car at dealer 7 days for noise rattle? paranoid?

Took my car in Monday morning for some squeaks, rattles, etc. noise issues in my car from both left/right sides, and a rattle in sunroof. Figured it'd be a one day job, but they kept it for 2 days, then 3, etc. Each day I call the service advisor just says they're continuing to work on it, making progress and fixed some, etc. I'm now on end of day 5, and was just told I'm now looking at getting my car back Monday. Something now about letting some adhesive cure that they had to use for a noise problem they found under some panel in the rear window (not the side window, but the full rear window). I asked out of paranoia on day 4 was my car ok, engine on fire?, etc. Service advisor said everything was fine, car is completely ok, just they found and fixed some noise problems but were continuing to isolate and fix the few remaining ones. I had visions of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and someone had either joy-rided by car or crashed it and they were now doing fast bodyshop work. I'm now looking at getting the car back end of Monday, which means 7 full days of work will have been done/passed by that point. My car is at Circle Porsche at Long Beach - anyone think this is just normal, actually great efforts and service by the dealer to really solve all my noise issues, or should I give in to paranoia and fear the worst?

Stop by and visit it tomorrow, that should alleviate your concerns. Pete

Yeh, I'd be tempted to drop by and check as well as have them explain what they have done / are doing. If nothing else, it seems like slow / poor service.

Sounds like they're trying to do a good job.

Had my car at Valley Motors in MD for the same thing. took it in on a Sunday for a sunroof rattle, every day kept telling me same thing. Found out they did not even start on it till late Thursday and then again on Saturday. Tried to rush to finish it and did not correct the problem, now I have to go back. Go see them and stay on top of the repair, rattles get the bottom priority for a dealership paying a mechanic $100+ an hour.

well, dropped by unannounced on Sat, even though I was told by SA on Friday they only did oil change work on saturdays. figured I'd get some glasses out of my car and take a look at it. saw my car in a work stall, so at least the paranoia of it being in some bodyshop somewhere is gone, but on the other hand, i did see two techs crawling all over, inside, etc. doing what looked like a whole lot of work. the entire headliner was out, chunks of the dash, back seat area out, etc. i'm supposed to get my car back monday, but i've been told "next day" since last Tues. It does seem like good service in the sense they're really trying to fix things it seems like.

Wow, sounds like they're going above and beyond to take care of you. Squeaks and rattles are a PITA to eliminate. Yours must have been really apparent for them to go to all that trouble. Please post here with the results.

It was WAY apparent. If I just had one or two squeaks, no way would I have ever even taken the car in. I have/had: a) rattle so lound from sunroof area I could hear it even with windows down and PSE roar; so turning on the music didn't do much unless I really cranked it up to full, beyond my comfort tolerance for listening to music. This noise rattle was only with sunroof closed - raised or open, zero noise. b) loud and constant rattle from left rear quarter panel area; same from right rear quarter panel; not the sort of momentary rattle you'd expect to hear going over very rough surfaces or bumps, but always constant even driving on decent roads c) loud and constant squeaking type noise, could be a rattle, but more like the sound your back seats make when up but you hold it manuallly and shake it back and forth. So I thought it was something loose in the seat latch, but putting seats down had no effect. Turned out dealer diagnosed to be something loose under the rear window and they pulled out the whole rear panel area under the windows, resealed and put adhesive back on to reinstall it. SA told me today that got fixed. d) Some buzzing insect noise type rattle coming I thought from passenger side door area, but dealer found it to be coming from the passenger side dashboard, so they pulled that out and re-sealed it. e) Very hard and loud rattles from back seat area and both quarter panels when going over bumps in road. Not the usual 911 bump rattles because I sat in and test drove a couple more C4S and C2 vehicles, so mine was fairly unique and obnoxious. f) groaning squeal, grinding squeak noise from entire roof area when driving car even at extremely slow speeds over any change in slope, like up or down a hill, up or down a ramp, driving into a parking lot with change in slope, etc.. Most noticeable when leaving the car parked for even a few minutes and taking off again - sounded way bad then. Supposedly, I'm now to get my car back sometime tomorrow, and they've fixed all items but last one today. Not sure which it is but SA they're now buttoning the car back up again. So if I get it tomorrow, that's 8 full days in the shop. On the other hand, I've paid zero for the loaner car they gave me, an Audi A4 which I don't really need as I have my M5, but what the hell, might as well abuse a rental car for awhile, and all the work is warranty. So all in all, other than the long work, I like the dealer willing to goto such lengths to make me happy. Especially when I dropped the car off I wasn't ranting or anything, I just said offhand I seemed to have more noise rattles than I should, and asked if they could do something about it. Maybe it's because there are so many Porsche dealers in the SoCal area and I took my car back to where I bought it (Long Beach dealer, Circle Porsche). I figure the service guys really are the ones that earn the repeat sales business for each dealer. Can't be the sales guys given my experience with them so far.

