I like to gauge current P-car owner's feelings about their dealerships - this will be my first Porsche, after 20 years of BMWs. In particular, I am mainly interested in the service part ie. forget sales. What type of loaners do people get, how much in advance do people make their appointment, how well do they know your car, and in general how helpful are they with less common requests. How about the parts departments - do they have good stock of parts, or did you have to wait for parts days or weeks.
Loaners - at my dealer they are non-Porsche but they are working on changing that.
Parts - usually in stock or next day
Service - good overall, but sometimes need some prodding or help as the case may be, certainly no worse than some other service places I've been
They know me and whatever car I own pretty well by now, but honestly that's the name of the game, form a relationship with these people so if a problem arises they'll take care of it to your satisfaction, if you don't want to be treated like a number in any service industry you have to form a relationship.
I have found Porsche service to be sub-standard to other luxury cars. BMW and Lexus are superb. Audi is also good. I have owned or currently own all of those and found the service to be far superior to Porsche. Even new car sales for Porsche does not give me goose bumps. I often, if not always know more than my dealer. Clearly they are interested first in sales. I assume they know the cars will sell themselves and they just have to be there to do the paperwork. My dealership provides a shuttle, but not loaner. If I selected a car because of sales and service, I would not be driving a Porsche.
I will need to talk to some other Porsche owners about our dealership. When I went to the showroom I remember seeing what appeared to be a messy service dept. Cars were kind of scattered all over instead of in an organized sequence like my BMW dealer. But like Sspender says, good or not so good I would have bought this car anyway.
Russ
Just came from the dealer today... wonderful service! The guys know me by name (even if its been months) and always give me tips on how to get more out of my porsches.
Forming a relationship is key like K-Man S said. I've heard thedealerships with Audi and Porschetogether usually have good service departments.
I really feel it just depends on your dealership. If you got a couple close to you do some research on them. If you only have one close by than definately do the research on it. Try to actually talk to customers and get first hand accounts. Especially the long term customer types.
My spouse has a Lexus. I was blown away by their service. New Lexus loaner while yours is serviced. Very intense personal interest without you trying hard. If Porsche could come half close to Lexus they would rule the world.
