JJB236

My 01 Carrera was at a Porsche dealer for a week for warranty item repair work - clunking noise from the front wheels when driving over a bump, etc. They kept the car for 5 days, then put 100+ miles on the car. It started with one problem, then the service advisor called back in 1 day to say the car was overheating. After that was done, service advisor called again on the day of the pick up and told me they found additional problems on the car. THEN, she asked if she or the service manager could drive the car home to test drive it. Since it was a dealer, I agreed to it.

I finally got my car back, and they did about 5 pages of warranty work. The car feels a lot tighter now, but I'm still uncomfortable with the 100+ miles on the car. I even called the Porsche corporate office, and half the people said they never heard of a dealer taking customers' cars home, then the other half said that it could happen since the car needs to be tested for an extended period of time such as while being in traffic, high RPM, etc.

Anyone experience this?

Riad

Take the car home????

You're ****ting me right? 100 miles is ridiculous, I would make a stink about it, see what they say when you tell them you're going to talk to PCNA to see if thats 'normal'.

mc_renn

I never heard of a dealer taking the car home...that's a little weird.
But if I was in your shoes I would be glad that they took the effort to spend some time on the car sorting her out, rather than just picking up the car after the intial work and then finding out it's overheating and bringing it back and so forth.
Which dealer did you take it to?

AudiOn19s

I worked for a dealer for some time and it's not completely unherd of that a dealer would drive a car for extended mileage to try to track down problems...but it was only done at the customers request....generally this came after us not being able to find the problem they complained of such as issues when sitting in traffic for extended periods etc.

We never took them home though...just for extended drives durin the day.

Andy

Chris Prack

Is the car fixed? If so who cares about the mileage? It's a 996 not a low mileage collectable so what difference does it make?

I have worked as a tech at a dealer and have driven several cars home and back including a 1k mile GT3. Not that big of a deal.

Why spend the effort to complain about it. It's fixed.

washington dc porsche

It's weird but if it seems to be working fine then I wouldn't worry about it. It's not like they are going to give you the miles back.

evansaero

I have heard of it.

My dealer does it.

Russ Murphy

5 days @ 20 miles a day = 100 miles

WCE

My dealer kept my car overnight on one occasion. Picked it up the next day and noticed the gas gauge read EMPTY which was strange since I knew the car had about 3/4 tank when I dropped it off, wasn't sure about the mileage however. I immediately brought the car back and questioned them about it, and of course they didn't admit any excessive use of the car. I drove to a gas station to fill up and it only took a little over half a tank! This is indicative of running the tank empty and filling it up partially (tried to cover their tracks?), as sometimes the gauge doesn't register the partial fillups.
Not sure exactly what went down, but the moral to the story: Make sure you note the mileage!

99firehawk

the in and out milage is on your repair order. ive driven custoemrs cars home before at their aproval to look for intermitent problems

slaaw

I'm curious as to which dealer was it?

JJB236

It was the new Porsche dealer in Downtown L.A. I talked to the manager about this already, on the day I got my car back. He said very casually that he's the who drove it home for test driving. The dealer had other newer 911's, C4S, and Turbo's, and so they had a pick of their choic if they wanted to take any car home. If they went for a joyride, they probably found the reason to take mine since they knew the car needed to stay at the dealer for a few days.

Also, McKenna Porsche body shop put on about 100+ miles on the car after they did $5,000 worth of front bodywork. That time, the bodyshop foreman said he needed to drive long miles and had to take it home "to look at the car closely under a bright light in his garage." In reply, I told him why the body shop doesn't have those bright light to inspect cars. I let him drive it, and so far no problems with the car, and they did good body work.

nick49

Relax, they had your permission. In LA it's not uncommon to drive 40 miles or more to work each way.

djantlive

My dealer puts about 25-50 mi per day trying to fix rattles etc. I doubt it's really warranted but it's 100 mi is nothing for 5 days. Noises needs to fixed one at a time.

JJB236

Dude, I know I gave permission. I am asking people here if anyone else had similar experience.

By the way, taking customer's car home was the issue at hand, not the commuting miles.