aron in toronto

Our local dealer had a CPO car listed several years ago that had previously belonged to a rennlist member. The car's history was well documented here as it had been stolen along with his Cayanne from his garage. When the thieves realized the car had a tracking device installed they abandon it in a parking lot, but not before trashing it. The car needed a full repaint, and IIRC most of the interior replaced or repaired. The owner didn't want the car back after this incident and it ended up back on the dealer's lot. No mention of this in the dealers add for the car, or any explanation of how it could still be CPO'd with all the work done to it.

I 'm sure the quality of CPO inspections vary greatly from dealer to dealer.
Gasspasser19, its a shame that your selling dealer passed this car with out bringing it up to the standards required by the CPO process.

EB847

Go over the head of your dealer. Call germany if you have to. Porsche execs go to each dealer annually for inspection and have the highest standards. I doubt they will be happy to hear about a customer in their biggest market (USA) getting the runaround on a car they CPO'd.

I had my dealer try and screw me on an issue they promised to fix in the sales contract. A call to the owner of the dealership coupled with the threat of getting my attorney involved did the trick. The sales manager wanted none of that.

salayc

When I worked corporate, I got letters on my desk from the president or CEO with instructions to do whatever was necessary to "take care of it." I realized after a while that the CEO or Pres never saw the letter, it was just passed on to someone who took it seriously because it was from the desk of the President or CEO.

Any time I have had a serious grievance, I have written to the top and cc'ed customer service and anyone involved by name. I am batting near 1000 with acceptable or better response.

Write to Wiedeking and cc PCNA, the dealer, and anyone involved by name. They will s@#t their pants and solve the problem.

JCortney

This is just an example of the power and the strength of a user group such as this one. I was number 1 on the list of a dealer here in Dallas for a Corvette ZR-1. Just before the time came to order the car, I was informed that they were going to sell it on Ebay. After trying to fix the situation I told everyone about it on the Corvette board. The owner of the dealership (he owns a few) got thousands of emails and faxes letting him know what was thought of his treatment of a customer. They folded within a few days and issued a public apology of the "mistake" the GM made.

My point is, if you can't get resolution quickly, let us know who the dealer is including their email address/fax number and watch the sparks fly.

Joe Cortney
04 C4S
Dallas, TX

SDP

I sympathize. I too was recently victimized by Porsche and its CPO nonsense. I my case the car was delivered with mismatched tires on the rear, hairclips and hair ribbons in the glove box and armrest, dust and dirt everywhere, what I think is a defective vacuum hose under the dash, and an engine that emits a fairly loud, probably value-related, ticking.

After returning the car to the dealership, they solved the tire issue and detailed the car. However, the annoying and pronounced "sucking" sound from the dash continues, as does the ticking. Also, when I pointed out some of these issues, the servic manager told me that, hey "it's a used car", and blamed the engine noise on my driving the car only on weekends. Evidently, a CPO'd Porsche is reduced to a "used car" once the check clears. To add insult to injury, I traded in a mint 911 with no value-train noise, no "sucking sound", and new (and matching) P-zeros for this thing!

If these problems are not fixed in the near future, I will join you in shouting the names of these dealerships from the rooftops. As have you, I have benefitted from my membership in Rennlist. I think we owe it to one another to warn of incompetent or uncaring service managers.

Jon996

I too am in a similar situation, but I don't think it is just CPO related. I think they are equally annoying to their customers under regular warranty too. The CPO just has a more specific list of covered items.

Gaspasser19

WOW. I'm surprised to hear how many other people are having similar bad experiences with Porsche dealers and CPO cars. It suggests that getting satisfaction might prove difficult. I haven't heard back from the PCNA rep this week. I'll be calling her again on Monday to see where we stand. Salayc, I'm assuming Wiedeking is the CEO of PAG? I think that contacting the highest authorities is a good idea. Maybe a cc to the Washington Post too, just to be inflammatory. Anybody have access to contact info for top PCNA or PAG execs. to save me a little research time? The dealership in question is owned by a famous racing name so maybe a letter there might help. I'm sure he wouldn't want the negative publicity. I'll have to see what I can find out this week. Thanks for all the input everyone. I love Rennlist!

SDP

I'm beginning to wonder if a group letter to Porsche would help--with copies to our respective dealerships and one posted on Rennlist.

