3Series

Fisher Motorsports fixed your PDK? Or what did they fix?

There are a lot of good independents in the Chicago area. Many support club racing and they have a lot of experience tearing apart these cars. However, PDK is still "new" to them.

Most dedicated track cars I see are a typical manual or sequential dog type.

Austin997.2

Exactly why I don't want a Tesla/ electric car, that whole car will need to be replaced one day. Electronic part obsolescence will make it very difficult to fix a lot of the new techno cars in the future. We can see how difficult the PDK is to work with, which I have. A $.50 capacitor needs to be replaced?? That'll be $16,000 please.

oceancarrera

The game is played like this I believe (high end euro cars). Overpay for new car (loss). Trade in with warranty looming (loss). Next buyer pays for extended warranty,(minor loss).
Manufacturer over charges on parts in a sick perverted way to generally induce car crushing or second hand market dismantling (everyone still loosing). Manufacturer gets to sell more cars, GENIUS!!
When the dealer does warranty work, do you think an injector or coil pack really cost manufacture's the kind of money at listed price? NO WAY! They get it from the rest of the world, from China for almost nothing or they make them for themselves for WAY LOWER!
In conclusion they keep the cars going to the crusher, banging anyone caught without a warranty on parts, still forcing the aftermarket repair shops pay up on sickly overpriced parts.
Think about it. Who keeps Mercedes/BMW etc V12 cars from 10 years ago? You know they have no mileage.
But if you find one and need a AC unit....you know the rest.

DC911S

Jalopnik did a story about that some time ago....most high dollar old AMG, M, and others go to South America, Mexico, or Eastern Europe once they get to a certain age. They get scavenged to keep others running. The first PDK's have been out of warranty five years or more, and there is plenty of history that shows they are not fixed, but replaced and its a 16K or so bill. Anyone buying a car with PDK and no warranty should know this by now. I got my 09 last October and did my research about it and that why I went manual.

BoxCam

I'd go with a used unit. And remember the broken unit in your car has value so try to sell it when this is all done, check ebay to see if there is a market. call some porsche dismantlers and see what they say.

Be careful insisting on fixing, you may drop 5-10K only to find it didn't fix anything. And then you still have to shell out for a trans anyway. This happened so many times thats why the manufacturers now insist on replacement only.

Another tip to save a few bucks, ask one of the techs (off the record) if he would remove and replace it on his own time. You go buy the part, pay him cash to R&R, you could save a bunch on labor that way. I did that with a clutch job, there was a young tech, he did it in the shop after hours and it saved me a bundle.

This is a bummer, good luck.

sandwedge

A $.50 capacitor may be all that was needed for the PDK that failed on my -09 C4S. The dealer spent some time trying to pull fault codes for good clues but all they got was software related. Full replacement covered by extended warranty was the end result. Right around $14K as I recall it.

I knew the full history of that car and the failure was not abuse related. As has already been established, these things can crap out like the hard drive on your computer or the SIM card on your phone but the option to replace simple inexpensive parts is not one offered yet.

tom030

I had my PDK replaced under warranty (2009 C2S) in 2015. The replacement unit was shipped from Atlanta and had a serial # indicating that it was remanufactured and was noted on the vehicle history which I had to acknowledge. I was told at the time that it was probably a new tranny. The reason being that it was cheaper to just stock new transmissions than stock all the parts, train technicians etc. I was also told that the warranty would be what was left on the car at the time of replacement. I a/x this car as well as an ocassional track day with zero problems. The dealer noticed seapage around one of the trans bolts while in for some minor warrantee issues, advised me that they were ordering a replacement and gave me a Boxster to drive in the meantime. The car was under CPO warranty at the time. The $1400.00 nuber sounds familiar but I have never heard of anyone actually paying for replacement.
​​​​​​​~tom

iflat6

My PDK still randomly throw this "transmission emergency run" message, I couldn't find what triggers it although I noticed this is always during downshifting. When plugging the PIWI I hope in memory the error codes P17DA and P17D1 then P177B P1780 and P177F

Also the issue DOES NOT occur when I'm running the PDK in Manual mode, Im using the paddles and this is actually easy to drive too

so I'm wondering whether it would worth replacing the valve body first (around 2k)? Any idea from someone?

sandwedge

FWIW......mine threw the "transmission emergency run" message three times prior to failing. First two times it cleared itself by turning off and restarting the car. Third time was backing the car out of the garage in the morning. This time it couldn't be cleared despite a number of attempts. Flatbed to the dealer and replacement was next. Battery was only 2 months old btw.

