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I got a base Taycan about a year ago and my experience with it since then has been a nightmare. Everyone else here seems to have only good things to say about the car so I wonder if others have encountered the same issues, or if I have a lemon. I'm also curious what, if any sort of legal action would be appropriate to take. I don't have any experience with that but I know there are lemon laws in MD and I wonder if I should be acting on them. Please let me know if you've had any of these issues (or different ones) and if you have legal recommendations. Or at least, this post may be good for a laugh.
RANDOM ALARM For the first several months of owning the car the alarm would go off randomly throughout the day. It also seemed to happen when I opened the my porsche app. This understandably upset my neighbors and made them angry at me. Imagine having your car start a fight with the neighbors! When I took the car in finally have this fixed, they also found that the car was occasionally entering park mode while sitting at stoplights. This discovery made them take the car and they said they would be keeping it for as long as it took to resolve the park mode issue. This turned out to be literally an entire month. I've never had another car spend a night in the shop and this one spent a full month in the first half year. I had to drive a gasoline loaner car in the meantime. The dealer promised in writing that they would reimburse me for any gas I bought for the loaner. When I got the taycan back and turned in the loaner I emailed the dealer the gas receipts. I never heard back from them and never received a check. A month later I followed up by email and again got no response. Every email I had sent the dealer before this got a response. I finally had to go in person and ask them why they never reimbursed me or acknowledged my emails. They apologized and issued the reimbursement at that point. I was polite but they seemed annoyed that I was holding them accountable for their conduct. In general they seem, in my opinion, to be unconcerned and indifferent to the fact that the car has so many issues when I feel they should be apologetic.
BLANK SCREEN Another thing that happened when I got the taycan back from its month long stay in the shop was that the center console didn't go on. Meaning the center console was just a blank screen with the logo. The first time this happened was when I was going on a 200 mile road trip. So I had to navigate the entire trip using my phone. It was NOT a safe way to drive. And I couldn't activate range mode because of this, so I had to stop and recharge before reaching my destination, which made me late. This was a very unpleasant experience. This blank screen still occurs from time to time.
RANDOM DOOR UNLOCKING Yet another thing that happened when I got the taycan back from its month long stay in the shop was that it started unlocking itself at random times. I contacted the dealer technician and he looked it up and said it was a known issue and they would apply a fix once they had one. You read that right. The fix to make the car alarm stop going off randomly meant the car would now unlock itself for no reason. This still blows my mind. Apparently if I pressed the lock button several times in a row, it would stay locked. So I had to do that until they applied a major update a few months later. Once the update was applied, it stopped unlocking itself at random times and started unlocking itself immediately. Now, the car will unlock itself the moment after I lock it about 1 time in 5. There's no obvious pattern to when it happens. I now have to leave it with the shop again and get a loaner car again.
DOOR FALLS APART A piece of the front door started falling out of the door frame shortly after buying the car. It would not stay in place when pushed back in. (Picture 1) A friend literally laughed when she saw the door falling apart and asked me if I bought a real porsche or a knock off. I brought it to the dealer and they told me they were able to fix it. The next day the piece started falling out again. I brought it back to the dealer and they told me they were able to fix it for real this time. The next day the piece started falling out again. I brought it back to the dealer a third time and this time they were able to actually fix it.
NEAR COLLISION Several times (4 I believe) the car was in hold mode at a stop light and suddenly exited hold mode and started moving forward. One time I almost collided with the car in front of me because of this. I slammed on the brake just in time. At first I thought I might be imagining it because its frankly unimaginable. But it happened while one time when I was on the side of the road with my feet nowhere near the pedals. Fortunately it hasn't happened since the major update and I hope it won't happen again.
