Underbody Protection Panel damaged. Batteries and coolant lines need inspection. $72.5K replacement & labor cost. Dealership is Tom Wood in Indiana

[DerekS]

I was going to respond but I’m done wasting time on TeecanTrollcan.

@Maelstrom we all continue hoping for a happy outcome for you. Keep us posted.

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[DerekS]

@Maelstrom
Tom Wood has a page at UVEYE scanner site with glowing testimonials from GM and others about revenue and profitability benefits of their scanner:

And your vehicle scan was FREE!

I missed this when you posted it. Wow. I guess this "wonderful technology" lets them find all kinds of "critical repairs needed."

"Testimonials from key personnel underscored the positive impact on customer relationships, with the technology identifying issues that customers were unaware of, thus preventing potential disputes and increasing customer trust."

LOL

 

[Fish Fingers]

I was going to respond but I’m done wasting time on TeecanTrollcan.

@Maelstrom we all continue hoping for a happy outcome for you. Keep us posted.

Agree 100%.

@Maelstrom
Please set up a new thread in due course when things progress.

 

[Fish Fingers]

Also I am not here belittling your tiny country you call home. Wasn't it one of the largest at one point?? ? So it would be appreciated if you didn't throw insults at mine. You Brits like to forget your history that much is clear and it's thanks to the US of A that you are not speaking German right now.

The user has a Swiss (Switzerland) flag.

 

[Singularity]

One thing I agree with TeecanToocan is that I don't believe this type of damage to a robust steel plate can happen from just normal sized rocks bouncing up from the road, for example driving on gravel roads. That would cause only superficial scrapes, not dents such as this.

I've driven on gravel roads with my Taycan occasionally and I will not be afraid of that in the future either. A more relevant issue with gravel roads has been the intake of rocks to the front cooling vents which can easily destroy the cooling fans there.

Perhaps I'm wrong but I do think this type of damage requires a more serious hit to the underside from a heavier/harder object than just a bouncing rock. And if Maelstrom is honest about not having a clue how it happened, could it be the dealership itself that caused it?

In any case I think it's way too early to say for sure how rare this issue is. I don't think the underside of many of the Taycan's out there have been inspected in such a way. But my guess is that this is rare especially in regards to the critical location of the dent (center of the plate aligning with a cooling line). I certainly hope it's rare.

I'm personally not at all worried about driving my Taycan because of this. I'm somewhat worried about increasing insurance costs though.

 

[Jasper4S]

I brought my car today because of the recall and have a dent too. They will look at it. They had one occasion when a car was totalled because of a dent. They also told me that a rock can’t cause it, but something like a speed bump or a border of a sidewalk can. Will post my story later today when I hear back from them

 

[D00notD00d]

I completely agree with you here. Some where Porsche has decided due to whatever witchcraft that this is a serious issue and warrants replacement. I believe too many commenter's are getting hung up on the idea that 3mm is too small a dent. Porsche seams to have that spec for a reason.

Clearly the 3mm tolerance is set because any indentation greater than that could fatally affect the battery system. In my view the design is unfit for purpose. Further, any maintenance assessment procedure that requires 5k of the vehicle’s value to be spent just determining whether fatal damage has occurred is also of insufficient quality, and is adversely weighted against the consumer.

I understand the 3mm tolerance is set by the manufacturer and is to be applied by all dealers. Whilst so far, in context of 150k cars produced, the number of cars known to be affected is small, the ‘revenue stream’ opportunity (particularly from automating the check) will undoubtedly lead to more cars being flagged when they next visit a dealer.

That the manufacturer has changed the material of the protection plate could be construed as recognition of a design problem. They’re presenting it as a weight saving.

The YouTube Munro analysis (published elsewhere here) indicated that some of the Taycan’s construction was untypical for the high production volume. My guess is that Porsche did not expect Taycan to sell at the volumes achieved so far and that sales benefited from lockdown, company and personal tax benefits, and low interest rates. All of that resulted in a new wave of Porsche customers, and unexpectedly high sales.

As EV versions of Macan and Cayenne emerge, SUV volume proportions will be reinstated and Taycan production and sales will fall back to Panamera levels.
Porsche are therefore unlikely to make significant changes to the current Taycan manufacturing and maintenance design. Insurance companies and ultimately consumers will instead pay. Apparently the labour time to complete a full swap is less than the time for module replacement - so less HV tech time, more profit on parts. I’d guess LG is paying for failed modules.

So far this is an insurance/maintenance cost issue for owners to suck up rather than a safety issue. It’s infuriating, but we’re all driving a beta version (anyone remember Betamax?). It took multiple fires for Tesla to change the Model S battery protection design (2 yrs into production, similar volumes). That will also apply in the case of Taycan. Zero/near to zero fires so far?

Just my opinion.

 

[whitex]

Okay triggered much??? This can be answered quite simply.