As a high school student many summers ago, I flipped hamburgers at Jones Beach here in NY. I promised myself I'd never again have a job that required me to interact directly with the public. I never have. I point this out only to emphasize that our complaints need to be legitimate and our tone reasonable. That said, I think a CPO car with mismatched tires is unacceptable, and a service manager who considers it "used" rather that CPO'd unreasonable. Each deserves a response.

wrljet

Not relevant to this particular story, but I would avoid Rockville Porsche/Audi in Maryland. I had an absolutely awful CPO buying experience there. And the service dept. is terrible.

Bill

salayc

Wiedeking is the CEO. The corporate address is on www.porsche.com. In my experience, it's best not to do things like: cc a newspaper, threaten a lawsuit, etc. The technique that has worked for me is: explain how you love the product, explain the unexpected bad experience (use lots of names and dates) explain how this has dissapointed/angered/whatever you, and how you may not be a customer again. Explain what you think is a fair resolution. Polite works best, but definitely start at the top.

Gaspasser19

CRAP! I was just about to try them. Does anyone have a GOOD experience they'd like to share? I'm talking specifically about the Baltimore/DC area. There are no less than 6 Porsche dealers within an hour of me and I've heard bad things or experienced bad treatment from no less than four of them.

As an update on my car: The PCNA rep basically said they were sorry but I was on my own with the dealership. The dealership, in turn, is not returning my calls. It's going to be more hassle than it's worth but I'm going to start writing to anyone who will listen at PCNA, PAG, etc. As the title states, the offending dealership is Porsche of Tyson's Corner, VA Roger Penske's group owns this dealership so I'm also going to try to get something to the man himself, FWIW.

I don't really know what the moral of the story is here. I'd love to buy a 911 every 5 years or so until I'm too old to sit that low! I've always been a fan of buying a few years old rather than new to temper the depreciation a bit so the CPO idea was perfect for me(or so it seemed). Do I try to have CPO cars PPI'd in the future? Should I just accept that the only way to avoid this kind of thing is to just buy new? The service at Porsche dealers still sucks in my opinion. I've driven a lot of different cars and nothing else has scratched that itch the way this one does. I'm stuck....any suggestions?

Palting

Sorry to hear about all your troubles, and the apparent uphill road ahead to get them resolved.

You wanted to hear some good CPO stories. Ok, here's one. I got my C4S brand new, leased it through my own corp. End of the lease, I offered to buy it as a personal car. The dealership agreed, offered the CPO extended warrantee. They went over the car with a fine toothed comb, 3 page checklist. They gave me a copy of the checklist, signed by both the tech and the service GM. Over the next several years, got 3 cats (2 left, 1 right). IMS and the darn RMS (threw in a labor free clutch replacement), leaky oil filler tube, leaky cam cover, and another full 3 page checklist at the end of the 6 years. Ended March this year. Knock on wood, everything still looks good.

PCNA has a tendency to back up their dealership in everything unless it is patently obvious that it's the dealer's fault. OTOH, they will also readily pay for almost anything so long as the dealer says it's covered. To me, it sounds like this dealership did a poor job of PPI before they gave the CPO, and now they are covering their ***.

Receiver

This thread explains why I insisted on getting a PPI on a 19,000 mile CPO C4S over the dealer's strenuous objections. He wouldn't bring the car to my Indie of choice so I had to pay my guy to go to the dealership, beg for the use of tools and do the inspection. Even with the PPI, I ended up replacing a bad spring within 2 months and the coolant bottle last week. I'm still fighting over trying to get the bottle covered under warranty.

Keep bitching as far up as you can get. I'm sure that you'll get support from everyone on this forum.

wrljet

Interestingly, I had a good service experience there.

They replaced the climate control unit (LCD leaked), and did my RMS, without any trouble. The service adviser guy I got and the mechanic both were very nice and seemed to know what they were talking about.

I went to Tysons after having such bad luck with Rockville.

Bill

wrljet

It seems to me people are regularly getting ****-poor treatment from Porsche dealerships all over the place. And PCNA doesn't care. I wonder what'll happen as their sales go totally into the tank with the economy. Will the service get even worse? They'll be in the business of selling one car to a customer, pissing them off, and losing them to another brand.