k9turbo

no porsche SA will admit to knowing of recurrent issues until they have become too frequent and "known" to deny. that's just the "way it is " with porsche dealers and pcna.

reading all this, as one who is - was(?) looking to pick up a low mileage but early MY example, these timing cover and transfer case issues owing to design flaws are - as the title of the thread suggests - "cautionary" indeed.

rasetsu

Depends greatly on the dealership and how knowledgeable/give a crap the SA is. My SA is very involved in the Porsche community and advised me that the timing cover leak is more of a matter of not if but when and they are doing at least 1 a week. Many SAs are just there for a pay check and just look to churn through as many overpriced 10K mile service interval customers as possible.

swingwing

Agree. When this SA told me that diagnosis was valve cover gasket(s) my thought was "Hmm...valve cover gaskets at 18k miles. Really?" I'm crossing my fingers and hope that oil leak doesn't reappear.

k9turbo

ok, respectfully disagree. my experience with porsche dealerships, SA's and even PCNA directly are for an "end user" fairly extensive.

i would suggest to you that any SA tells a customer that a particular issue is a known or frequently occurring *problem* - absent a TSB ( etc ) from porsche - will have his GM summarily relieve him or her of their duties or at least given a stern warning. it's not about "what they know" it's about what they are told or allow to be divulged vis a vis design flaws and/or common "issues".

SA's are mere "intermediaries" whose primary function is to prevent end users from glimpsing behind the curtain where the techs reside.

any genuinely revelatory "truth telling" from one, would be an anomalous and outside of their usual protocol. YMMV - but not by much.

rasetsu

Are you corporate counsel for Porsche? Porsche dealership service departments aren't the military. LOL!

I'm actually very sorry that you feel that is what SAs are limited to doing. My expectation of an SA is to be as honest as possible in order to establish trust between the customer and the products and my SA does just that. I specifically asked him about the timing chain cover leak and he told me what he's witnessed, not deflect, feed me BS, or deny knowledge. It's not like he is standing in front of the store waiving a banner that says Macans are leaky POS.

The service bay and the waiting area of my dealership is separated only by a pane of clear glass. They don't hide things and I've seen a Macan with its engine out the last two times I've been in. I'm glad that my dealership and my SA do not share your same viewpoint. Both him and my dealership consistently receive high service marks from me and others in my PCA region for their honesty and get rewarded accordingly by PCNA.

But don't worry, I won't be disclosing the name of my SA nor my dealership here.

k9turbo

you wouldn't know it, if they did.

if they didn't toe the corporate pcna line, they wouldn't be "rewarded" at all, and most know of greater numbers of "allocations" as rewards and there are others .. in point of fact, pcna rewards dealers that have a higher number of denied warranty claims etc. and part of that "corporate line" includes not divulging info not previously admitted to by pcna by virtue of TSB's or worse. i.e. "ntsb recalls".

but in the immortal words of someone else who continually lied and otherwise obfuscated truth.

"if you like your dealer, you can keep your dealer."

none of this ultimately matters. i am a bit taken aback at the issues i am reading of as being "common" and it seems they were not remedied in the first couple years of this iteration of the macan and a '15 to '17 MY have been my search criteria. again, it matters not. cheers.

assyrianme

I was about to purchase a Cayenne Diesel 2013 80k and discovered a leak. It was fixed by Porsche. The receipts showed $9k. I discovered an inspection report right before I looked at it and it said no leak. They will not tell you you have leak. You will have to discover it yourself. What about people who don't know anything about cars????

rasetsu

Update: my nearly 20K mile 2018 GTS had oil around the vent slots of the belly tray on the passenger side along with some drops on my garage floor. Opened the hood and there was oil on several hoses on passenger side front and on top of passenger side valve cover. I made an appointment with my favorite service advisor. I removed the Cobb tune and brought the car in on a Monday morning. While there, they diagnosed the oil as only coming from the valve cover gasket. They also determined the transfer case should be replaced. Car was done on following Thursday afternoon. So far, no oil coming from timing chain cover but they power washed the belly tray so can monitor if any other leaks appear. My advisor told me that valve cover gasket leaks happen as well but not as often as the timing chain cover. It happens enough though that they had the kit in stock.

As for dealers not telling people that there is an oil leak, that is probably true and depends greatly on the dealership. Throughout history, there have always been and always will be people who know nothing about cars and get fleeced by bad dealerships. This is not something unique to Porsche. Fortunately, with more information being easily accessible, it's becoming more difficult for dealerships to hide their bad practices and less of an excuse for people to not due their own due diligence.

trickstar911

howd they fix it ?? engine in place or out ?

trickstar911

was job done with engine in place or engine out ?? they charge ya for it ?

rasetsu

Me? Valve cover gasket doesn't need engine out. It all reachable from the top.

2021Macan

So effective what date did Porsche change their manufacturing (parts and processes) so that these oil leaks will no longer be an issue? A while back in this thread someone stated that Porsche hasn't changed much of anything, so it's likely that these leak problems will surface on newly built Macans. If so that would be terribly disappointing!

rasetsu

2019 and up Macans have entirely different engines supplied by Audi.

azmi951

We have a CPO 2017 Macan GTS and confirmed today by the dealer that the timing cover is leaking. It is still under warranty so we will see what happens. The car has 27k miles.

Just another data point.

tagnew

My 2016 Turbo leaked (or rather seeped) from the timing cover when at the dealer at 30,000 miles. My indy had warned me of it previously. Dealer said no fix under warranty until there is a drip. Now at 50,000 and past warranty, still seeping, not getting better, indy estimates $6,200 (40 hrs). My hope is it won’t get drastically worse before Porsche decides to step up and cover the fix. Although now the fix seems to be just reinstalling aluminum bolts- how is that going to correct the problem? At what point might they be inclined to offer a fix? Love the car, but major fix with relatively low miles is a very unappetizing prospect. Anyone with any insights into this issue?