Heater Replacement Wait Time

[Vixen]

Taycan 4s heater has gone. Blowing cold air for a few days now. Went to dealership and they said the heater had been replaced before (before I had purchased the car), however it wasn't the upgraded heater, they'd just replaced the heater like-for-like with one likely to fail again. Well it has.

They've booked me in for warranty repair... on the 11th December. Now UK winters are drawing in and it's going to get drastically colder this month. I daily this car and need to spend a lot of time in it. I drove it earlier today and despite my big coat and attempts to wrap up, it was not nice, the air feeling cold, my feet getting extremely cold. I can't wait a month for this repair. I've tried checking with other dealerships further away, and there's nothing closer.

What can I actually do here? They can't supply me with a loaner car for that long. But its not feasible or safe really for me to keep going for a month. Especially since my windscreen de-mist has become a lot worse since this issue came up. I literally spent 10 minutes "manually" de-misting my windscreen today.

Genuinely is there anything I can do? Could I raise a ticket to go through the dealership to Porsche GB to see if they can push this through. Because it is a safety issue, and it's a known manufacturer error.

Sponsored

 

[Tooney]

UK auto safety regulator does not view failed Taycan heater as a safety problem: https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/heating-failure.13668/page-7#post-212394

Neither does the US auto safety regulator. Canadian regulator has a different view.

 

[Vixen]

UK auto safety regulator does not view failed Taycan heater as a safety problem: https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/heating-failure.13668/page-7#post-212394

Neither does the US auto safety regulator. Canadian regulator has a different view.

Canada makes sense of course.

Interestingly I called a Porsche centre here earlier and explained the situation. They advised me that if the screen was to de-mist and not clear up with the de-mister, that I call Breakdown. In fairness, some thick fog and smoke today rendered by already pretty useless de-mister, no existent today, and there was a point when I was driving I couldn't see a thing as it had misted up in seconds and I couldn't clear. His point was, it'd get taken to Porsche and be seen within 48 hours and whilst he said he can't promise they'll do anything about it there and then, it's probably the best option I have.

 

[Scandinavian]

Amazing that misting up is not a safety concern in the UK? It is here in France and our weather is not at all as damp.

The advise from Porsche Assiistance is what I followed, had the car towed and back in 5 days! Well worth a try

 

[whitex]

Welcome to the club. Mine started blowing cold air couple of weeks ago. At first it was going to be a quick heater swap, but then they looked it up and apparently my car already has the upgraded heater (the dealer did a proactive replacement via a recall maybe a year ago), so now Porsche wants a full, multi-day diagnostic before authorizing a replacement. The dealer also said it may not the heater that is dead too - apparently the rest of Porsche components are just as poorly designed in terms of reliability, so it's anyone's guess which one of Taycan's cabin heating components failed this time. It's going in next week for diagnosis and repair (still under warranty).

As for driving it while like this, I'm willing to drive it in the morning to the dealer next week with a microfiber wipe on a stick which I can use to defog the front windshield. It will be a 30 minute drive. That's it. I tried using a cheap 12V heater plugged into the cigarette lighter plug to provide heat for the windshield. It mostly worked, but made the car stink like something burning, so gave up on that one. I actually bought that 12V heater back in 2023 knowing of Taycan's poor heater design, primarily for my trip home from picking up the car (3,500 miles away from home, middle of winter) - really glad I didn't have to use it during that trip.

 

[Boss Hogg]

If you get Porsche breakdown assist to agree to recover the car they will put you into an Enterprise rental car. The dealer also falls under more pressure to fix your heater quickly because after a certain time period the dealer has to pay the rental car cost rather than Porsche warranty. You'll need to argue for a large/decent car from Enterprise.

 

[Tooney]

Welcome to the club.
As for driving it while like this, I'm willing to drive it in the morning to the dealer next week with a microfiber wipe on a stick which I can use to defog the front windshield. It will be a 30 minute drive.

Photo, please, for the rest of us.

 

[Fish Fingers]

If you get Porsche breakdown assist to agree to recover the car they will put you into an Enterprise rental car. The dealer also falls under more pressure to fix your heater quickly because after a certain time period the dealer has to pay the rental car cost rather than Porsche warranty. You'll need to argue for a large/decent car from Enterprise.

This is exactly my experience.
Phone Porsche Assist (AA) and get it taken in when its next misting up. It will then become a priority.

Porsche Assist will arrange a loaner (Enterprise).
They will usually say its going to be something decent (it is class based) - and when you get there it is something worse - as they prefer to lease the better cars out to paying customers who have a choice.
I got a knackered, stinking Lexus Hybrid with 50k miles on the clock.

