My worry is my car goes in for recall test, they fail the car but now cannot return it due to some liability risk, and the car is stuck at dealer until new battery arrives some day in the future, since I’m sure they don’t order a new battery until test fails.
Interesting.
My dealer already said they won’t give me my car back if I drop it off before they even do the test, and definitely not going to return it if it fails. A bit ridiculous IMO but now I have to wait for a loaner before I can drop it off.
I dropped my car off for the battery recall and another issue. I picked it up the next day after they ordered parts for both the battery test and the other issue. Why would the dealer want to keep the car while they order parts necessary to perform the test? After the test I can see some legal liability, e.g. they know it's leaking and it could potentially short out and start a fire, but until the test fails, they have no knowledge of this, unless there have been incidents recently and Porsche is purely trying to pull Taycans off the road (like Toyota did with their bz4x, but in that case they straight up offered a brand new ICE loaner for many weeks, or complete buyback of the bz4x - you'd think Porsche can match Toyota in level of service). Something seems fishy with your dealer, like they are trying to discourage you from doing the recall. Weird, as they get paid doing it.
Mine told me up front that if it fails the test, I'll have to schedule another visit to get the battery replaced so it seems they'll let me take the car even if it fails?
Every time a mechanic touches one of my cars, something else breaks right afterwards. It has become a family joke over the years. Assuming mechanics aren't sabotaging them, the only conclusion I can reach is that cars don't like to be messed with
They are definitely discouraging me; they told me upfront they have too many people scheduling the recall. That said - even if I do schedule it, why would I have to leave the car? They could simply defer the date of my service. In any case, my local dealer has been terrible from the day I tried to buy the car. I ended up buying out of state but it would be 3-4 hours for me to drive there. The next closest ones are all an hour out so I still try to go to my local dealer but I might not have a choice.
The proper way to do this then is each dealer gets a couple of battery packs in their inventory (how many depending on the size of dealer), that way they have new battery ready to go should a car fail, when they swap it in and immediately order a replacement. They stop testing once they run out of batteries. Alternatively they could do this per regional warehouse holding an aggregate supply of batteries, with one day battery delivery to the dealers in the region - all dealers stop testing when warehouse batteries go on backorder.
It sounds like your dealer has more customers than they can handle, so they focus on most profitable ones. Perhaps doing pre-delivery, or CPO inspections, or other repairs, are more profitable to them than doing recalls. When the dealer is actively discouraging you from servicing your car with them, I would drive an hour for much better service.
Fair!
@bn8959 does have a point: on -failed- batteries it would be incorrect to assume that only the safety valves blow during the test, it could be that the already-failing seal is damaged even further. Releasing the car to the cx after a test failure increases the chance of the subject of the recall. I do agree with your earlier comment on having batteries in stock/nearby before scheduling tests; that way there is a guaranteed max period for the car to be out of service.
