Hi All,
We recently purchased a certified 05 Boxster for my wife, and I'm a bit dismayed by a couple things that have come up. We've only had the car for about 2k miles and 3 months (2-3 weeks of which is was in the shop after being rear ended), and already we need new tires and brakes. We're only at 30K miles, and the 20k service was performed (late?) before we bought the car with 28k miles.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that these are wear items and aren't covered by any warranty or the like. In addition, the cupholder trim was loose and needs to be replaced (which we pointed out at purchase), and one of the seatback release levers (on the armrest side of the seat) was missing. I can't seem to find an actual list of the "100+" point inspection, but I just feel that these things should have been noticed and replaced during the certification process and that dealer skimped on them.
We've called the dealer and the Service Manager was a bit shocked that we're getting a brake pad wear message at only 30k and won't comment further until we bring it in Thurs. We have a call in to the GM as well with our concern about these issues. Is there anything else we should do? Should we get PCNA involved?
Thanks,
Corey
(The only bright point in this ordeal is I'm hopefully getting a croc for a loaner
)
I've copied this thread to the Cayman Complaints section too since it is really about a complaint about a certified Porsche and could apply to Caymans as well.
The certified programs for cars vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Additionally the dealer is in charge of "certifying" the car. I don't have any direct experience with Porsche's certified program, but from my experience with BMW wear items such as tires and brakes are suppose to pass a "minimum" life test (1 BMW resulted in getting new tires b/c of this). While I am big fan of certified programs, the actually warranty is not complete bumper to bumper warranty. In the BMW program interior "trim" pieces are not covered by the warranty. However, if you pointed out parts that were broken prior to purchasing and the dealer indicated they would make them right then the warranty is a moot point.
Ultimately it is the dealer who is responsible for the inspections and bringing the car up to spec. and servicing the certified program. In your situation I personally would wait and see what the dealership does for you before getting PCNA involved. In my experience with PCNA (with regard to an issue with a Boxster back in 2000) getting them involved may or may not solve your problem but it will in likely put off the dealership and make them less likely to bend over backwards to please you.
Let them know you know there are certain requirements for wear items for the car to pass certification and that after only 2 k miles there is no way the brakes should be worn out w/o track days. I could be a problem with the brakes or just an oversight by the dealership. I would give the opportunity to make it right before going up the chain of command. I think the same argument can be made for tires however, depending on the tires, alignment settings and driving style you can easily toast a set of rear tires in 10k miles. My 2 prior 911's got about 10-12k on the rears. My Boxster got about 12-13k. I think the tire argument is going to be much more difficult to win.
30K sounds like a long time...I guess you don't go through pads as fast if you don't track the car.
The indicator goes on
way
before the pads need to be changed.
Did you look at the tires and brake pads before you bought the car? You say "these things should have been noticed" - did you notice them?
I think his point is that with "certified" cars there is suppose to be a minimum amount of life that remians on items such as brake pads, tires, etc., and that for the dealer to sell the car as certified then the dealer is suppose to inspect the car for these qualification, and he thinks the inspector should have noticed the brake pads, tires, etc.
Needing tires and brakes at 30K is really no surprise at all. In fact, that's incredibly good service life for performance tires, which brings me to my next point.
What gives with the 'Pre-Certified' status? I am no expert on pre-certified, but if there is a 100 point inspection on a used car I would expect tires and brakes to be in the top 10 of those 100 inspections. And I can't imagine that these items were worn from acceptable to unacceptable in the 1 week you drove the car.
I would raise some very stern but polite questions to your dealership about this. Make it clear that you are very disappointed with the 'pre-certified' inspection. Tell them that you expected the pre-certified status to protect you from buying a car that needed immediate service and that would like to know why they would mislead you by selling you the car and not disclosing that the tires and brakes were beyond their usefull life at delivery. Ask them for the phone number to Porsche so you can call them to share your complaint.
Once you ask for the phone number, I suspect that their whole attitude will change. PCNA is brutally hard on their dealerships. They don't want this kind of stuff to happen and they expect the dealers to be responsible for preventing it. I suspect that they will not want you to call Porsche and that they are very likely to work out a resolution with you.
Hi All,
Thanks for the responses! :thanks:
As I said in the original post, I am in no way protesting the point that wear items (or even the trim parts) should be covered by the CPO warranty, but that they weren't found and fixed during the certification process. As Gator said, I'm a bit miffed that the "high quality standards" of Porsche for an Approved vehicle would ok wear items that would need replacing so soon.
Spin: Nope, I didn't complete a full prepurchase inspection because I was under the (false?) impression that the certification from PCNA was sufficient.:crazy: Mea Culpa, and depending on the outcome of this, Lesson Learned. Porsche advertises, in essence, that a Porsche Approved vehicle is almost as good as new. This is reflected in the increased warranty and the markup over a non-Approved used vehicle.
We're following a plan of action similar to what was suggested by bet and Gator Bite. We've contacted the dealership with calls into the very nice Sales Manager we dealt with in addition to the General Manager. We have a service appointment scheduled for the morning for them to look over these issues and decide what the proper course of action is and they'll contact us prior to doing any work that we'll be charged for. At that point we'll discuss with the dealership how to handle this, and if that's not satisfactory we'll consider escalating it up the chain.
If any of our dealer members read this, and can/will share what exactly is on the Porsche Approved checklist (whether in full or in specific regard to the Brake and Tire wear), please contact me publicly or privately.
Thanks Again!
Corey
My faith in my dealer has been restored!
I took in the car yesterday AM so they could check out the brakes and tires, as well as fix the cup holder trim piece that we'd pointed out was broken during delivery. While I was there, I also pointed out several other missing or broken pieces. The Sales Manager called us last night to let us know that the sales department would be replacing everything for us, gratis, and that it shouldn't have left the lot as a Porsche Approved vehicle like this.
There was no pressure, yelling or threats needed from us. We simply expressed our concerns up front and they made the decision on their own to make everything right for us. Excellent customer service!
We should get it back today or tomorrow.
