A perfect metaphor for Porsche today

[RBGtaycan]

I've owned Porsches back to the 356. I have loved Porsches. I even loved my Taycan for many years - but gave up on it recently. I am fed up with dealer service AND fed up on Porsche's declining responsiveness and quality.

Symbolic of the situation is the fact that PCNA customer service has absolutely failed to even respond to TWO recent emails about a possible refund on my Porsche connect.

So I figured I'd contact a senior executive - and this is what I get on their web site (a perfect, and sad, metaphor ):

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[Schroederhc]

It's a complete bummer. I've grown up loving the cars and the brand.

 

[Gino]

It's a complete bummer. I've grown up loving the cars and the brand.

It’s really not the Porsche brand anymore. It’s been watered down by the VW Group which is making the Porsche brand a quaint historical afterthought. Porsche was the gold standard but now it represents copper or aluminium which are both too soft, deformable and no longer represent German craftsmanship. The cars primarily look good but have more and more unresolvable defects which will tank the long term value of every model one by one until Porsche turns it around or becomes unsustainable to sell vehicles in real volume.
I hope they figure it out because I would like to buy all my cars from Porsche but as of today I’m weighing buying CPO or even older models with a better reputation than any new Porsche. Waiting 2 years or more and 20K to 30K miles to get the infant mortality bugs out still doesn’t mean their won’t be land mines in each platform which makes parts & service too expensive & unreliable. Porsche engineered performance & quality are taking a beating. If the VW Group doesn’t right the ship soon the Porsche brand will eventually sink.

 

[gnr3312]

我也有同感。保时捷北美的售后服务太糟糕了。两年前，我的2022款Taycan的轮毂蹭到了路沿石，经销商报价18000美元维修。我的保险公司帮我找到了一家修理厂，只收了2000美元就修好了，之后就再也没出过问题。
经销商的作用就是提醒你换购新款车型。

 

[Vim Schrotnock]

It's really a shame. I paid $2,500 for my porsche charging station, and after multiple problems and visits just scrapped the damned thing and got an aftermarket charger. The car has been in the shop 6 months in my 5-1/2 years of ownership. I'm taking my car in next week because after replacing all 4 pads (not because of wear, but it was just embarrassing to hear the squealing in any kind of rain/fog), they are still squealing. Not what I would expect on a $250K car. Porsche is definitely in trouble, and I don't see their product or service improving significantly. I won't be buying a new porsche for at least the next three years. I'll put 100K miles on my beautiful Taycan, and we'll see what is available in 2030.

 

[Gino]

It's really a shame. I paid $2,500 for my porsche charging station, and after multiple problems and visits just scrapped the damned thing and got an aftermarket charger. The car has been in the shop 6 months in my 5-1/2 years of ownership. I'm taking my car in next week because after replacing all 4 pads (not because of wear, but it was just embarrassing to hear the squealing in any kind of rain/fog), they are still squealing. Not what I would expect on a $250K car. Porsche is definitely in trouble, and I don't see their product or service improving significantly. I won't be buying a new porsche for at least the next three years. I'll put 100K miles on my beautiful Taycan, and we'll see what is available in 2030.

Porsche is on very shaky ground in terms of quality, reliability and serviceability.
I no longer look at Porsche as the pinnacle of flawless German engineering. Instead it’s now devolved down to “hit or miss” German engineering Porsche expects you to roll the dice to determine when every owner will eventually get flogged by some ridiculous repair down the road. My 2021 Taycan may very well end up being a glorified show car that spends more time parked than driven. Very sad state of affairs for Porsche. My dealer is fantastic but the core Porsche product offerings are riddled with engineering flaws or intentional parts failure timing which are cancers eating away at the Porsche brand.

 

[Jasper4S]

Probably a bot with wrong language settings

 

[Tpup]

I totally agree. A shadow of its former self.
Totally disagree with the VW/watered down comment. Until recently Porsche generated a majority of group profits. They have control just horrible leadership in the past. Hopefully the new leadership can turn it around.

 

[Gino]

I totally agree. A shadow of its former self.
Totally disagree with the VW/watered down comment. Until recently Porsche generated a majority of group profits. They have control just horrible leadership in the past. Hopefully the new leadership can turn it around.

What I meant was the VW Group controls the show by focusing on profits only & not engineering & performance as it was for Porsche for many decades. Porsche made big profit margins but VW sells many more cars at lower margins. Unfortunately that’s a fact of life. That’s why every single luxury car maker at some point got bought by a volume car maker. Chrysler bought Mercedes but Mercedes smartly killed that relationship. Ford bought Jaguar, Ferrari & Maserati but got bought by Fiat/Chrysler/Peugeot while Ferrari separated to be back on its own in 2016.
Range Rover got bought by Ford but sold to Tata Morors out of India.
Every single one of them couldn’t survive without the bean counters of the major auto manufacturers pulling the strings.
Volkswagen Group owns Porsche, but the Porsche/Piëch family still wields enormous influence over the whole empire from the top. Let’s hope they decide to do something to save their brands reputation. Unfortunately it appears they are not smart enough to build quality, high performance products as they have in the past so they just expect customers to buy Porsche products in reputation and swallow the flaws.

