Apart from the expected maintenance services I DIY'd on my 2015 Macan S, which included brakes and rotors, both PCV valves, failed coolant bottle and other niggly wear and tear type jobs, it was the design flaws inherent in this platform which has brought my 2-year Macan journey to a disappointing conclusion.

Strike 1 was the infamous failed coolant line, of which it is now obvious to me, it was designed by Porsche to fail, and fail spectacularly it did, dumping coolant and leaving my wife stranded on the side of the road. But we dealt with it, and towed the vehicle to an Indy shop nearby who did the job for a reasonable price. This predated discovery of the "brilliant" fix for this, not by Porsche engineers, but by forum members, who figured out a few feet of heater hose and a T-fitting connected to the vent system 2-feet away is all it takes. Poor design that will continue to affect many unsuspecting Macan owners.

Strike 1.5 was the necessity of my implementation of the "two-bolt fix," replacement of the two (not ready for prime-time) timing cover bolts, which snapped off leaving oil to coat the a/c compressor on the driver side and the alternator on the passenger side. Hundreds of known documentations, probably many thousands don't know... Poor design.

Strike 2 was a debilitating failure of the clutch temp sensor portion of the Mechatronic electrical board, which left the vehicle undrivable when the gearbox fault kicked in constantly. Like others before me and after me, I pulled the Mech unit, replaced the board, reinstalled it with fresh DCTF and felt good about myself with the car driving normally once again. Poor design, and if you don't believe me, check an Audi forum. Porsche would rather charge you $21,000 and replace the entire transmission.

Strike 2.5, also concerning the Mech unit, reared it's ugly head a mere few weeks after I remedied the first of the problems with this unmistakably brittle Audi DL501 transmission. Calling it a "PDK" is an insult to the actual robust double-clutch units found on higher-end Porsche cars. This time, it was a failure of one of the solenoids which again left the Macan undrivable until I yanked it out and replaced the offending solenoid. See above.

Strike 3 came in the form of what I thought (hoped) was a bad intake lifter at the cylinder 6 location, where the ticking just became louder and louder. Brought it back to the mechanic, who concurred it sounded like a lifter, but after digging into the engine discovered it was a scored cylinder #6. Again, others have been screwed with this. Inexcusable. Period.

That, my friends, spells Game Over for me and the Macan. With only 140,000 on the odometer, there's not a chance I'm going to invest in the expense of replacing the engine. The long and short of it, in my opinion, is that it is inexcusable for a modern-day car to have (A) poor choice of assembly components (B) bad choice of a known problematic Audi transmission mated to the car and (C) bad engine design, plain and simple, where cast iron cylinder liners would make bore scoring a non issue. There are so many vehicles which are not plagued with these sorts of problems. These issues are very well documented on this and other forums, and these issues have, and will affect many hundreds of unsuspecting Macan owners. Porsche should be better than this.

It's a beautiful car that drives great when all is well, but it's also ridden with ****-poor design elements that have caught out several of us on these forums that didn't know what was coming. Some, like myself have tried to DIY these repairs, but many others have fallen victim to the Porsche dealerships who charge multiple thousands of dollars for things such as the "two-bolt fix."

I think of my Mercedes c280 (w/gasoline engine) that had 279,000 miles on it... My supercharged 2004 MINI Cooper S that's still going strong with 195,000 miles, my wife's old Subaru with 188,000 miles which we gave to someone who needed a car, and yes, it's still going strong.

This Macan was the best car I've ever owned, but by far, the worst.

Adios.

 

Oh please.

You consider 140KMi life to be insufficient? I don't think I ever owned a car (mostly BMWs) that I expected a life of more than 100K. Same goes for design faults. I had a BMW M635 (the original 1985 M car) that had 275K Mi on it. But It had THREE engine swaps in that period. That along with warping brake rotors due to a stupid design, mushy control arm bushings, etc etc. I still loved the car and was glad I could find aftermarket solutions to bonehead BMW design screw ups. It happens with every car, Porsche included. Yes, repair costs are insanely expensive, but you know that comes with owning a Porsche. If you want cheap buy something else like a VW or Audi.

 

I agree, that gearbox is shameful

 

Bur it is a LIE,,,It is not a PDK

 

Sorry to hear of these issues but in fairness, they should not catch anyone off guard, I knew about all of these before buying which is why I decided to go with a newer 2.0 and mod it to my liking. That avoids nearly all of the recurring Macan issues other than the transmission, which I don't plan on keeping outside of warranty.

