saratogasam

All,

Could you please share your experiences, both good or bad with the San Francisco Bay Area dealers?

I want to trust a sales person who says I am #1 for Nov. 2021 allocation. How do I confirm?

Any advice would most appreciated?

pirahna

Fremont Porsche is very good. I would stay away from Steven's Creek Porsche.

Breakthru

@saratogasam I haven't purchased a Porsche from the dealer, but I've met some of the guys at Rector Porsche [Burlingame], both in parts and sales, and they have been great.

SECRET

When you say they're very good, do you mean with service? sales?

I've had some momentary exchanges with a sales person at Fremont that has a very heavy presence on social media.

1. Nice guy overall and was generally helpful when I visited the dealership
2. Pretty honest about allocations for GT cars -- that is they get very little at their dealership, so the owners tend the mark it up. Honestly doesn't make building a relationship with the dealership seem very worthwhile
3. Told me he'd reach out when he learned more on the Taycan CT when I asked about it, but never followed up by phone, text, email, or social media

Last Porsche I had was a 991.1 GT3. I still get the occasional Porsche marketing material in the mail, but I'm clearly not a person of interest to Porsche as of late. I'd love to get a Taycan CT order in but I'm not going to pay a mark up for it or go along with dealer-installed stuff to try to make the salesperson the extra dollar.

pirahna

Service has been excellent. I don't have any personal experience with their sales people but have heard they are good. All of the Bay Area dealers seem to get only get a small amount of GT cars. I was told at Steven's Creek that there was zero chance of getting a new GT4 but if I wanted to pay a substantial premium they could probably get me a used one.

SECRET

Have you tried Porsche of Monterey?

pirahna

Only for a couple of small parts purchases, no complaints but not enough experience to form much of a opinion. I just moved to the area from Santa Cruz so I will probably be using them for some services in the future because there are very few independent Porsche mechanics in the area and it is a bit of a drive to my preferred indy in Sunnyvale.

Archimedes

I've had good experiences with both Stevens Creek and Monterey. Loved the service experience at Stevens Creek.

John_Goddard

Cross thread: Any recommendations for Porsche dealer service in the SF Bay Area? I have an upcoming, fairly involved Recall repair, and looking for a service department with experienced techs and quality service advisors.

Marin, Walnut Creek, Livermore, and Fremont are closest, but really I'd go anywhere in Norcal for good work. Thanks.

sc532j

+100 for Fremont Porsche, recently went the extra mile to resolve an repair issue. Gunter and Scott. I go from Oakland to them.

ducktails

I'll chime in about Fremont Porsche (Gunter and Scott) even though extra demand it will make it harder for me to get service appointments in future

They're excellent. I also go out of my way to get work done there (from San Francisco now from much further north).

I wouldn't say I've had a horrible experience at other Bay Area dealers (I think I've probably I've used them all for sales, service or both at some point or another over the years) but Fremont has been consistently good.

frankchn

Echoing what @Breakthru mentioned, I've bought a few cars from Audi/Porsche Burlingame and they've been consistently good to me. Ask for Anthony (internet sales) and Scott (for servicing).

samwise

My experience with them was only ok. Had my GT3 in to get my windshield replaced and check the parking brake. The parking brake turned out to be a cracked housing so took a little more to replace, no big deal. The windshield wasn’t bad per say but the GPS stopped working after replacement. I gave them a call and brought it back and they adjusted the connection and fixed it at no cost. Again not horrible, but would’ve been better if they had done it right the first time.

I had mine in back in June I think and I just had this impression they were really short staffed.

The part that left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth was that they power washed my car and it damaged the PPF. Granted they asked me if I wanted my car washed and I said yes, but didn’t imagine it would cut the PPF. Talked to Scott when I noticed the damaged plastic and he got Gunter to come and looked at it. I didn’t give them a hard time because I had already scheduled time with a detailer to get the PPF replaced (the ones on the car was 10yrs old and starting to yellow a little). Gunter at the time said to tell John (my detailer whom he knew) to let him know about this and they’ll work something out and I did, but nothing came of it.

I am undecided if I will go out of my way back to them for regular services stuff again. Stevens Creek is the closest to me by far, and Hwy 880 is almost undrivable due to the road condition and the number of semi trucks on there, especially for an older GT3…

I have some work scheduled with Sharkwerk in a few months, after that I’ll probably do my routine maintenance and other work with one of the local shops in Campbell that has great reputations.

SECRET

Lots of experiences here relate to service. Generally Porsche Fremont experience lined up with what others have said here. Overall good with occasional hiccups. I only had the GT3 in at Stevens Creek once for a routine service. IMHO, service performance for routine service is table-stakes. That shouldn't be something that dealerships get a pat on the back about but rather should be the low bar at this class of vehicle. Warranty/non-warranty work with unexpected issues/troubleshooting is really where service departments should be earning their badge. Never had a big issue on the GT3, so therefore have no opinion.

I've read a lot of rumbling about the Taycan software issues, so it would be interesting to see how service departments are doing with that.

I am most interested in people's sales experiences though. So far it sounds like only Burlingame has a positive vote. As I mentioned above, a very kind and social media active salesperson at Fremont was courteous to me, but basically gave me lip service with little to zero action/follow-up. Unsurprising to me given the last time I looked at buying a car from Fremont.

ducktails

Sales experience previous to Q42020 probably quite a bit different to the sales experience after Q42020. Factories are struggling to meet demand, supply chains are gummed up, and even less desirable cars and marques have crazy ADM ... and that's if you are given an allocation. Others who are actively trying can certainly chime in but I suspect getting a build allocation on any Porsche at the moment is probably about the same as getting a GT allocation in normal times; i.e. you should probably have a purchase history with that dealer, be willing to trade an existing desirable Porsche, and pay 20-30% ADM on top of MSRP.

Additional: in the Macan thread they are saying Base 4cyl Macans have 10K ADM