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

[A.Mayor]

I don’t think your car was ever considered to be written off.

If the car is comparatively worth $120k today, even the initial $70k repair bill wouldn’t exceed the 80% cost threshold. Also, the model or unique build has no bearing on the insurance decision for production cars.

Tom Wood Porsche might very well be advocating for their own interests here (if the car was in the grey zone of being totaled), with the opportunity to make a profit and gain experience and knowledge from repairing the car.

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[WasserGKuehlt]

Car totaled, Tom Wood sees $0.

Car fixed, Tom Wood sees $50-72K.

They could have seen 0 also if @Maelstrom had decided to take it elsewhere. (Hmm, maybe that’s why they held the car hostage..)

Anyway, it occurred to me that Porsche (AG, not NA) may have been behind the decision to not release the car. They couldn’t tell if it was indeed safe, and probably did not want to take the risk of reading about this car in the news.

People grumble a lot here about lack of transparency etc.; that’s just not how corporations work. The deafening silence doesn’t mean they are ignoring the issue. (And I’d hope that was evident in the improvements brought with the refresh.)

 

[Caraholic]

To address the proverbial elephant in the room and it's something I don't think I've specifically called out as to why my car wasn't totalled with the original estimate - and as much as this is through gritted teeth Tom Wood do have a positive part to play.
So when my damage was 'inspected' there was another Taycan that basically had a hole blow through the protection plate - if memory serves it was a 4S with high mileage (for context). That car was totalled (written off for my European brothers/sisters).
Tom Wood did advocate for my car - being a Turbo S and only having 8k miles (just) and showing the insurance company that there wasn't many on the market that reflected my build and that they were around $120k comparatively. This simply prevented it being totalled
Whilst I have grievances with simply everything about what's happened I think this does need to be called out and the reason I say this is that I really do love the car and have barely got used to it - every time i drive it I smile. If they hadn't have done this then there is a chance that a $200k car with 8k miles could've been totalled and that would've been a travesity.
I'm not trying to downplay everything that's gone on and sure...totalling the car would've been closure and a lot less stress and hassle - but I do really enjoy this car and want to know it better - even though I feel like we're all beta testers ?.
A close friend of mine from the UK asked me (who owns a Taycan 4S and loves it) asked me even after all of this if I would get another and my answer without hesitiating was YES - it's been 2,000 miles, I barely know this car but so far I love it, I'm scared shitless this may happen again but I want to least enjoy it for more than the few months I've owned it.
I'm really looking forward to getting it back, between my GMC Terrain and the Maycan, well, I don't think I need to comment any further.
So I do feel like I do need to give Tom Wood a little Kudos - we all have to be objective at times

Not sure I would give them to much credit here. If it is totaled they don’t get any money. They were just pushing this along for their own benifits.

 

[Ronglos]

If you look here Zeekr knows how to test a battery. Start at 8 minutes.

 

[Maelstrom]

If you look here Zeekr knows how to test a battery. Start at 8 minutes.

Impressive

 

[rb33gl]

If you look here Zeekr knows how to test a battery. Start at 8 minutes.

That drop test makes Porsche’s 3.3mm threshold look crazy! Testing with driving in 10 nails! OMG!

And charging at 600kw? You’d need to be next door to a power station…

 

[Vercingetorix]

Nice claims, but what is reality?
BBC certainly seems dubious. All claims by manufacturers, not by users.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgl20971wxpo

 

[D00notD00d]

I asked the dealer to review a ding to my underbody protection plate while it was in for the battery recall. The conclusion was it isn’t sufficiently deep or located anywhere that could be fatal. Their good advice was to leave as is rather than replace the plate as the chances of lightning striking twice in the same place are slim.

They did say they had recently done their first battery swap in 4 years as a consequence of damage to the plate.

The price of some used UK Taycans is now dipping below £40k, the cost of a battery replacement. Whist the fatal damage prevalence appears low, unless more component based repair scripts are developed, total loss write offs may increase, possibly affecting insurability and insurance costs.

 

[Maelstrom]

I asked the dealer to review a ding to my underbody protection plate while it was in for the battery recall. The conclusion was it isn’t sufficiently deep or located anywhere that could be fatal. Their good advice was to leave as is rather than replace the plate as the chances of lightning striking twice in the same place are slim.

They did say they had recently done their first battery swap in 4 years as a consequence of damage to the plate.

The price of some used UK Taycans is now dipping below £40k, the cost of a battery replacement. Whist the fatal damage prevalence appears low, unless more component based repair scripts are developed, total loss write offs may increase, possibly affecting insurability and insurance costs.

Glad you got off lightly - whilst it's been a shitshow for me I'm glad it's given awareness to everyone that's read this thread. Clearly this plate isn't as strong as some people think

 

[whitex]

They did say they had recently done their first battery swap in 4 years as a consequence of damage to the plate.

So did they only recently started checking for it, or does it just occur so rarely, so essentially they expect another one, maybe 2 over the next year?

 

[DerekS]

So did they only recently started checking for it, or does it just occur so rarely, so essentially they expect another one, maybe 2 over the next year?

They must not own one of those “wonderful” UV Eye profit generators!

 

[Maelstrom]

So did they only recently started checking for it, or does it just occur so rarely, so essentially they expect another one, maybe 2 over the next year?

Given an earlier post there's dealers that are scanning underbodys on new cars coming from Germany - I'm not sure how many dealers are getting the UVeye system, but man, I think that's gonna show up a lot

 

[whitex]

Given an earlier post there's dealers that are scanning underbodys on new cars coming from Germany - I'm not sure how many dealers are getting the UVeye system, but man, I think that's gonna show up a lot

Perhaps if a sufficient percentage of cars off the boat require a new battery, Porsche will ban the scans, or relax the thresholds, or recommend a cheaper repair, or start crating their EV's for transport.

 

[Maelstrom]

Perhaps if a sufficient percentage of cars off the boat require a new battery, Porsche will ban the scans, or relax the thresholds, or recommend a cheaper repair, or start crating their EV's for transport.

Precedent is set - if they waived the scans I'd be all over that like a rash. That would be a PR nightmare

 

[D00notD00d]

My impression is that proactive checks for ‘protection plate’ damage is a relatively new thing and that dealers are following a Porsche issued script.
While Porsche claim that changing from metal to composite on the Gen 2 car is for weight saving, I doubt that material will ‘ding’ in the same way that metal does.
I asked if the Gen 2 part could replace the Gen 1 part and the answer was negative. If anyone has access to both generations I’d love to know how different they are.
My last insurer declined to renew my Taycan last year. Nothing had changed my side.

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