Ira Zoot

This is pretty close to what I heard from people I spoke too. These PDK's rarely failed and all of these guys had 10+ years in the business confirmed this. They had seen either zero or 1 in all those years. Seems the only time issues are more frequent is when the cars are being tracked or very high milage. Which in my case neither is a fit ... 42k miles driven with respect and since I'm out in an area where all the villages and townships etc have their "revenue programs" it's rare I can even drive the car as it was intended to be driven and it's never been tracked.

The above leads me to believe that it just happens to defective in build most PDKs don't have. Not bashing Porsche about this ... **** happens ... but when this kind of **** happens they need to stand behind their products and address them. Not just put in place a policy where the owner is never given the fair opportunity to even know what went wrong. They are just told to kick out almost $20k for some thing that could have been a production issue and not due to anything the customer did. I hope I can find out either way,

Doug H

Man, I get it. Doesn't matter if 5,000 have failed or just one has failed if your's is the one that failed. I feel for you and one would hope they would at least kick in 1/2, but it certainly helps if the dealer goes to bat for you nd the service manager from the dealer has a good relationship with the factory guy.

Ira Zoot

Thanks ... I feel pretty good about the service manager at this dealership. Once this whole thing gets untwisted I'll share the dealership name. Honestly ... I just want to get back to be able to drive the car this summer ... time flies so fast and it's warehoused later part of fall and winter so it goes fast.

Bruce In Philly

I think a big question is which fails more (out of warranty), an engine or PDK? What if an engine fails out of warrenty KBoom.... Kinda the same thing no? If the PDK failure rate is lower than an engine, well I can see Porsche's ambivalence to repair vs replace. I suspect dealers would have to have special tooling and training that they would rarely use (maybe a dealership could train a hit squad to fly out to dealerships?).

Regarding what to expect from a $100K car, I can tell you from being around Ferrari owners.... at least they don't expect much. Those cars are built out of paper and incredibly failure prone. However Porsche reputation was for a daily driver and being "bullet proof". I don't feel sorry for a Ferrari owner... at least they should know about what they are getting into with just a smattering of research.

I would never buy a PDK once I read they were not serviceable..... something I feel is not proper for Porsche. But.... it is what it is. When the M96/97 engines were blowing back in the early 2000s, I immediatly thought of a young person who was stretching to buy a used one..... they were (are) facing an unreasonable risk. (My opinion of course... but I had two engine failures in my 2000 Boxster S ... so ... well .....) Remember the Top Gear segment where they drove depreciated super cars and were wowed with the value? They concluded that they still were not good deals because you would still be servicing an expensive super car.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Doug H

Without a doubt, Porsche are the best, most reliable, high performance sport car that can be used as a daily driver.

Ferrari's, however, get a bad rap from those who over extend to try and purchase one or from those who have never owned one and pass around internet horror stories.

I have had a 355, 360, 360 CS, 430, 458 and 2 Challenge cars. The street cars, including the CS, were all very solid cars. Services on the 355 and 360 were pretty wicked. I drove all of mine a fair amount as I have no true garage queens.

iflat6

Hello guys. As I was mentioning few days ago my 997.2 gave issues on PDK, related to hydraulics apparently since issue is not happening in manual mode. I'll check with ZF services first if they can make me the favor to investigate further (they have deeper investigation tools) and then will probably go for a change of the mecatronic module (which is around 2k€ for the unit only). In any case my point is that most of the issues can be related to this transmission valve unit which is fortunately available from Porsche.

ADias

This makes sense.

Blu311

Just curious, but I think all newer pcars have the PDK now (Panny, Cayenne, Macan, etc.). With all the PDK cars on the road now and with the miles piling up on many of these cars I'm shocked Porsche hasn't established a cheaper way to fix the PDK. Very few people would want to own a Panamera or Porsche SUV out of warranty if they realized a new tranny was almost $20k!

Just saying.

Iceter

Owning any German car outside of warranty is foolish unless you have the financial wherewithal to self-insure.

The best illustration of this is the flat value of 928s. Awesome cars, but their market value is low because fixing anything on them is outrageously expensive.

Ira Zoot

I don't think you're wrong. At the very least maybe offer an extended warranty on just the PDK .... if it's as bulletproof as they keep saying then it will rarely get used and if it does they would have happy customers. Good business ... easy solution

porscheralph

Interesting comment about the 928 - in the few months I have seen the value of these start to increase at auctions.

3Series

Look at the value of the last gen Cayenne Turbo. That was prob a $150k in 2017 $.

Jay Leno had a PDK in his garage that I think was torn down. I'm crossing my fingers hoping some "fixes" start to trickle out. It's been long enough.

Doug H

Doesn't Cayenne still use Tiptronic?

fc3

As a fellow owner of a used 997.2 with PDK, my sympathies are with the OP. But if there is any truth to the anecdotes from experienced Porsche service depts having long term experience of 0-1 PDK failures, or even failures in the low single digits, I can see some logic in the policy of replace rather than repair. Like anything, I'm sure there is a learning curve to mastering repairing a PDK transmission, as well as the need for ongoing practice to maintain some degree of proficiency. It sounds like there may not be enough demand for individual dealerships or indy shops to develop this skill, even if it were allowed.

Blu311

Yes, a little internet research tells me that 911-Cayman-Boxster-2009+ are PDK, and the Macan and Panamera are PDK, but the Cayenne is a tiptronic because it is rated a lot higher for towing than the PDK.

With the PDK being 8+ years old now, and with it being in so many cars, I would think this would eventually catch up to Porsche in a bad way unless the failure rate is really low. I'm assuming its low, but I've read about enough replacements online (some under warranty, some not) that I'd be a bit scared to own a PDK out of warranty. Hopefully it becomes easier and cheaper to repair or replace these transmissions.

I really feel for the guy/gal that spends $50k on a used PDK car and a year later ends up with a bill for an $18,000 transmission. I imagine PDK cars wont hold their value well long term unless there is a cheaper fix.

Given the market is still strong for PDK cars out of warranty, I'm probably just a paranoid rennlister.