Not suggesting that the transmission emergency run message necessarily means bad things are coming but that's how it all came down in my case.

Robocop305

I would try changing the battery first since is the cheapest test. I was having the same emergency run messages at least once a week. Changed the battery and problem solved. That was 3 years ago. Good luck.

iflat6

my battery is brand new that's not the issue. However I've been driving in manual mode the whole week and the error didn't come up, the gearbox is running perfectly in manual using paddles. As soon as I'm going to auto mode, then transmission error occurs after few minutes or hours very randomly. It really looks like an external sensor is failing, can it be the hydraulic control unit that is failing?

Anyone knows what are the sensors which are disabled in manual mode?

Ira Zoot

No ... I'm not buying a brand new car as the cost is prohibitive ... but I only buy 1-2 cars that are certified. Does this make me a less "loyal" customer?

What are you talking about? Dealers that have serviced the car are official Porsche dealers.

Obviously they will like someone who is able to pay full sticker + whatever extras. But a customer is a customer ... not everyone is capable of spending full sticker on a car and who work hard to be able to own a Porsche. I'm not less important and in my own business I would never treat a customer any other way than with the respect I expect myself.

In addition, their treating folks like myself with lesser respect is a loss for them since I was planning on upgrading later this summer. Depending how this ordeal turns out with determine if I don't just choose an altogether different brand that won't treat me like a peon. I spent close to $75k on the car ... that may be small change to you and too Porsche but it's not to me.

Again, you make a statement that I never did nor inferred. I don't expect a 16 year warranty. This is not a run of the mill policy where the company doesn't allow the cars owner the option of fixing the broken trans. They just want to hit us with a close to $17k replacement not even knowing if a repair for a fraction of that does the job.

In this case, in my reports from dealer was a repair quote for a valve body on the trans for $3.3k. Which I would have signed off on immediately had that been an option.

But was then told they wouldn't do that repair since "they didn't know if it would fix everything" so it wasn't an option." Why even show me the quote approval page and price if it wasn't an option? Just makes this whole thing feel shady to have seen that then not being available.

Thanks ... I hope we can get it worked out as well. Porsche NA and a dealer with more experience will be getting the car on Monday. I still stand with the opinion that if policies like this exist then the customer should be made aware of them before buying so they know what to expect should this occur. I could have gone with a manual trans car and not had this problem. This isn't asking too much for them to offer disclosure of something that would have a bearing on the customers choice.

I've made my case about loyalty and I have been. This is my 2nd 911 and as mentioned there was going to another later this summer.

Really not sure what they expect ... it comes off as all they respect is how much money is spent with them. But there is more to loyalty than cash. I will I had the money to get a GT3 or a 918 etc ... but I don't.

I won't bore you with details but I worked hard to own this car ... I don't expect anything free ... just that issues can be dealt with reasonable expectations. Having the only option be putting out almost $20k to replace a trans that could likely be fixed for a fraction of that isn't reasonable or expecting too much. imho

My point is I was never made aware of this policy. Spending $3.3k for the repair is a bit different than $17k without options. Disclosure is kind of an important thing when making a choice one way or the other. This has been an important lesson for me ... not to be forgotten anytime soon.

Thanks again to everyone that posted .... I've learned a bit. It won't be until next Monday the car goes to the other dealer so I'll post then. Have a good week folks.

user 72902

Question. If Porsche wants to maintain replacement as the only repair option for a PDK why don't they stock a couple of dozen refabricated units and charge a more realistic and afford fee while requiring a core return? That solution would seem to address everyone's concern or did I make a faux pas and assume logic might be involved.

Austin997.2

Your solution sounds reasonable and full of good will.

However, they know they have us by the ***** and seem to have a monopoly on the market so they're gonna get all they can.

Ira Zoot

Good question ... also, from what I was told the "bad" trans is shipped off,
inspected and refurbished. So, that would mean that they are able to resell
that trans for $8k through whatever channels they have. At the same time
the dealer would be getting $17k+- for the new trans and installation. Why
wouldn't we be credited at least a bit being that they selling our old trans'?
I can't say for sure that's the whole truth ... just something I was told by
someone who is usually pretty credible. Really feels pretty shady.