ctNoah

The reservoir that holds the hydraulic fluid for PSM broke and fluid started a fire in engine compartment. Anyone else have this problem? Thoughts on length of repair? Service advisor says should be fixed in a couple of weeks ... but I'm a little skeptical.

detansinn

PSM? I thought that Porsche Stability Management was software, ie. no hydraulic fluid involved. Power steering is electric in these cars. So, I presume that it was a reservoir for something else.

jlegelis

Sounds recall-worthy… NHTSA takes a very dim view of defects that can cause car fires.

Curious how you detected it and extinguished it before the entire car went up in flames. Presume you were driving?

ctNoah

the chassis control system, maybe a different acronym

ctNoah

was driving - smelled something like burning wires as I was driving home, pulled into an empty part of my street about 5 minutes later and saw smoke,then saw flames under the cooling fans.

then I waited, thankfully went out. wouldn’t start the next morning and had it towed

Zhao

length of repair? It's a like total loss if you put that through insurance or they consult a body shop. Fire + insurance usually turns into that, especially if it goes to a certified shop.

Heat from fire changes the metal. That metal potentially affected will be deemed not repairable. Likely the metal damaged on that car due to it's location is either replaced with the entire back end or not sold by Porsche so it will be deemed not repairable by a certified shop. Regardless if it is repairable or not, insurance will often deem a fire damaged vehicle an instant total loss, at least where I am. I've seen vehicles written off for very minor fires, even once where there is no way it affected anything structural (meth head threw gas on the hood and lit a match).

4carl

do you have anything extra wired in the car?

detansinn

We had a Volvo V40 that experienced two separate engine compartment fire events related to wiring. The first one was resolved as a warranty repair. When it caught fire the second time, it was less than a mile from the dealer. I drove it to the dealer with smoke billowing from under the hood. Theatrical, yes, but I made my point. The dealer did a buyback/trade and put us into an XC70.

PDCC reservoir failures aren’t a common thing. The reservoir itself is also regularly replaced with mileage/age for some Porsche models (I am not sure about the 992), but doubtful that that you’ve hit either with your car.

It feels like some detail is missing here, but if your dealer knows the scope and resolution, presumably this is a warranty repair for you as well. Hope that it goes better than our Volvo of years ago.

jlegelis

@ctNoah would you clarify which reservoir failed? You said PSM but did you mean PDCC (if your car is optioned with that)?

ipse dixit

Did you just recently have an oil change perhaps?

CanAutM3

The PSM uses the brakes to alter the attitude of the car, there is indeed an ABS/PSM module that converts the “electronic signal” into hydraulic pressure. Brake fluid fire is a pretty rare thing though and would unlikely occur in engine compartment on a rear engined car.

Cst

keep us updated....i smell an electrical burning smell in my garage everytime i come back from a drive...

lmmo

Probably brakes smell? Hard to be every time an electrical burning...

Staff@WORLD

The only hydraulic fluid in the car is in cars optioned with PDCC. I did not option this is my turbo because I did not want to add a hydraulic pump to my engine.

Sorry to hear about the failure. I hope you get your car back soon and I hope the fire was not to bad.

lone992

Probably not associated with the OP's issue, but doesn't a front axle lift optioned system in a 992 have a hydraulic element about it?