Team Plutonium

F@ck, tough break; sorry to hear that. Agree with the others - no chance for a warranty claim here, the price of modding.

nuclearfishin

Sorry to the OP--no advice, just a bunch of sympathy for a bad situation.

Blswan

First, that sucks. Sorry to hear about a bad luck scenario. Second, Porsche SHOULD NOT have to pay for the repair. They warranty a car build to their standards not yours. I am a business owner and if someone tinkered with my product and then asked me to 'warranty it' I would kindly also tell them no thank you. I'm pretty sure it's common sense, did you really think you had a warranty? Be honest.

Ibanezgod

stuff like this makes me want to detune my car. Sorry OP.

Macster

First I am not a lawyer.

If you have written confirmation of the warranty then either Porsche should honor it or what probably happened is the dealer said the warranty was in effect knowing it was not but counting on the fact the engine would not blow.

Everything a car salesman tells you is intended to get you to buy the car as soon as possible and to pay as much for it as possible. Telling you the car has a warranty falls under this modus operandi.

If you have something in writing sending a copy to the dealer which then has to contact the factory is I guess the way to go.

Assuming the factory denies the warranty still then the dealer I guess -- remember I'm not a lawyer -- is on the hook.

With proof of warranty then and the dealer refusing to honor it you have I think grounds for filing a consumer fraud complaint. You should contact your county's division of consumer fraud and run this all by someone there.

Likely you will be directed to return to the dealer and try to work out a suitable settlement. You can of course mention you are there again after having spoken with and at the direction of the division of consumer fraud.

Now I am ignoring the possibility that a DME over rev counter dump would find the engine experienced a severe over rev (missed shift) very recently. In this case Porsche (and the dealer) would be well within their rights to refuse to honor the warranty.

There might be other things from the DME dump that could justify denying the warranty. Perhaps -- just saying -- a goodly number of misfires or ignition retardation events were recorded possibly due to too low an octane of gasoline being used.

You won't know until the DME dump is done and the data analyzed.

If the dealer still balks you have the division of consumer fraud then to possibly go after the dealer (or factory).

My second hand info is dealers that are really bad -- and by bad I think you know what I mean -- are usually very quick to cave when faced with a consumer fraud complaint. The reason is the dealer has too many skeletons in the closet.

OTOH, good dealers fight these claims tooth and nail to uphold/defend their good reputation.

You can speak with an attorney to get some legal advice. However, I doubt you would get an attorney to take this case. The amount of money involved is too small to interest an attorney. They are not cheap and any money you received for a new engine the majority of this would go to pay for the attorney and you would still be facing a substantial out of pocket expense to get the car back on the road.

Might add that given the situation the car will likely be off the road a good while. So you can't rush this but let the process run its course. No need to dawdle and take your time but you won't likely get an answer, one way or the other, in under a few weeks time.

Added: Search out all paperwork that came with the car. Search out any online ads that might remain. You are looking for anything that says the car had a warranty. While the dealer might claim the web info is incorrect and it is not responsible if you find this a number of places that I think should help your case. Do this pronto. Remember the dealer might be reading this thread.

Use letters. Phone calls and even face to face talks are really useless. Deal with the GM of the dealer. The salesman that was so helpful when you were buying the car is totally out of the picture now. He couldn't OK having the car fixed under warranty if he wanted to.

Remain calm. Polite. Don't threaten legal action. You can certainly drop hints for instance you have been in contact with the division of consumer fraud. You can rattle off its address, names some agents you talked to, even name the head boy (or girl) of the agency to show you are well acquainted with the agency, so to speak.

As I touched upon above this process if it works out to your satisfaction will take time. If (big if) the dealer is on the hook for this "warranty" he will not agree to it without some delay, fight, usually. The idea is to wear you down. Stall and hope you give up and go away.

Doc V.

Porsche's warranty contains the following caveats:

"You should also be aware that Porsche Cars N. A. may deny you warranty coverage if your vehicle or a part has failed due to abuse, neglect, improper maintenance or unapproved modifications [my emphasis]."

"This warranty does not cover modifications not authorized by Porsche Cars N.A."

