rickdogg82

Any word if new or refurbed PDKs are improved or is the risk of failure the same?
If the PDK fails again which warranty covers it? And what about the half year gap where the PDK warranty expires but the CarMax warranty has not yet expired?

DC911S

Dartmouth

After reading the pdk breakdowns and how much they cost to repair, I am thinking that there should be a time to sell.
I'm not able to afford a $14,000 pdk replacement and my 09 4S Cab has 72K miles. I too drive it in manual and sport as standard auto has it's drawbacks and specifically the quick pdk upshifts that have you in 7th gear doing 35 mph. Not a great gear to be in at that speed. That in itself has me downshifting to 4th in the automatic mode. Then up it goes again to 7th gear doing 35 or 40mph. Long and short of it is that I have to consider how long I keep it and roll the dice on the pdk continueing to be a good working transmission.

caitov

I'm sure we'll see lots of PDK's with a 100k miles on them. On the flip side, you'll see a few instances like mine that had to be replaced at 11k miles.
I've spoken to people both inside Porsche (who have no reason to lie to me), as well as very respected independent P shops, and personally I've reached the conclusion these are very reliable units. As mentioned above, there's also a lot of people racing PDKs as well, with great reliability.

Yes, they are expensive when they do go bad, but I'm comfortable enough with their reliability that I'm not going to be losing any sleep over it.

sandwedge

Who knows. They all have all the electronic components that seem to be the reason for most if not all failures. I've been stranded with both PDK cars I've owned due to "Emergency transmission run" or whatever that warning says. The -09 C4S incident resulted in replacement and the recent incident in the -11 GTS was somehow fixed by the dealership. Was told that the PDK for whatever reason went into "limp mode" which they were able to reset without taking anything apart. All has been good since (about two moths ago).

alexb76

PDK failure cost is significant, it's pretty wise to have won with some large deductible (costs less), in case it fails.

alexb76

That's what PISSES ME OFF, why the heck they've designed the PDK to be a fully sealed, so a $10 temp sensor failure could make a whole transmission fail, requiring replacement! Pretty dumb IMO, but then again Porsche only cares about the first 4yrs of warranty, and not long term repair-ability of their parts!

As long as PDK architecture remains the same, with no access to change a sensor, or service it, it will be prone to failures and super costly in the long run!

sandwedge

Sums it up nicely. When the PDK in my -09 C4S had to be replaced. the fault code they pulled pointed to an electronic component but not which one. Wouldn't have mattered since they're not allowed to open it up anyway. My service advisor said almost word for word what you said above. "Could be a $10 or $20 component but we can't get to it so it's a $14,000 replacement instead". Mine was covered by warranty but a lot of PDK cars are out there with no warranty at this point. Wonder how many of them are aware of this nonsense.

ADias

To the OP:

1 - What did the dealer say was the problem?

​​​​​​​2 - Dealers have records... did the previous owner do the required PDK service?