Porsche new car warranty invalidated due to weather changes?

[fokinel]

Howdy,

As some of you are aware I purchased a lovely 18 month old Boxster from Houston and had it shipped to Calgary. A couple of days (3?) after it arrived I took the car into the local shop as the taillights had some internal crazing - running your hand on the outside of the lights reveals no defects - it's all internal. The local shop took a couple of pictures,and said 'we need to send this to Porsche as we've never heard of this before'. Weeks went by and I heard nothing, so I went back in to be told 'Porsche hasn't called us back yet', so I raised a call with PCNA. Imagine my surprise to get a voicemail back from them stating 'this is due to temperature change, and as such isn't covered by the new car warranty'. I just received this message today. To recap no one, other than a local service manager, has actually seen the issue in real life, and he stated 'this is weird - I wonder what it is. We'll be in touch'. My next question - what else on my vehicle isn't covered by temperature change? How many people reading this forum live in an area where the temperature never changes? Has anyone else experienced issue with taillights crazing from the inside? To buy a new set of taillights is a couple of hundred dollars, and not a bit deal (and the new ones are all red, which will go well with the Guards Red on the car). I am, however, concerned that they will now start blaming any old thing that goes wrong with the car on weather changes - in my opinion that is total shash, and will certainly have an impact on my next vehicle purchase. In all truth I really do like my Boxster, and it's one of the best vehicles I've ever owned. But my wife has a BMW - while it isn't as fun and exhilarating to drive their service is stellar, and this will certainly be a deciding factor on my next purchase. BMW have offered a reasonable trade-in value if I get the taillights fixed. The local dealer will give me a good bump on the next purchase as well, but life really is too short to live with substandard service and after purchase support.

[1schoir]

Howdy,

As some of you are aware I purchased a lovely 18 month old Boxster from Houston and had it shipped to Calgary. A couple of days (3?) after it arrived I took the car into the local shop as the taillights had some internal crazing - running your hand on the outside of the lights reveals no defects - it's all internal. The local shop took a couple of pictures,and said 'we need to send this to Porsche as we've never heard of this before'. Weeks went by and I heard nothing, so I went back in to be told 'Porsche hasn't called us back yet', so I raised a call with PCNA. Imagine my surprise to get a voicemail back from them stating 'this is due to temperature change, and as such isn't covered by the new car warranty'. I just received this message today. To recap no one, other than a local service manager, has actually seen the issue in real life, and he stated 'this is weird - I wonder what it is. We'll be in touch'. My next question - what else on my vehicle isn't covered by temperature change? How many people reading this forum live in an area where the temperature never changes? Has anyone else experienced issue with taillights crazing from the inside? To buy a new set of taillights is a couple of hundred dollars, and not a bit deal (and the new ones are all red, which will go well with the Guards Red on the car). I am, however, concerned that they will now start blaming any old thing that goes wrong with the car on weather changes - in my opinion that is total shash, and will certainly have an impact on my next vehicle purchase. In all truth I really do like my Boxster, and it's one of the best vehicles I've ever owned. But my wife has a BMW - while it isn't as fun and exhilarating to drive their service is stellar, and this will certainly be a deciding factor on my next purchase. BMW have offered a reasonable trade-in value if I get the taillights fixed. The local dealer will give me a good bump on the next purchase as well, but life really is too short to live with substandard service and after purchase support.

"shash" is much too mild a word for their antics. :censored:

Regards, Maurice.

[White987S]

What is "crazing"?

I never heard the word "shash" before. :)

What's to keep Porsche from voiding the entire warranty, since you bought the car in the US and now want service in Canada?

[1schoir]

What is "crazing"?

I never heard the word "shash" before. :)

What's to keep Porsche from voiding the entire warranty, since you bought the car in the US and now want service in Canada?

Crazing is when there is a network of very fine cracks that form on the surface of an object. You've probably seen it before on the surface of old ceramic glazed pottery.

The issue of Canadian dealers exerting their influence to limit Canadian's access to cars outside of the Canadian dealers' network is well documented. I'm not sure if they have been entirely successful in their attempts to coerce Canadian buyers into paying their ridiculously inflated prices.

Regards, Maurice.

[RFM]

This is not a exclusive North American issue, the same here. The country official car importer is not happy with warranty issues if the car is never sold by his organisation, and is matriculated at the same country as the official importer ( car delivered by a parallel importer, which have no work shop and no investments to do in hard ware, parts and personnel or in an other country where the car is cheaper ) They have never earned one cent on the car and have to fix the problems, PAG paid only for the parts and the labor to replace the defective parts and a limited part of the diagnostic labour, the difference is for the count of the organisation or the dealer. I have not the intention to defend or attack persons or organisations but the medal have two sides and in a certain way i can understand their opinion, every body is searching for the cheapest way and/or make money. The European law what concerns free movements of goods tell it different, they have to do the job under warranty and they finaly do, but be sure you are number 101 or higher on their waiting list. Such situations are numerous.

[Tool Pants]

From what I have seen on the message boards it has been an ongoing battle with a Canadian warranty claim on an imported vehicle.

Would like to see pictures as this is a new one.

[Westcoaster]

From what I have seen on the message boards it has been an ongoing battle with a Canadian wattanty claim on an imported vehicle.

Would like to see pictures as this is a new one.