I've had other cars closer to the 200k mile range in the past but all have needed a few major items, such as transmissions, but they also had their fair share of busted coolant lines and other things. Each was pushing 400-600hp so I considered it a fair trade-off.

The major difference is that a Porsche transmission or engine is 20k+ whereas on other cars, a small fraction of that price. Another reason to only keep these in warranty.

 

So, what will be your replacement car?

 

Sorry to hear. Thanks for the excellent writeup and seems like you had a reasonable run with the car, issues notwithstanding.

This clearly points out bad engineering from Volkswagen. MB is as bad or worse than Volkswagen, with equally major failures at low mileage on expensive cars.

German brands are truly a step down and backward from Asians, when it comes to the reliability for price paid equation. I have owned all the Japanese and German brands.

German brand dealers are generally idiots, with few exceptions. I have dealer experience with all of these brands in several major markets.

I concede that the Germans have better excitement, aesthetics and driving dynamics. But the entire ownership experience is worse.

In the mean time I will enjoy my 9Y0.1 S with its gloriously luxurious cabin and wonderful EA839 2.9TTV6, while I get ready for a second water pump replacement at <100k miles and hope the $15k evaporator failure and peeling leather dash don’t happen.

 

As a long time 993 owner I have lusted after a Macan GTS since they came out. Unfortunatley following this forum since I realized I will never buy one. I prefer to buy vehicles that were not built to fail so if that means boring....boring it is.

 

There is a huge negative bias on all internet car forums. For every "issue" there are literally dozens and dozens of the exact same car with zero issues.

You should buy a GTS. They are great SUVs. The newer the better. That is how German cars are. The line improves over time.

 

Automobiles are like women...Sometimes you Luck up and get a "keeper"!

 

I wonder how much can be attributed to this being a Year 1 vehicle. I think all Year 1 cars suffer from design flaws, something car manufacturers improve over time. I won't buy a Year 1 vehicle with the intent to keep it. Leasing only.

 

It also sounds like OP bought an 8-year old Macan, and not knowing how the previous owners treated it, is disappointed that it's falling apart.

 

I do indeed know how it was treated. It was purchased from the original owner, a retired very well-off Porsche enthusiast (he had 4 other Porsches) who kept meticulous records of everything. I have the binder of service records since new. All services performed at the dealer and documented, including dozens of $600 oil changes. He was selling this one because he was about to purchase a new one. Car was garaged its entire life and was in showroom condition.

 

It's always a risk to buy an early-production model, but that doesn't excuse the various engineering shortcomings of course.

I remember the introduction article from Panorama (or was it Christophorus?) in which a few different Porsche employees were quoted regarding the original goals and influences behind the Macan development program. What struck me was that there were multiple places, at least three or four, where someone was quoted as saying something along the lines of, "We wanted to do X / were originally planning to do X / didn't do X because of cost constraints." That blew me away at the time, and discouraged me from buying a first-gen Macan model. If I wanted that kind of engineering rationale, I'd be looking at Hyundais or Fords.

With the benefit of time, we can see that some aspects of the Macan turned out to be great and some not-so-great. You seem to have run into most of the latter aspects, unfortunately. If it's of any comfort, bear in mind that a lot of the things they had to walk back, like the bespoke Porsche engines, would have been among the biggest expenses in the program.

Ultimately what I look for is improvement. They did get rid of the Porsche-branded $15,000 oil leaks, and they do seem to have improved transfer case reliability substantially. The second-generation Macans got a nice new PCM to replace the one that was already obsolete when it came out. Transmission failures haven't been reported often enough to be the disaster that many people expected. The interiors seem to be holding up pretty well -- better than the contemporary sports cars, certainly, with their delaminating door panels, collapsing headliners and oozing windshield seals. I would not buy a pre-95B.2 Macan, but I really don't think you have to swear off the Macan platform or the Porsche brand as a whole because of your experiences with a used first-generation model.

 

This is a poster child post. Buy the cheapest 10 year old Porsche with unknown history and then start bashing it. Exactly why my boss thinks that he can't afford Porsche maintenance (as if he's making less money than I do).

Takes me a lot of time to explain that 99% of these complaints are coming from people who bought a used and abused car and expected it to last like 1991 civic.