Not really. Your answer just didn't make sense "customer should not ever interject themselves between the dealer and insurance company". Even after reading the rest of your reply, you still did not answer how that would work. My guess in your head you hand waved yourself some answer without thinking through the details whether it makes sense. Either that or you are often on the dealer side of the equation and simply believe customers should pay whatever dealer says.

To your first question. As explained by the OP the vehicle originally went in for a different repair. Likely got the loaner then.

The dealer threatened to retroactively charge for that loaner when trying to strongarm the customer into paying sooner. One could even argue they were enticing the customer to interject themselves between them and insurance by giving customer a super short deadline, probably hoping the customer would lean on insurance - I know, your advice is customer should have just let the deadline come and go if insurance wouldn't have acted on their own.

The damage was found during a FREE UV eye scan. So now that the damage has been flagged the dealer has no choice but to inspect. Think of the liability if the dealer did not. Say OP is driving down the road and then surprise error in the cluster for faulty electrical system. The first thing that will come to his mind is "I was just at Porsche!!"

I call total BS on this. If you are a dealer, you would like to believe that if the customer drives onto your lot and you find any potential damage, you can charge thousands of dollars for inspection and customer has no choice but to pay it. Reminds me of a dealer "story" I recently heard when buying an eTron - the sales person told me that paying off a lease in less than 6 months was a criminal offense and I would be arrested for it. The truth is they lose some kickbacks from leases if customer pays off the lease in with 100 days of funding, and possibly more after, so why not tell such BS to customers to try to scare them into more profits. I bought out my lease within 2 weeks (as soon as it linked to MyAudi) by the way, feel free to report me to the police. Oh, how do I know about the 100 day from funding, it's because I have also worked with Audi dealers who were honest about it. I would offer that I will keep the lease for them to get their kickback, or I would just pay them the kickback amount directly and up front if I thought it was better for me.

The truth is when an honest dealer finds undercar damage, they do have a choice of not inspecting it. They simply inform the customer about the damage and risks driving with the damage, plus that inspection and putting the car back together will cost X amount of dollars, and let the customer decide, not inspect it then hold the car hostage for thousands. Once customer knows the risk of getting the electrical error, they will not blame Porsche (as you suggest) if it happens.

The moment insurance is involved the dealer is no longer obligated to provide a loaner. Your insurance company is. When you wreck your car and take it to a collision center is it them that provides you a rental or insurance?? It's literally the same thing here.

Sure, but why retroactively threaten to charge for the loaner? Also, unless the customer goes against your advice and interjects themselves between the dealer and insurance, they were at an impasse, nothing was moving, no loaners were provided.

As for cost of course that is going to be a battle. One company requires money to perform their job. The other is the one being leveraged to provide that money.

From everything the OP said the dealer and insurance have come to an agreement. AND THE DEALER IS NOW OFFERING TO PUT THEM BACK IN A LOANER! So from my perspective everything the OP did and said only increased tension. The OP even took advice from many commenter's that was just bad advice.

The dealer and insurance company only came to an agreement AFTER the customer interjected themselves and got PNCA to inquire. How would that have happened if they followed your advice to stay out of it?

STOP LOOKING AT WHOLESALE PARTS ONLINE! Unless it is racecar stuff most dealers will not install parts you find online. Even if you believe it is the same part at a better deal. They are just going to refuse you. The only times I have gotten away with brining my own parts have been track pads and exhaust systems "that don't delete the cats"

Ha ha, another dealer dream business model plug? Stop looking at online part prices because we don't want you to know we're charging 100% markup on a $26K part. I fully understand dealers do not want that to happen, just like they don't want people to compare prices for the same service - one customer pays $700 for 2 year Taycan service, another one pays $2,400 at a dealer 40 miles away (or sometimes at the same dealer) - not something some dealers want you to know because it gives the customer information that can be used to make informed choices and/or negotiate accordingly. I say some dealers, not all, because I have had the pleasure to work with honest dealers in the past. I always seek out a good dealer. You know that dealer that tried to tell me I will go to jail for paying off a lease early? I don't service my car there. They also pulled a whole lot of other tricks trying to get me to overpay, guilt me into buying upsells, etc. The only reason I got the car there was because it was still the tail end of the pandemic and they were the only ones in the area with a car configuration I wanted.

To your second question

Of course it is unsafe to drive a wrecked car lol. What are you a troll??? Do you drive a car on public roads?? Do you like playing Russian roulette with your life??

If the car is designed such that it can take subtle damage that the owner would not notice but would in turn cause the car to explode, that's absolutely the manufacturers liability. Check out the Toyota unintended acceleration legal saga. Toyota did not properly design the system which if exposed to cosmic radiation in a particularly rare way, would cause a computer corruption resulting in unintended acceleration. Sure, this only happened one in a million car, but Toyota sells millions of cars, so few incidents happened. Toyota was liable to millions of dollars. Since they design using proper safety standards like ISO 26262 which require "random failures" to occur in safe manner. In this case, it is on Porsche to ensure that if a battery is damages in a way which is not detected, so the drive is not warned, that battery cannot just explode or spontaneously catch on fire.

