981 GT4 third gear failure

Had the dreaded third gear failure today whilst driving around town. Wasn't driving particularly hard, upshfit from 2nd to 3rd around 6k rpm and just free spinning. All other gears drive fine and no error messages have popped up. Car is 3 years out of extended warranty and I drive very little kms per year ~1500kms a year if that. Did some research on the issue and it seems to have affected a few people so far world wide and there also being a service bulletin to replace transmissions in cars with this issue. So I rang and spoke to Service advisor at Doncaster Porsche and was told that he is not aware of any service campaigns or bulletins for my car and has never heard of the issue before, he also went one step further and tell me not to believe everything I read online about the issue as every car is different and anything could have caused the failure. I have booked the car in March to get looked at and was told that it would be around 2 hours to diagnose the issue at a cost of $600! from there they can look at how to resolve and fix the issue, wouldn't tell me the cost to replace the whole transmission. This is now going to be a headache and costly as I can't imagine it being less than $10k to replace a transmission on these cars. Anyone here had the dreaded 3rd gear failure or know of anyone who has had it and successfully replaced under warranty? Just looking at my options right now as I head into the weekend. I've attached a PDF of a bulletin from another forum, not sure it will help in my case or not. Cheers

Sorry to hear this. My understanding is that it was a known issue & would be rectified under warranty, not sure how relevant that is now given the cars are approaching 8 years old. How many kms are you at?

Different brand, and not sure if this is of any help, but when my wife’s BMW X1 gearbox shit itself, barely a year out of the factory 3 year warranty, the local BMW dealer said they’d never heard of that happening before, and weren’t at all interested in anything other than charging us retail price for a new gearbox (quoted $8-10K).  Then courtesy of Dr Google, I read on-line that it was ‘a known issue’ ……  so I went to BMW, showed them the on-line articles and told them that the product that they had sold us was ‘not fit for purpose’.  They suddenly changed their tune and replaced the gearbox at their expense.   In reality I probably would have been prepared to contribute something towards the cost, but in the end it cost us nothing. ‘Not fit for purpose’ has ACCC implications, so this seemed to get their arse into gear. Maybe worth the conversation with Porsche?

We had a not dissimilar issue with our Macan diesel - out of warranty, but the transfer case was making noises. Research found that there was indeed and issue and Porsche replaced it at nil cost.

Try another Porsche service centre and push harder on, as RicV said,” not fit for purpose “ Message Porsche head office, do as much pushback as needed. Good luck!

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im at 24,000 kms. Bought the car with 14000 kms back in 2018 and only serviced with Porsche Doncaster. Was only serviced a few months ago and everything came up normal. I am planning to do some more research and gather as much information before approaching Porsche again with what I gather. Car is booked in 11/03 for inspection as thats their only next available date. That gives me a bit of hope. Would be good to be able to find someone in Australia with this issue and having it replaced. This is a good idea and something that hadn't crossed my mind. Cheers What I find annoying is that in this day and age how someone can just fob off online research on issues with cars.

What pisses me off about this sort of stuff is the employee at Porsche says he's never heard of it before. What nonsense. A known issue is a known issue. It's not his money and the Porsche employee is a customer at other places too. I work for a manufacturer and if something happens to one of our products that is a known issue, I don't play dumb, I get it fixed at no-charge. The customer doesn't have to threaten or fight with me. Not hard to be a good person is it?

Exactly my thoughts. I'm just gathering some information on this issue before heading into Porsche Doncaster end of week to talk to the service guy there.

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Keep us updated on how you go.

There was definitely a problem and recall. I had a 3rd gear failure in my 981 GT4. Happened in August 2018 (was one of the first in the country that happened). I had told my dealer about it before it happened when I heard about it happening overseas. Porsche replaced the gearbox under warranty (car was under warranty at the time). It happened on track (Wakefield) and I even sent the dealer the video of it on track when it happened. They had no issues. At the time there was not bulletin or recall. I was told a short time later (maybe mid 2019), Porsche recalled all boxes that they believed were impacted and replaced the gearboxes. If your dealer won't play ball then send an email direct to Porsche Australia.

Ask PCD about the white car they used as a track car wrapped black most recently. Has been sold within last 12 months. Gearbox was replaced. The representative you spoke to may not know but others do.

This gives me hope reading this. It's just a headache at the moment, I am getting annoyed looking at the car in the garage Spoke to a friend of a friend who works at Brighton and he said he will make some inquiries for me. BTW mine is a Nov 2015 build which from reading falls in the timeframe of welded 3rd gear boxes.

Are you able to tell me the build dates that apply please?

To be fair, I suppose the question is how long should Porsche be held to fix something? They wouldn't take an old 9x6 and replace the IMS bearing at no-charge. This is an extremely well known issue. They wouldn't take an old 997 and replace the engine at no-charge due to bore scoring either.

Depends if its classed as a "recall"

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I am hoping that due to the relative low kms and having a full service history with Porsche that it will help my case. I just cant believe that third gear would have gone just under normal driving. From reading it seems cars affected have build dates Nov 15 - Sep 16

A bit of an update. Dropped the car off this morning and spoke to the service tech about the issue again. He asked if I had extended warranty which I said no and he just made a passing comment that if I had then they would just order a new gearbox. Hmmm... Not sure if joking or being serious. It's booked in for 2 hours to get looked at see what the issue is ($600) then will talk about options on where to go from there. I am preparing for the worse now.

I hope you get lucky with Porsche. If not I did just find these online. Unbelievably I cannot find the 3rd gear as a spare part from Porsche The service tech was not joking, If under warranty then the gearbox and internals would be covered https://www.holinger.de/showroom/3-gear-porsche-cayman-gt4-pg81 Regards Sean

Had a phone call this morning saying Porsche will cover the whole cost of replacing the gearbox! Happy days!

Great result mate! 👏

Great to hear!

Yes, super happy to hear it. He said there wasn't much pushback from Porsche either. Now gotta wait for the gearbox to arrive. Thanks for everyone's support and advice here.

fantastic

Great news

Great to see Porsche supporting their product. Any progress updates @soarer ?

Just an update. I finally dropped the car off in July to get the gearbox replaced. No issues at all and now works as normal. If anything the clutch feels a lot better too. Very happy with PCD.