AOW162435

Agree. The OP knowingly purchased a car with performance modifications. While the engine failure is very unfortunate, Porsche is under no obligation to honor a warranty claim when the language of the warranty is so clearly written.



Andreas

ZX9RCAM

So if the DEALER tells him there is a warranty on the vehicle as sold (and he had written proof), they would be under no obligation to cover it?



ETA:

I realize this may not be the actual case, just curious on others thoughts.

AOW162435

I mentioned Porsche, as the manufacturer. Not the dealer.

If the dealer sold a low-mileage car, with performance modifications, and stated it was under warranty - than the OP needs to address his grievances with the selling dealer.



Andreas

jumper5836

If the dealer sold him the car with the mods, knowing that these mods violate the warranty and then sold him it as having a warranty, PCNA will still deny the claim and you have to go after the dealer for fraud.

I believe he didn't buy off the dealer, and only got a PPI done. The car would still be technically still under warranty if the mods were not done. But if PPI revealed mods, they should have notified him that these mods would void that warranty. Had the mods been taken off and the PPI done with no record of them ever being done or found out. PCNA would have most likely replaced the engine under warranty.

Igooz

+ Did you buy the car from a Porsche dealer?
-- If yes and you bought it with existing warranty, then the time stamp on the DME flash should show that it was flashed prior to the purchase? correct?
-- If no I would say that you are on your own to fix your car. You are out around $20K. Worst things in life can happen.
-- If you are going to legal route with a lawsuit then watch your posts here...I can already see RL members such as Speed21 getting deposed...Speed21 on the stand speaking to the merits of EP and a good tune!

joep999

Thanks again everyone.

CincyScott

I've seen that go both ways, but not with a total engine failure. I've had modded cars for a long time that have been fixed under warranty. If you have a mod-friendly dealer, they will submit and never bring up that you have aftermarket parts. An unfriendly one, and you get to talk to the hand.

However, in an engine failure, the regional rep will be brought in no matter what to take a look. He sees lots of parts that aren't factory and he shuts it down. Remember, just because the ECU doesn't show over-revs doesn't mean that the engine likes what's going on between zero and redline... and a detonation can occur anywhere, not just at high RPM.

I feel for you, but I'm not sure you've got much to stand on besides Porsche or the dealer doing it out of goodwill. Often dealers will do the labor if you pay for the parts or vice versa. That may help the situation if you offer that as well.

drivingon9

First of all, super sorry for your loss.. I know I'd be devastated.

Internal failures like this can actually easily happen when increasing the power of cars, especially cars with super high torque like ours. Flooring it in higher gears when RPMs are low, for example, can have huge stress on rods. Add another 100lbs of tq to stock numbers (along with who knows what other ECU changes), and it becomes a matter of "can YOU prove that your modifications DIDN'T cause the failure?". Our cars are high quality, but not bullet-proof.

If Porsche (or any other auto company) had to either pony up the $$ or spend $$ to prove that your own modifications (especially to the ECU) didn't cause a failure every time they're faced with a catastrophic failure, we'd be paying a heck of a lot more on top of the already high premiums we pay for our cars.

I think it's totally unreasonable to expect them to have to cover the loss.

I wish you the best of luck in getting it all fixed back up.

triplenet

Porsche doesn't have to prove anything ---- they have a litigation war chest larger than the GDP of many countries ...

All they have to do is deny your claim and YOU would have to sue them for performance ...

Then they will drag it out with years of costly litigation - and ultimately you run out of money and cave ...

IMHO - If Porsche denied the claim, send that denial letter to the dealer with a demand that they have 5 business days to accept the claim internally or you will file suit ...

If they don't respond, then have your attorney file the lawsuit and name and serve every swinging dick that owns a piece of the dealership,,, uncles aunts, partners, every LLC member personally - let them know you intent to depose every one of them including every salesman that works the floor...

People hate to get served papers and despise getting deposed even more ----- they will tell the managing member to make that crap go away ....

Dealers don't want bad press - you have to be aggressive and prepared to spend the a few K to file the suit ...

Good luck

BTW - All the above is worthless if you don't have evidence in writing that the dealer told you there is a valid warranty ...