Refuse this 5hit and escalate it till you get something decent.

 

[Vixen]

Welcome to the club. Mine started blowing cold air couple of weeks ago. At first it was going to be a quick heater swap, but then they looked it up and apparently my car already has the upgraded heater (the dealer did a proactive replacement via a recall maybe a year ago), so now Porsche wants a full, multi-day diagnostic before authorizing a replacement. The dealer also said it may not the heater that is dead too - apparently the rest of Porsche components are just as poorly designed in terms of reliability, so it's anyone's guess which one of Taycan's cabin heating components failed this time. It's going in next week for diagnosis and repair (still under warranty).

As for driving it while like this, I'm willing to drive it in the morning to the dealer next week with a microfiber wipe on a stick which I can use to defog the front windshield. It will be a 30 minute drive. That's it. I tried using a cheap 12V heater plugged into the cigarette lighter plug to provide heat for the windshield. It mostly worked, but made the car stink like something burning, so gave up on that one. I actually bought that 12V heater back in 2023 knowing of Taycan's poor heater design, primarily for my trip home from picking up the car (3,500 miles away from home, middle of winter) - really glad I didn't have to use it during that trip.

I was using my crappy 12v heater to no great effect. This morning whilst I was driving I noticed my car wasn't cold, put my hand over the vent and the heater magically started working again. What's all this about? Things seems to go wrong on this car, then magically are all fine again until they aren't... and repeat the vicious cycle.

 

[whitex]

I was using my crappy 12v heater to no great effect. This morning whilst I was driving I noticed my car wasn't cold, put my hand over the vent and the heater magically started working again. What's all this about? Things seems to go wrong on this car, then magically are all fine again until they aren't... and repeat the vicious cycle.

I feel for you. If it's working now, the dealer might not be able to diagnose it, meaning you will be driving a ticking time bomb. Porsche is completely incompetent on this front. I remember with Tesla, if something was wrong, they could login remotely and pull logs to know what went wrong, so even if they couldn't take in my car immediately, they would at least save the diagnostic logs. Same was true if I just popped in while the car was doing something wrong, someone would come out and save the logs. I tried it at Porsche, no such procedure - all Porsche dealer can do is book your car for diagnostics at some future date, and if the problem goes away, logs are usually long gone. I got in a habit of doing a car scan and saving the errors (you can do that using various OBD scanner softwares) so at least I have some record of what was wrong when I booked the appointment, even if it "fixed itself".

I'd still keep the appointment, then press them them to tell you why your car wasn't heating, and if they can't, ask them to replace every component that could have caused it. It's not your fault Porsche cannot save failure logs longer than a service appointment queue, so perhaps they should just pay to replace all components - cost of saving money on good diagnostics. I checked mine few days ago (turned the car on to swap in winter wheels), it was still not heating. I would be quite upset if it suddenly started working before I take it in, or at the dealer while they have it, causing them, to try to return the car to me without any repairs.

As for the 12V heater, it worked for me in mildly cold/rainy weather, but when I say worked, it managed to keep my windhield in front of the driver from fogging up, it didn't heat the whole car.

 

[BigBob]

Taycan 4s heater has gone. Blowing cold air for a few days now. Went to dealership and they said the heater had been replaced before (before I had purchased the car), however it wasn't the upgraded heater, they'd just replaced the heater like-for-like with one likely to fail again. Well it has.

They've booked me in for warranty repair... on the 11th December. Now UK winters are drawing in and it's going to get drastically colder this month. I daily this car and need to spend a lot of time in it. I drove it earlier today and despite my big coat and attempts to wrap up, it was not nice, the air feeling cold, my feet getting extremely cold. I can't wait a month for this repair. I've tried checking with other dealerships further away, and there's nothing closer.

What can I actually do here? They can't supply me with a loaner car for that long. But its not feasible or safe really for me to keep going for a month. Especially since my windscreen de-mist has become a lot worse since this issue came up. I literally spent 10 minutes "manually" de-misting my windscreen today.

Genuinely is there anything I can do? Could I raise a ticket to go through the dealership to Porsche GB to see if they can push this through. Because it is a safety issue, and it's a known manufacturer error.

As it's a safety issue (and it is - fogging etc) you would be in your rights to get the car recovered by porsche assist. Then you get a courtesy car until it's fixed. I guess that ship may have sailed for you now, but worth remembering for future problems.

Sponsored