was a noise coming from the dashboard and assumed there was just some loose plastic. The dealer spent hours diagnosing it and found the top of the front left strut was working itself loose due to a faulty bearing and/or nut. I am not really clear on how serious this was or what the consequences could have been, however, I do not like the idea of the front suspension working itself loose when driving.

The glove box required to be replaced as it was loose. This is not really a huge issue, but a bit aggravating to hear a continuous rattle. I just wished that I had not sold my 997.2 convertible which was beautifully rattle free! Anyway, the dealer ordered a new one and Germany sent the wrong color. They ordered a replacement in the right color but this was on back order in Germany and took around 4 weeks to arrive. I told myself to be patient and soon I would have wonderful car to drive which would be perfect.

Then there was the fuel line recall. When I got the car back from this repair it was immediately evident that there was a very loud and loose sounding rattle coming from the back. The dealer cheerfully told me the fuel line was probably just rattling and they would fix it when the glove box came in during the following few weeks. I was alarmed by this and hired a rental car the next day. This was addressed some 6 weeks later when PCNA did an inspection of the car and the master service technician advised that probably someone dislodged the rear parcel shelf when the tint was being installed. This theory was completely inaccurate since I had the car tinted and the clear bra installed on the second day I owned the car and there was no such sound from the back of the car. It seems instead that probably somewhere during the repair of this fuel line someone loosened a panel, perhaps the rear parcel shelf, although I am not sure if this is really accurate since the dealer and PCNA seem somewhat on the defense. So I am unclear if this was a safety issue, but in my opinion, definitely stemmed from the dealer botching the fuel line repair.

Also, the Bose speakers rattle a lot when the volume is raised. The dealer and PCNA tried to say this is normal, but I have owned 5 Porsches including a Cayenne GTS and 997.2, and as far as I am concerned this is not normal and very disappointing. In addition, there is a wind noise from the drivers door window seal. This was not evident on my 997.2 cab. PCNA said this was normal also when compared against other 991s. In this case I will not buy another 991. Thank you.

I talked to the dealer about all this and they offered me a miserable trade-in value, 3 weeks after I bought the car, to change for another 991. I then filled in the online customer satisfaction survey and detailed all the issues I had experience, including what I thought was very poor customer service from the dealer in addressing these issues. The next day the salesman from whom I had purchased 5 Porsches, called me to say that I had pissed off everyone at Porsche West Houston and that I should not expect any more help from the dealer. He then proceeded to spend 40 minutes on the phone patronizing me about how all cars depreciate and there was nothing they could do.

At this point my horns had grown in nicely and I decided the Lemon Law might offer some protection. This process is arduous and slow however and PCNA have so far declined to buy back the car since it was ostensibly repaired after the 4th attempt. I refuse to drive it to see what other problems there might be and would really just prefer to have the memory of all this deleted from my otherwise happy Porsche owning experience. But PCNA do not seem willing to facilitate that.