SHABBY BEHAVIOR Like mentioned above, the company has behaved in a shabby manner without respect for customers who pay 100K for their product. When I brought the car in on a Monday for the major update, the coordinator told me that the car would be ready for me by Tuesday afternoon at the latest. By Wednesday morning I hadn't heard a word from them, which is a clear failure of basic communication. I called in and they said they hadn't even started applying the update to my car because they had a line of other cars waiting for the same update. If they knew that when they made a clear commitment to be done by Tuesday, then they were dishonest. If they didn't know, then ... I just don't know what to say. I ended up getting the car back on Thursday. Getting the car back on Thursday wasn't a major problem, but their conduct was deeply disappointing. I logged into the website once because the app stopped allowing me to log in and happened to see a banner announcing a safety recall dated over 1 month ago. Nobody bothered to proactively inform me of this safety issue. I have recieved several pieces of mail from the corporate side of the company. Each time they have spelled my name differently. My name is not that difficult. One time I emailed the company's customer support about the fact the alarm would not stop going off. They gave me instructions to disable the security alarm, which is not a real solution. They also said if that didn't work I should contact the dealer. It didn't work, so I contacted the dealer. The dealer said they couldn't help and I should contact the customer support email. This demonstrates a "pass the buck" mentality at the company. Another time I emailed the customer support about the fact that the battery charging wasn't stopping at the right time. They didn't respond to my email. I emailed them two more times over the next few weeks and they never responded. This lack of customer service wouldn't pass muster for a $50 toaster and it's inexcusable for a company that took 100K of your money.
FALSE RANGE Recently I took the car out when the battery said 12% and the remaining mileage showed as 30. I know it's not ideal to take the car out with that charge but my planned drive was very short. I drove 9 miles to the movie theater and when I arrived the car said I had 5% battery and 12 miles remaining. When I returned to the car from the movie it now said I had 1% and 2 miles remaining despite sitting there the whole time. I was lucky to find a charging station about a mile away just before the car died in the road. Somehow driving 9 miles, in range mode, took the car from 12% / 30 miles remaining to 1% / 2 miles remaining.
COUNTLESS GLITCHES The speed limit display occassionally shows a completely inaccurate number. This has happened even on major highways going into NYC. (Pictures 2 and 3) When I approach the locked car with key in hand, it unlocks about half the time. I haven't identified a pattern. Touching the key to the car makes no difference. Recently, drive mode disappears from the console every few days for no reason. I have to reassign it over and over. On the same screen, music mode doesn't work and just shows a spinning wheel icon. (Picture 4) The latest issue is just this week the car told me there is an error with the Warn and Brake Assist system and it has to be taken in for service. (Picture 5) There have been many more glitches than I've mentioned here, but this message is way too long, so I will just include pictures. (Pictures 6 through 14) Honestly, something new goes wrong with the car every single week.
DUELING DISTANCE UNITS The two displays could not agree whether I had 146 miles remaining or 146 kilometers remaining. (Picture 15) It was finally fixed to display the same unit over half a year after buying the car. This struck me as the sort of programming and qc failure I would not expect from a middle schooler. The fact they couldn't program this basic item correct, and the MANY other software failures make it impossible for me to trust the auto parallel parking feature. I have no confidence that it will execute correctly every time, and if it messes up even once I'll end up with a huge repair bill. I've already almost gotten into crashes because of the failing hold mode mentioned above. So that's $2000 completely wasted on a feature I can't use because I can't trust it.
POOR SOFTWARE DESIGN I have to press the regenerate button every single time I power on. I also have to hold it down for just the right amount of time to put it into auto-regenerate. Hold too long or too short and it will not enter that mode. Similarly, I have to manually switch the car to range mode every single time I turn the power on. It refuses to allow me to set this as default. If someone knows how to change the default I'd like to know. A popup appears every time I power on the car telling me that my phone is connected to the car. The popup appears directly over the login button, forcing me to wait until it goes away before I can log in. The popup could have been placed anywhere on the screen but it was put in the one place that blocks you from logging in. Every time there is a map update it creates a popup window on the screen. Clicking the X will result in it coming back a few minutes later. The only way to make it go away permanently is by clicking the read out loud button. I don't know why anyone would need a verbal announcement that their map has been updated. It also reads the announcement in a Jersey accent that sounds like Margot Robbie playing Harley Quinn, which feels very odd. Other random popup messages appear from time that don't seem to mean anything, such as one about voicemail setup and another about XM settings.