Crikey, our local Porsche dealer doesn't even like you buying cars from another location within Canada! Strange thing is, they regularly import US cars and sell them... :angry:

[fokinel]

The pictures are high-res, and as such don't fit into the 'upload' limit.

Full resolution photos are uploaded here - http://picasaweb.google.com/craig.forsberg...illightCrazing#

Remember that by viewing these photos you will know more about the problem than PCNA does - their 1-800-por-sche call centre has not asked for any sort of info, they just sat on the request for weeks and then responded with a 'weather invalidates warranty'. I'm waiting on the mailed response for proof...

From what I have seen on the message boards it has been an ongoing battle with a Canadian warranty claim on an imported vehicle.

Would like to see pictures as this is a new one.

[1schoir]

The pictures are high-res, and as such don't fit into the 'upload' limit.

Full resolution photos are uploaded here - http://picasaweb.google.com/craig.forsberg...illightCrazing#

Remember that by viewing these photos you will know more about the problem than PCNA does - their 1-800-por-sche call centre has not asked for any sort of info, they just sat on the request for weeks and then responded with a 'weather invalidates warranty'. I'm waiting on the mailed response for proof...

From what I have seen on the message boards it has been an ongoing battle with a Canadian warranty claim on an imported vehicle.

Would like to see pictures as this is a new one.

Excellent, well documented photos on that website. Maybe PCNA and that dealer want you to keep your car in a climate controlled environment at all times.

What an outrage!

Regards, Maurice.

[stef]

That's BS, as you well know.

Does driving your car to canada invalidate the warranty? Does snow invalidate it?

My advice is to not let up the pressure to replace it under warranty.

[fokinel]

I know - a car designed in Germany, assembled in Finland, tested in Sweden, sold in North America with a North American warranty - valid in US and Canada - I checked. The only think I can think of now is to get the 'weather can invalidate warranty' clause in writing and get it run through the courts - a sad state of affairs, considering the part cost in total is under $300. That's $300 this time, and whatever else they decide is caused by 'weather' in future - which could be anything from a leaking valve stem cap to a rear main seal failure on the freeway.... Not that I *want* to do it this way - so if anyone has suggestions on alternate ways to deal with shash (not sure where that word came from, but it seems appropriate) such as this I'm all ears. I've never experienced anything like this whatsoever, and it's certainly put me off Porsche - a nice car, with a post-sales attitude that seems to not care about the next sale. This was my 2nd, and maybe last.

That's BS, as you well know.

Does driving your car to canada invalidate the warranty? Does snow invalidate it?

My advice is to not let up the pressure to replace it under warranty.

[wvicary]

Is there another dealer near your location you could try? I have never heard of this problem before and have customer who drive their Porsches all year round.... it gets -40 C here in winter.

[Westcoaster]

Keep pushing, there is now way that is acceptable or normal, there are locations all over North America (and the world), where you could start off in the

morning at above zero temperatures and be caught in a snow storm, is this just cause to invalidate a warranty?

I agree with wvicary, go to another dealer! My local dealer replaced the center caps on my 2003 because they were faded and curling, I'll wager that this was due to being exposed to the 'weather', but hey, isn't that what the exterior of the car was designed for?

[fokinel]

Excellent suggestions all - I live in Calgary (5 hours north of Great Falls, Montana, 3 hours with radar, for you Southerners :), so the nearest alternate dealers are, umm, Edmonton (2.5 hours) and Vancouver (15 hours) - the joys of living in a lightly populated area. So... I did some searching and found this website: http://www.ohiolemonlaw.com/auto-manufacturer-phone-list.htm which lists North American contact information for all car manufacturers. I called the Porsche number and spoke with a nice lady who said 'I know who to send you to, one second'. I asked if this was the contact centre and she says 'no, but this will be the right person for you'. I wound up speaking with the managing VP of the contact centre, a very nice lady from Toronto but now based in Atlanta, who has many years with Porsche. She asked for all the details, was very helpful, and said 'this sounds like total confusion and we can help with this'. The only thing is she wants me to send the entire transaction in writing, and send it to Detlev vonPlaten, the new President and CEO of PCNA, formerly GM of Porsche France. The letter will land on her desk next, but she wants Detlev to be directly informed of some of the challenges that he gets to fix.

Westcoaster - I used your observation about the temperature variance in my 3 page letter (not attributed to anyone) - Calgary is a prime example of a -15c to +20c in 12 hours temperature change, and an excellent point.

Hopefully this works out - it seems a bit like using a sledgehammer to push a marshmallow through a keyhole, but maybe it will help things like this from happening to others in future.

Cheerio

PS - Detlev's bio can be found here: http://jalopnik.com/359587/porsche-announc...nister-of-bruce

Keep pushing, there is now way that is acceptable or normal, there are locations all over North America (and the world), where you could start off in the

morning at above zero temperatures and be caught in a snow storm, is this just cause to invalidate a warranty?

I agree with wvicary, go to another dealer! My local dealer replaced the center caps on my 2003 because they were faded and curling, I'll wager that this was due to being exposed to the 'weather', but hey, isn't that what the exterior of the car was designed for?

[White987S]

Good job, Fokinel, your persistance has paid off.

[SLATEGREYTERACOTTA]

The pictures is amazingly clear... i bought my boxster in the states too and the original registration is also in texas... now i am in toronto... the dealer i am going to is very good...fixed a few things already under warranty without questions..... i only have to pay the 50 bucks title search .....

i would fight to get it fixed / replace under warranty