help/experience/advice on warranty issues

Not your standard questions... The short version of the story is I took delivery of my new to me 2001 C2 three days ago with 37k miles. I had the car inspected through a Porsche dealership (the name will remain confidential at this time) prior to my purchase. I did my due diligence and knew the potential problems with the 996 and got my inspection performed accordingly (so I thought). I wanted a through inspection and I ask specifically about the RMS (you knew this was going to come up), rev limit data, past warranty work, etc., and was given a thumbs up on the car. The only warranty work allegedly done by any dealership was replacement of the horn and a litronic headlamp and fix the center consol storage compartment hinge. Well I jacked the car up last night to poke around and see how things are different than my former 993. The very first thing I notice (aside from everything rather dirty) is a wet look to the area that would indicate a RMS leak. I stopped at the local P-car dealership this morning and they placed it on a lift and they confirmed my suspicion. There is an oil �seep� indicating a RMS leak. Needless to say I am furious. I know the car is still under the factory warranty but that does not really calm my anger and fear for potential future problems. The truth is I would have walked away from the transaction if I had know of the leak. I am really concerned about future problems. I called the inspecting dealership and they were not phased by my concerns or displeasure with their services and basically said it could be fixed under warranty. This is not the point. They indicated that all work is warranted for 2 years for parts and labor on Porsche parts. Anyone have experience getting the RMS leak fixed using this �warranty� outside of a factory warranty? What about the potential of the necessity of an engine replacement in the future? Does the �extended� 2 year warranty on the RMS work encompass such a replacement? At this point I don�t know much about the 2 year warranty on work performed and how it works or what it covers and I am looking for some first hand experience. The kicker to all this is that I told the inspecting dealership that I wanted a refund for my inspection because I obviously didn�t get anything for my $$ and they thought I was nuts and said they would have to get back to me. I said that is fine but if they didn't I would be disputing the charge with my credit card company within the next 2-3 days. Oh, aside from this I love the car.

Hey Brian, I am in the same situation as you are. I just bought my 02 C2 Cab last month with only 14K miles on it. I bought it from Porsche dealership as well as a Porsche Certified whatever that means... Anyway when I bought it I did look around and bottom of the car for any leaks especially for RMS issue, since I used to have a 2002 Boxster S as well and aware of the RMS problem... Anyway, last week I see this oil spot in my garage underneath my 996, sure enough after taking it to the dealer yesterday, they said it is a RMS problem and they will take care of it under warranty and it takes about 8 hours of labor, plus they now have a new deisgned and updated seal which should take care of the problem permanently, unless the damage or the gap is more than .03mm or somthing then they would replace the enigne. According to my dealer, they haven't had to replace any engines. The new updated seals seems to be taking care of the problems....

With regard to the RMS issue, the only ones who truly knows what is going on is Porsche and they are not sharing any information. Is it possible to have multiple leaks - absolutely!. Is the "new" seal going to take care of the problem permanently? I don't think anyone knows - including Porsche. They haven't been in the cars long enough to see if they are going to hold. There is also the question as to why some cars have multiple RMS repairs and then end up getting a new engine. Does the condition worsen or do they just have a better tool to measure the concentricity of the housing? I want to know what is going to happen when cars start having RMS leaks at 50,60,70 thousand miles and Porsche says you need a repair (out of your own pocket, of course) or worse yet - you need a new engine. That is when the s*** is going to hit the fan....... You could always tell the dealer to void the sale and that you want your money back.......

Shouldn't this issue be address under some kind of Lemon Law or Recall of some sort covering the problem regardless of mileage or warranty issues...? Is there something we all can do as a consumer who spent whole lot of money for these vehicles? Just a thought.

You may have relief available via a "lemon law"; these typically require several repairs for the same problem within a limited mileage or time frame. Our experience with our 2002 coupe (October 17, 2001 build date) was an extremely minor RMS leak ( a couple of drops a week) at about 5K miles that was cured by the new seal (we're now at 19.6 K miles).