Overheat
 

I was at the end of a 30 mile or so drive and sitting in a little traffic in my '14 C2S with less than 6000 miles on it. Weather was probably in the 70s and I wasnt driving all that hard. All of the sudden a warning pops up that the engine is too hot and I need to park the car. The water temp was pegged at 250. Parked the car and called a tow at the dealers suggestion. Started it a half hour later and still at 250. After another half hour it was back in the middle. Dealer is saying "seems fine now, but we will replace the thermostat to be safe.". Kind of worrisome given how hot it seemed. Anyone else have a similar issue?

Sounds like a typical thermostat-failure; way more common in the 'old' days when the procedure to deal with this was to remove thermostat and then drive a screwdriver through the valve........

I would ask them to do more checking than just having the thermostat replaced. It amazes me that your dealer could not have given you a more advanced diagnosis. The "seems fine now, but we will replace the thermostat just in case" could have been told to you by any backyard mechanic. I wonder why they could not have read some error codes off of your car's computer.

I did push back. They said there were no codes thrown. I basically asked the SA to document that they inspected the entire cooling system and found absolutely no issues and then got the response that they would keep it over the weekend. Starting to think its time for a new dealer

I was at a track yesterday in 80 degree weather driving as hard as I could and my water temp went to 275 without triggering any warning or lights.

Agreed.
Probably oil temp that went to 275. Typical is for the water temp to reach 194 and stay there, regardless. I've seen 260s for oil temps often on the track, and the water temp never exceeds 194. Makes you wonder whether 194 is just a faux stop-figure on the electronic gauge.

It is, and is documented as such.

You can search for my recent thread where my serpentine belt broke, and it REALLY got hot since the water pump had quit pumping. It got to 250 on both the analog and digital gauges within a couple of minutes. Stopped immediately on that warning.
My dealer replaced that, a week later the car puked out a a bit more coolant. They kept the car longer that time, replaced the radiator cap, pressure tested the system, and decided they had overfilled it the first time. Sounds goofy, but several people confirmed in that thread that it's not only possible to do that, but not uncommon.
They also did a software update at the time and now "normal" temp is 194 instead of the 200 it was before.

Er, did you not read Noah's post? This cannot happen. Thermostat reads 194, period. It is documented as such.

You mean the gauge will never go higher than 194 degrees regardless of the actual temp?

Prior to my above mentioned incident, my digital and analog gauges always maxed out at 200 degrees, after the software upgrade, it's now 194.
However, when my car really did have a coolant failure, it DID read 250 on both digital and analog gauges before shutting down the car. When the Roadside Assistance arrived about an hour later, the car was restarted to drive onto the flatbed and it had cooled down to register around 100.
I think the 194 is an arbitrary number picked that probably covers a bit over that as well. If things really heat up beyond normal range, it will tell you that as well as a big red "Engine is too hot" notice.

Exactly. I'm not sure where the 'dead zone' that begins at 194F ends, but you will never see (e.g.) 205F or other figures similarly close to 194 on the high side. The only exception would be if your car's firmware version pegs it to some other temperature like 200.

Once it gets into China Syndrome territory it will begin reporting accurate temperatures once again.

What an insanely stupid (and confusing) thing for Porsche to do...

Not really...remember the threads in years back when there were interweb arguments whether water temp gauge on a particular Porsche model should be at 180 or 190 or 210 or 216 etc., and some would bring their cars in for " service " because somebody on the internet said their car ran at 190 on hot days but his ran at 210 , so " something must be wrong with my car " ?

I remember guys comparing whether their gauge needle was touching the left or center or right side of the "0" of the " 180 " and some fretting that they were on the right , LOL !

Porsche prob got sick of reimbursing in-warranty claims for " checked for cooling system problems ..none found ", so now the software just holds the gauge at 194 for that whole " normal " operating range , and everyone is happily " 194 " whether crawling in summer Las Vegas traffic with radiator fan spinning away or highway cruising in Northwest winter.

No, I don't remember any threads of that nature, not in Porsche forums or in any other car forums.

No accounting for stupidity, I guess. Still, I've never heard of this.

What's less German than a gauge that lies to you?

Its an abomination. They must see us as a nation of neurotic Woody Allen whiners. (A not altogether inaccurate observation now that I think of it.) Now I'm curious to know if this is just like the break-in BS- everybody else in the world sees the actual temp while we get cold, 194, hot- and if so, should I laugh, or cry?