Dealer put 100+ miles on the 911 while in service for 5 days

My 01 Carrera was at a Porsche dealer for a week for warranty item repair work - clunking noise from the front wheels when driving over a bump, etc. They kept the car for 5 days, then put 100+ miles on the car. It started with one problem, then the service advisor called back in 1 day to say the car was overheating. After that was done, service advisor called again on the day of the pick up and told me they found additional problems on the car. THEN, she asked if she or the service manager could drive the car home to test drive it. Since it was a dealer, I agreed to it. I finally got my car back, and they did about 5 pages of warranty work. The car feels a lot tighter now, but I'm still uncomfortable with the 100+ miles on the car. I even called the Porsche corporate office, and half the people said they never heard of a dealer taking customers' cars home, then the other half said that it could happen since the car needs to be tested for an extended period of time such as while being in traffic, high RPM, etc. Anyone experience this?

Take the car home???? You're ****ting me right? 100 miles is ridiculous, I would make a stink about it, see what they say when you tell them you're going to talk to PCNA to see if thats 'normal'.

I never heard of a dealer taking the car home...that's a little weird. But if I was in your shoes I would be glad that they took the effort to spend some time on the car sorting her out, rather than just picking up the car after the intial work and then finding out it's overheating and bringing it back and so forth. Which dealer did you take it to?

I worked for a dealer for some time and it's not completely unherd of that a dealer would drive a car for extended mileage to try to track down problems...but it was only done at the customers request....generally this came after us not being able to find the problem they complained of such as issues when sitting in traffic for extended periods etc. We never took them home though...just for extended drives durin the day. Andy

Is the car fixed? If so who cares about the mileage? It's a 996 not a low mileage collectable so what difference does it make? I have worked as a tech at a dealer and have driven several cars home and back including a 1k mile GT3. Not that big of a deal. Why spend the effort to complain about it. It's fixed.

It's weird but if it seems to be working fine then I wouldn't worry about it. It's not like they are going to give you the miles back.

I have heard of it. My dealer does it.

5 days @ 20 miles a day = 100 miles

My dealer kept my car overnight on one occasion. Picked it up the next day and noticed the gas gauge read EMPTY which was strange since I knew the car had about 3/4 tank when I dropped it off, wasn't sure about the mileage however. I immediately brought the car back and questioned them about it, and of course they didn't admit any excessive use of the car. I drove to a gas station to fill up and it only took a little over half a tank! This is indicative of running the tank empty and filling it up partially (tried to cover their tracks?), as sometimes the gauge doesn't register the partial fillups. Not sure exactly what went down, but the moral to the story: Make sure you note the mileage!

the in and out milage is on your repair order. ive driven custoemrs cars home before at their aproval to look for intermitent problems

I'm curious as to which dealer was it?

It was the new Porsche dealer in Downtown L.A. I talked to the manager about this already, on the day I got my car back. He said very casually that he's the who drove it home for test driving. The dealer had other newer 911's, C4S, and Turbo's, and so they had a pick of their choic if they wanted to take any car home. If they went for a joyride, they probably found the reason to take mine since they knew the car needed to stay at the dealer for a few days. Also, McKenna Porsche body shop put on about 100+ miles on the car after they did $5,000 worth of front bodywork. That time, the bodyshop foreman said he needed to drive long miles and had to take it home "to look at the car closely under a bright light in his garage." In reply, I told him why the body shop doesn't have those bright light to inspect cars. I let him drive it, and so far no problems with the car, and they did good body work.

Relax, they had your permission. In LA it's not uncommon to drive 40 miles or more to work each way.

My dealer puts about 25-50 mi per day trying to fix rattles etc. I doubt it's really warranted but it's 100 mi is nothing for 5 days. Noises needs to fixed one at a time.

Dude, I know I gave permission. I am asking people here if anyone else had similar experience. By the way, taking customer's car home was the issue at hand, not the commuting miles.

The real issue with me is that I only took my car in for one repair job which was wheel rattling, but they just kept finding new problem after problem. Then the repair list came out about 5 pages long which were all under warranty. What some of you guys might not be aware is that some dealers do warranty repairs since the factory will pay for the cost. Dealers do these on cars under warranty to generate revenue for the dealership.

Any of these service managers named Kim, by chance?

First name is Kim? The service manager at the Downtown dealer was a guy.

this is true it is revenue for the dealer, but it was under warrenty and if the dealer is adding "lines" they are likely real issues and most likely saftey related the dealer wuld get in huge trouble adding lines for the purpose of revenue over customer saftey. and it really is better to have it done under warrenty then out of your pocket when your out of warrenty

i applaud the dealer for fixing other problems that they find along they way. how many times have you taken a car in for one thing - only to get it back to find some new problem....something that should have been obvious to the person working on it. maybe better communication would have helped, too. a quick phone call: "hey...we've noticed that X isn't quite right..." etc... i like them being proactive. as for the 100 miles....that does seem a bit excessive, but as long as there is no damage and you got the car back with all the issues dealt with, i'd be ok with it. maybe just a quick scan to see if there have any over-revs would help put you at ease. that way you'd know they weren't beating on it.

So half the people think it's acceptable, and the other half do not. Yeah, so it was odd that they took it home overnight. But the car's original rattling problem is gone, along with other problems they said they'd found. I was going to make a big stink about it bringing in my lawyer, but I don't got the time now. I might take it up and mention this odd procedure with the dealer's owner at a later time.

[QUOTE=washington951]maybe just a quick scan to see if there have any over-revs would help put you at easeQUOTE] Whaddya mean, a quick scan? Is there a way to scan prior over-revs?

This is LA - there are a lot of guys named Kim. Also, this seems reasonable to me - I've had it done with other cars. 100 miles is a little higher than normal, but you know that most people don't live downtown, so this could have been just one or two round trips. If the car is better than before, 100 miles is no big deal.

I think it is a little much putting 100 miles on your car....but be glad he did all the repairs under warranty (needed or not) you wrote the car feels more tight! Perfect...I wouldn't make a stink....ask them friendly how it is possible...but...if the dealer is a good one..cherish them, because there are not that many great ones!

The background shop in your avatar, it looks familiar. Is that Rodeo Dr or Sunset Strip in Beverly Hills?

Nicolaas, Great "facelift" on your 996. I sent you a private message earlier. I can't justify spending $3K now for 02 front conversion. On your pre facelift photo, you had some headlamp cover that made the old teardrop headlamp look round. Could you give me some info on that such as vendor and price? If you still have them, would you be interested in selling them? Btw, great website you got there. Awesome photo shots. You do weddings too?