Tesla didn't warn me that the charger could catch my garage on fire. Are they playing with my life???

I think you got the manufacturer wrong. Tesla has a temperature sensor in their plugs (something Porsche added after years of issues), plus they used proper wire gauge to ensure they don't melt residential sockets, even if they wouldn't catch that melting with the temperature sensor, and further fault detection they do by ramping current slowly and monitoring voltage drop to detect wiring faults - if those are detected, charging is immediately throttled to prevent fires. While Porsche just added the temperature sensor, they've yet to implement the other mitigations. HOWEVER, Porsche has in fact warned all their customers that their charger may burn their house down, check out the warning stickers (added at a later time, probably after a fire somewhere):

PS> PMC+ and PMCC are the probably the worst EVSE's you can buy for North American market. But that has been covered in other threads on this forum.

 

[whitex]

As their lawyer might well conclude, once a manufacturer determines a potentially deadly circumstance to exist, returning the car to the customer potentially places the dealer in a position of liability for later damage due to the fault.

If that was true the dealers would never be able to sell cars "AS-IS", which is of course done all the time. The only responsibility of the dealer is to inform the customer of the potentially deadly circumstance, not to stop them from driving.

 

[whitex]

Needs legal disclaimer: Do not drive like this as it could cause a 3.01mm dent in your "protective" cover and total the car.

Neh, this is just marketing imagination. No different than watching a commercial where some frat guys open up a can of soda and suddenly their room gets filled with beautiful women in swim suits, and a party ensues. Nobody has won any lawsuits about opening a can of "drink x" and not seeing beautify women materialize out of thin air in their home like in the commercial.

 

[whitex]

@TeecanToocan is just a guy from Milwaukee who just happens to know the exact brand name of the car scanner used at Tom Wood Porsche in Indianapolis.

https://www.uveye.com/
And why should the OP complain? He got that UVEYE scan for FREE!

And:

• just happened to have joined the forum on July 31st 2024 (2 days ago)
• has only commented on a single thread since joining (this one)

Will the coincidences never stop?

 

[whitex]

A dealership has many many rules and regulations they have to follow. If they miss one thing and something happens they will lose in court. So if papa Porsche says it's not serviceable then what is that dealer supposed to do?? Just bilt on a new plate and go hush hush until you experience a thermal event??

They have options. They can refuse to work on the car, full stop. They can even quote a trillion dollars for an inspection, but if the customer paid it and chooses to not do the repair, they need to put the car back together in the state it came in and give it back, with sufficient warnings about possible consequences which would absolve them from liability. They can even report this to Porsche to void the battery warranty. Still, customer has the right to refuse the inspection and/or the repair and take their car back without being extorted for more money. Be up front about it "we found a dent under your car, it may cause the following issues A,B,C. It will cost $X to diagnose and get more information which if no issue is found is the final price, or if issue is found may cost up to $Y". Let the customer make the choice, don't sell them on inspection and then hold their car hostage for tens of thousands of dollars to repair or thousand of dollars to put it back together.

 

[Maelstrom]

I brought my car today because of the recall and have a dent too. They will look at it. They had one occasion when a car was totalled because of a dent. They also told me that a rock can’t cause it, but something like a speed bump or a border of a sidewalk can. Will post my story later today when I hear back from them

I'm really sorry to hear that - my dealer had another car in that had quite a lot more damage to the protection plate and that was totalled too.
What I'm finding interesting are the protagnonists talking about the steel plate as tho it's several feet thick - it's not and clearly there's an issue as more people are noticing dents (I think 3 now on this thread)

@Jasper4S I hope it's below the tolerance

 

[DerekS]

My guess is that Porsche did not expect Taycan to sell at the volumes achieved so far and that sales benefited from lockdown, company and personal tax benefits, and low interest rates. All of that resulted in a new wave of Porsche customers, and unexpectedly high sales.

They built a whole new factory just to produce them.

 

[DerekS]

I’ve been playing “defense” with Porsche service since I’ve been driving them. I’ve always hated service visits; I don’t like leaving my car with someone else and I especially don’t like the high service costs.

On my prior ICE vehicles, $550 oil changes and $2-3k “major service intervals” were the norm...but I put up with them because I loved the cars so much.

I always did what I could to reduce the costs, like buying my own parts (brakes, for example) from Suncoast. I’d decline non-essential items if I could.

One of the things that appealed to me on the Taycan was staying OUT of the service bay.

It is important to remember the service side of the house is a profit generator just like the sales side, and play defensively. It helps a lot when you build a good relationship of trust with a service advisor. Make sure to take care of them with excellent reviews when they do you right.

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