FWIW, when we went shopping dealers before ordering our 996, we were most impressed with the sales guy at Circle. He moved about 6 cars out of the way to get us a 996 6 speed for a test drive, gave us the keys and said "take it for a good drive so you're sure it's what you want". We would have bought from them but a "friend of a friend" got us a better deal closer to home. While sales and service don't necessarily correlate, based on my limited experience with that dealership I'd say the service guys are being conscientious about attacking your problems.

well, an update, got my car back yesterday after 8 full days of work at the dealer. 1. my roof and sunroof is now eerily quiet under every concievable circumstance - no more groaning, creaking, rattles, etc. even going over rough bumps, no more noise. 2. both left and right rear rattles gone. for these fixes, can't really say what fixed them because the dealer literally completely took apart and removed practically the whole interior of the car. Like I said, I saw the entire roof liner and rear are of the car taken apart the saturday I went down to paranoia check my car. True to prediction though, along with these fixes, which I am very happy about, I now have a new noise. Pretty good trade off though in terms of before versus after scenarios. The new noise now is that my driver side seat squeaks right from the seat belt clip. I suppose it's really not my seat, because I can make the noise happen just by squeezing the seat belt clip. Mildly annoying, but doesn't always squeak and fairly livable as it's not too loud. I do have the rear area rattle a little when I go over large bumps, but I figured that's just part and parcel of having a sports car. Last item - I had a bit of the adhesive smell in the interior of my car they used when buttoning everything back up, but I did a complete interior Lexol of all the leather today and that took care of it. Back to new car leather smell

I'm a little nervous myself. I just left my 2 week old C4S with the dealer today for a driver's side rear creak/rattle that was fairly constant. Very loud, and interestingly, was not as obvious with the windows down. To me it seems like it's coming from the rear quarter window, or window molding. I hope the fix is not some major disassembly of the interior. They already asked to keep my car another day or two. If you have any suggestions, or can give me any more details as to what the rear quarter window problem was, maybe I can relay that information to my dealer to save them some effort. Thanks.

Is the rattle metalic in sound ? I had one in mine a couple times and what it tured out being was the metal covers over the ECU in the back...they sort of overlap eachother or touch and can rattle from time-to-time... like you said..not fatal but annoying... drop your rear seats flat and fold them down... lift the large flat foam and carpet cover and you will immediately see them. The passenger one is connected to the car with a connector on mine but the driver side one is not. It overlaps my other side and that is what was ratteling.. (lift it a bit and let it pop down and you will recognize the sound). I took a piece of double sided carpet tape about 1 inch square and put it between them and have not heard it again. BTW took me forever to figure out what it was... fianlly had my brother almost take the back interior appart one day while driving to figure it out... glad it was something so easy.. I hope this helps you out...

Mozhacker - In the "for what it's worth" department, I also have my car serviced at Circle Porsche and think they do a pretty decent job on rattle hunts/repairs. I had one really annoying rattle from the rear driver's side quarter window that all in required about 3 weeks worth of repair time (3-5 days at a time), including a visit from PCNA's regional technical representative. Part of the difficulty was that the rattle was temperature sensitive, so it didn't always rattle at all times of the day, and when they made a repair, they didn't know until the next day (depending on the temp) whether they'd gotten it or not. All I know is that they fixed it and it stayed fixed. Based on my experience with them, this is the place I plan to have service the car for oil changes and the like. Best of luck!