Caution - Inspection BS - Dealership BS - Austin TX

[Hirschaj]

A word of caution for people in Austin. My wife brought our Taycan into Porsche Austin for its annual inspection. They performed the safety inspection and provided a list of recommended services. Here's what they recommended:

• Replace 3 tires
• 4 wheel alignment

First, when they charged my wife they tried to charge her for both the safety AND emissions inspections. She called them out on the emissions part since obviously we have an EV. Of course they removed the charge.

Second, 2 of our tires will need replacement within the next 6 months for sure. The other two were replaced with brand new tires about 6 months ago after my wife killed both drivers side tires in a pothole incident. After she got home from the dealership, I measured the tread depth on both of those tires and they are fine. I also looked for any uneven wear and there is none that I can detect. The alignment would be completely unnecessary even if we did replace the tires.

This was at the North location. Thankfully my wife is a sharp cookie and knows not to fall for this type of BS.

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[WattTurbo]

Are referring to the state inspection that is required to renew the registration sticker on the windshield? I thought all new cars don’t have to get inspected until the third year. I just double checked mine and the registration is not due until 2024, and mine is a MY22

 

[Hirschaj]

Are referring to the state inspection that is required to renew the registration sticker on the windshield? I thought all new cars don’t have to get inspected until the third year. I just double checked mine and the registration is not due until 2024, and mine is a MY22

Yes, you can choose to pay for 1 or 2 years at a time. Mine was due this month. I believe the inspection requirement goes away in 2025 anyway.

 

[TXSchnee]

Call and talk to the service manager, James is pretty responsive. They have never tried that with me, but since I tend to know more about my vehicles than the advisors maybe they know better?

 

[SergeyIndy]

This does not sound good. Please share if you decide to do alignment check and cost and then if they do the alignment please share the out of spec alignment sheet before and after and the cost.
I clipped my wheel and my alignment check was off on 2 tires by 0.01 and 0.03 and I decided to decline and wait until I need to get new tires. Alignment check is $300 and alignment itself will be $800+ or more as they just roll their eyes like this will be sky high expensive as alignment on Taycans is a "360" type and I am not sure what that means in the context of doing it at tire replacement time.

 

[Hirschaj]

This does not sound good. Please share if you decide to do alignment check and cost and then if they do the alignment please share the out of spec alignment sheet before and after and the cost.
I clipped my wheel and my alignment check was off on 2 tires by 0.01 and 0.03 and I decided to decline and wait until I need to get new tires. Alignment check is $300 and alignment itself will be $800+ or more as they just roll their eyes like this will be sky high expensive as alignment on Taycans is a "360" type and I am not sure what that means in the context of doing it at tire replacement time.

IIRC they quoted $699 for a 4-wheel alignment.

Edit: I also do not plan to do any alignment check as my tires appear to be wearing nice and evenly.

 

[kort]

A word of caution for people in Austin. My wife brought our Taycan into Porsche Austin for its annual inspection.

annual inspection? that is BS! the only inspection recommended is the 20k inspection which took me 2 years to get to.

their calling you in for an annual inspection is bogus

 

[r553]

I would find a competent independent alignment shop to get your car aligned. I pay $150 for a four wheel alignment here in east central FL. I have had three alignments so far after each pair of new tires. My car has rear wheel steering which turns out to be no big deal to the alignment shop. The alignment is mostly a toe adjustment as the caster is fixed and to adjust the camber the subframe has to be moved. Most likely you can get a name of a good alignment shop from a local independent Porsche shop.

 

[axpy]

On top of what everyone said, Porsche does not allows a single tire replacement on an axle. They should always recommend replacement 2 or 4 tires.

 

[Hirschaj]

annual inspection? that is BS! the only inspection recommended is the 20k inspection which took me 2 years to get to.

their calling you in for an annual inspection is bogus

I didn’t mean to imply this was a Porsche thing. It is required by the state of TX.

 

[philbur]

Tire wear - why don’t people use the built in wear bars in the tire? No monkey business and they are positioned across the tread. The engineering is that the tire performs within its envelope up to the bars. I wear all my tires to the bars… when I get close I pay more attention in the wet.
Next time a dealer or tire place wants to replace ask them what the bars say.

 

[axpy]

I guess there might be some situations where it would be ok but the manual clearly state that tires should be replaced in pair.

 

[Racer_Ex]

Just my 2c and ymmv. But it doesn’t sound like they were that out of line. They made one mistake and fixed it. Re the tires and alignment, dealers make recommendations for optimal performance. As consumers we have to decide if we want optimal or if we are willing to live with less than optimal.

I’ve used the north and south Porsche Austin locations multiple times. While I think their sales approach is unethical (no need to get into that here) and some of the sales staff are unnecessarily snooty, their service department has always done good work for me.

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