UNUSABLE GPS, HUD, AND VOICE The native GPS is so bad that it is unusable and I always have to use Android auto Google maps. For example one time the native GPS generated a 47 mile route to a charging station that was actually 1 mile away. And it did this when the car had 36 miles of battery left. (Picture 16) Another time I tried to navigate to a Porsche charging station and the GPS inserted a waypoint at a different charging station that is actually further away. (Picture 17) Another time it told me I had reached my destination even as it showed a blue line several miles long on the map to get to my destination. (Picture 18) The directions are also so small that they are essentially unreadable. Exit what? (Picture 19) Sometimes it decides it doesn't want to navigate, and cancels the route without telling me. Other cars I've owned had poor GPS systems, but this one is the worst by far. And it matter more here because I paid for the HUD only so that it would display directions. But the HUD is only compatible with the unusable native GPS. So that's $2000 completely wasted on a non-functional feature. The voice recognition is unusably bad and has never heard anything I said correctly even once. But this is no different from any other car I've owned.
PRACTICAL JOKES The air vents are incompatible with any phone holder I'm aware of. They also are designed so that it's very easy for something to fall in the vent. If something ever falls in, it will be impossible to get it out because of the design. The doors have to be closed forcefully or they will stay ajar. I haven't experienced this in any other car. The glove compartment feels like a practical joke against the owner. It opens downward so that everything inside spills onto the floor. I still cannot believe this is the actual design. I have videos of this and several other issues but this website won't allow me to upload them.
TLDR The car has had countless software issues, several mechanical issues, disrespectful customer service, spent a month in the shop, and I spent $4000 on unusable features. Have you had any similar issues, and any recommendations for recourse about this?
You have to option the Sport Chrono package to have the ability to save Range mode to an Individual drive mode.
Individual should be standard, but that's the way Porsche does it.
I start by adding all options, then remove ones I don't need.
Yes, the HUD only shows directions from the car's GPS, but I knew that going in.
I'll be using it for speed limit and moose alerts.
Have the software bugs been resolved by the latest update?
I have had my 21 base for a little over a year and one half (13k miles). Other than software updates, flat tires, cracked windshield from a rock, I have only experienced one issue that did not resolve by itself. That issue was after 6 months and involved no LTE communication making the app useless. That took a month in the shop to repair and was software related.
I have to agree with Alex, move on.
Last edited by 991carreradriver; 12-19-2022 at 06:46 PM.
I think the lemon law may the right way to go now. Does anyone have experience with lemon laws?
Read your states laws, it's black and white. Car has to be in the shop for a total of 30 days or has to have 3-4 visits for the same issue within 18 months in many states.
If your car spent 30 days in the shop, open a case with PCNA and request a buyback. After some back and forth they will offer you a couple of options.
I got a base Taycan about a year ago and my experience with it since
Another happy Taycan customer?
All your complaints are legitimate. We’ve all had them. Except maybe you won the jackpot with all the problems at one time, and as lagniappe, a clueless dealership.
About the random alarm. I remember sneaking around building to check if the alarm is on. The slanted glove compartment is a quick draw feature to quickly get to your Glock.
Built in GPS is worthless. Outdated and slow. Go with Waze, with real-time traffic and the occasional “police reported.”
Since you sound less than ecstatic about your Taycan, as mentioned elsewhere, see if the dealership will work with you on a buyback. It’s not in their best interest to do so… you should except pushback.
Lemon law is no piece of cake either.
You are fortunate, MD should have plenty of hungry and smart lawyers…
Assuming the OP has had all the necessary updates, what continues to nag at me is that if you can resolve the issues confronting the OP, the car is great to drive and reliable. Truthfully, it seems that there are just too many demons to work through here. Knowing how long it takes to resolve the simplest of software issues, it just does not make sense to stay with the car. My simple LTE connection issue back in 1/22 resulted in a 33 day shop visit and this was the sole issue with this car since I took delivery in 5/21.
I was 20% through your nightmare story and was thinking "Lemon Law this thing". Although I do think asking for fuel reimbursement is a bit petty, if they offered it and didn't handle then that would be upsetting.
12-18-2022, 06:00 AM
My Taycan Nightmare