 

[Crazymind]

For Repairpal, Porsche comes as the last brand when it comes to repair costs… which is an average of $1192 per Year…and I find this being incredibly cheap for so much car…
They were known for being great at customer service…which is now more dependant on the single dealer.

 

[Gino]

For Repairpal, Porsche comes as the last brand when it comes to repair costs… which is an average of $1192 per Year…and I find this being incredibly cheap for so much car…
They were known for being great at customer service…which is now more dependant on the single dealer.

The EV impact on yearly service costs has yet to be fully felt yet by Porsche EV owners. The quality of Porsche repairs to my ICE Boxster was quite low since the overwhelming majority of repairs were related to high quality Porsche mechanical parts & systems with a well documented track record of very long service life in time & mileage.
Porsche EV’s have transitioned to very expensive electronics modules, displays, HV battery modules, passive & active glass roofs all costing 10s of thousands of dollars to repair/replace.
Once a significant enough number of these EVs get beyond the 8 year HV battery warranty and the 4 year standard warranty plus 4 year extended warranty will the actual average costs be EV platform be known. Porsche ICE vehicles were pretty bulletproof in terms of quality & lifetime regarding their engines, transmissions, suspensions & braking systems. More recent models do have very expensive but usually very reliable electronics modules, displays, etc which are less likely to fail than the HV battery modules in EVs. This is one reason the older ICE Porsches will retain even more value while EVs & hybrids will continue to have terrible depreciation compared to their ICE equivalent. Unless Porsche does something to turn this trend around their EVs will be considered effectively disposable after 8 years.
I’m taking that chance with my 2021 Taycan because I don’t care about resale value.
I have no intention of ever selling it. My Taycan will never see 100K miles even after 20+ years since I have 3 other more reliable, low cost to service, ICE vehicles to drive. I hope Porsche will drive down the cost of HV battery replacements from $50K+ to something more reasonable in the $20K to $25K range by 2030. If not I’ll purchase a full HV battery replacement from a 3rd party for less than $10K.
Porsche dealers have already proven they cannot reliably replace active or passive glass roofs for $10K to $14K without cracking shortly thereafter due to improper installation outside of the factory. I’ll cross that bridge if I end up with a cracked roof.
The big question will be how reliable the displays in the vehicle will be which all can cost in excess of $10K to repair/replace. I’m not so worried about the 2 speed EV transmission & motors since I believe Porsche does build these assemblies with the same quality and life expectancy as their ICE engines & transmissions.
I bought my Taycan knowing it will be an experiment in serviceability & reliability. I did so because it is in my opinion the most beautiful 4 door sports sedan ever built for under $80K CPO.
My bet is on the Porsche family. I just can’t imagine them allowing their big bet in EVs to result in the Porsche EVs being considered disposable.
We won’t know this until the early 2030s which is enough time for them to get it right.

 

[Fish Fingers]

For me it was the UK dealer experience that forced me to sell.

Having the car constantly need repairing is one thing. Having dealers just shrug their shoulders and say they can't even look at the car for 2-3 months is another. I tried 4 different ones and they really didnt seem in the slightest bit bothered when you had a problem - just wanted you to trade up.

I still get all the spam sales emails even though I unsubscibe every time I get one.

I always think, I wish they had been this keen to fix the car as they are to sell me another.

 

[RBGtaycan]

For me it was the UK dealer experience that forced me to sell.

Having the car constantly need repairing is one thing. Having dealers just shrug their shoulders and say they can't even look at the car for 2-3 months is another. I tried 4 different ones and they really didnt seem in the slightest bit bothered when you had a problem - just wanted you to trade up.

I still get all the spam sales emails even though I unsubscibe every time I get one.

I always think, I wish they had been this keen to fix the car as they are to sell me another.

My exact experience here in the US.....highly discouraging.

 

[Gino]

My exact experience here in the US.....highly discouraging.

God, I have to consider myself lucky. My dealer in Newport Beach, CA has been close to perfect. The only thing that took a long time was replacing my portable charger that failed. It took over 6 months to clear the backlog but when it arrived they showered me with Porsche swag (hats, sweaters, coffee thermoses, etc).
The longest I wait to get an appointment is 2 weeks to get a loaner and the longest they’ve ever kept the vehicle was 2 weeks.
I hope if I ever have anything major to be done like a HV battery or a cracked glass roof they will do the job as well as the factory.
I don’t mind if they’re more expensive than 3rd party shops as long as their work is second to none so I can count on them for solid repairs of the highest quality.

 

[Gino]

My exact experience here in the US.....highly discouraging.

God, I have to consider myself lucky. My dealer in Newport Beach, CA has been close to perfect. The only thing that took a long time was replacing my portable charger that failed. It took over 6 months to clear the backlog but when it arrived they showered me with Porsche swag (hats, sweaters, coffee thermoses, etc).
The longest I wait to get an appointment is 2 weeks to get a loaner and the longest they’ve ever kept the vehicle was 2 weeks.
I hope if I ever have anything major to be done like a HV battery or a cracked glass roof they will do the job as well as the factory.
I don’t mind if they’re more expensive than 3rd party shops as long as their work is second to none so I can count on them for solid repairs of the highest quality.

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