This is my fourth Porsche. It is the second one I have custom ordered. In March of 2017 I originally had a "guaranteed" order spot on their list at a reasonable price for my 2018 Panamera 4 E-Hybrid with a dealer who is located in Redwood City (I'm avoiding names). I didn't go with the dealer in San Jose because 1) they were inflexible on any pricing discounts and 2) I bought my third Porsche through them and was very unhappy with the quality of their service department. After the dealer in Redwood City gave my "guaranteed" order spot to someone else, I wound up going with a dealer in Los Angeles (recommended by this Forum) who was much more aggressive on pricing for my custom order and also actually got my order in earlier than even the Redwood City Dealer had originally promised. Anyway, as most here know, the cars were delayed extensively due to EPA and CARB certification. I used this forum and requested recommendations for service in the South Bay Area. Porsche of Fremont was overwhelmingly recommended as the best in the entire Bay Area, not just the South Bay. So I scheduled an appointment to meet with the Service Manager, Gunter Feldmeier, for Porsche of Fremont. Gunter was very gracious and spent about an hour with me answering my numerous questions and carefully instructing me on the proper break in procedure while driving the car up from LA. I was given three years of free maintenance from Porsche to compensate me for the extensive delays and I have had Porsche of Fremont do all the work. Their service department is outstanding and I strongly recommend you give them your business. For me it means driving about 20 minutes to their location vs. 10 minutes locally, but easily worth it. I just completed the second year maintenance service and despite the Covid situation everything went perfectly.

 

@SaratogaLeft - Thank you so much for your reply. I will call Porsche of Fremont.

On another note - and it might already be elsewhere on the forum - what did Gunter say about breaking int he e-hybrid. I've thought that the two motors need to be broken in differently. The electric motor probably needs very little break-in if you believe what Tesla says. The break-in procedure is probably more important for the ICE. When I first got my vehicle, I drove it predominantly with the ICE running so I could accurately track the mileage and break-in time. I could not find good information about the break in procedure in the owners manual. Would love to hear your thoughts.

 

Because I was picking up the car in LA I had about 450 miles to drive home (I first went down to the Porsche Driving Experience which was included in my purchase). Anyway, Gunter told me to drive in electric mode until depleted and the ICE comes on. Then he said to drive in Sport or Sport+ until the electric battery is fully charged and then go back to strictly electric mode until depleted and continue to do this for the entire drive home. While the ICE was running he wanted me to try to vary the rpms as much as possible. Since most of my driving was on Interstate 5 what I did was keep adjusting my speed between 65 and 85 mph to try to get the rpms to move around constantly. I know I was driving the other people on the road crazy but that is what I did. After I got home I continued this process until I hit 1000 miles and since then I've just driven normally. Thus far with almost 12,000 miles on the car my mileage is right about 45 mpg.

 

I should point out that one of the reasons for depleting and charging the battery repeatedly was because I was concerned that maybe the battery had suffered some damage from sitting at the San Diego port for almost six months and I wanted to be sure it was performing properly. Glad to say no problems at all and I have seen indicated mileage up to 34 but generally I get about 25 miles per charge with half the driving being at 75 mph.