Two week wait for repair

[djohnson]

My 996 C4S has been using coolant for a few months. After 3 visits my local Porsche franchise has finally admitted there is a problem. They called back today to say that the pressure in the cooling system is too high but they need to remove the engine to find the cause. They also said that depending upon what the problem is it might not be covered by the warranty. I thought the warranty covered all problems apart from wear and tear?

Apparently this will take two weeks and to add insult to injury they also told me that the RMS which was done 6 months ago is leaking again.

Its still a great car. Having said that a E60 M5 is looking more and more tempting.

[GreigM]

djohnson said:

I thought the warranty covered all problems apart from wear and tear?

Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who are under the impression that the extended warranty offers the same coverage as the original factory warranty and instead the reality is very very different. If you look here:
www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=102980&mpage=2
there is a copy of the actual coverage. It is my experience that porsche will stick religiously to only honour those things which are mention specifically in here. I have had a couple of issues with the porsche warranty, specifically:
1. Under the section headed "Suspension/Steering" there is not a single suspension component covered - I have had this confirmed verbally by porsche customer services and they (reluctantly) agreed that the heading is misleading.
2. I had a 3-way valve in the coolant system fail - it meant the car spilled about 2L of coolant when the engine cooled. I was told it was not covered by warranty as "small parts like valves are not covered" - the part cost was £1.25 and because the part is not covered, either is the 3 hours required to dismantle the car to replace the valve as well as the 3 hours to put it back together - so a bill for 6 hours labour. So in this case I took issue with the words "cooling system" as to me system implies a whole.
3. I had a coil-pack failure. Simple, straighforward, covered by warranty - no quibble there. Was told they needed to replace all 6 as if 1 fails the others are due to do so also. Went to pick up the car and was presented with a bill for parts and labour to replace 5 coil packs - yup, only the failed one was paid for by warranty and the others had to be paid for by me - had they explained this while telling me all 6 need to be replaced I would have told them to wait until the others failed.

I also had an intermittent fault whereby the car would lose all power completely - this could happen randomly and once at great speed, which was VERY interesting (no power steering, brakes etc). It was a fault in the emergency cutoff fitted to the GT3 - I narrowed the fault down to a solenoid sitting beside the battery, and was told that while the part would be covered by warranty if it failed completely, it is not covered while working intermittently - they would wait until it failed before the warranty would replace it.

[hartech]

In our experience, over pressured cooling systems on 996's (so far over 50K miles) often result from the start of a crack in the cylinder wall or cylinder head. Usually oil in the coolant is the head and smoke from an exhaust is the cylinder wall. Remeber that the exhaust pipes come out the opposite side to the cylinders they are attached to.

They frequently crack the expansion tank first to let the pressure out.

There could be other causes but we often have to trundle off to pick up a car from a main agent that has gone through the partial strip down - then engine condemned = need a new one sir = cannot afford it = Hartech collect and find another solution that is affordable - but you usually end up paying for the strip down - adding insult to injury.

Perhaps it would be best to be sure what they are going to do and what they are going to charge you for (in different scenarios) - in advance - before committng to more expense if the final answer from them is too expensive.

Baz Hartech

[fieldl]

You will end up paying for the diagnosis anyway so why not ask an indpendant to do it instead ?
IF the offending item is then covered by warranty ask Porsche to solve. If not get the independant garage to fix for a far less than it would have cost at the OPC.

[djohnson]

Thanks all.

They are going to do the strip down and diagnostic 'under warranty' since the RMS needs doing which is a warranty issue and apparently requires a similar removal of the engine etc.

Just wait and see I guess. Off to look at M5s this afternoon - these dam Porsches are just too much bother.

[Globulator]

djohnson said:

Off to look at M5s this afternoon - these dam Porsches are just too much bother.

ha! From what I hear about the M BMWs the Porsche build, warranty and service is much better. Servicing and fixing Ms is I hear rather more pricey than simply getting a specialist to fix your 996. If you want bullet-proof Porsches (which yours probably would be after Hartech etc. fixed the engine properly) try a good 993 or spring for a manufacturers warrantied 997.