Porsche Cayenne Divorce

I purchased my brand-new Porsche Cayenne 3.0 Diesel during November 2011. It was a happy marriage until January 2018 when the vehicle went into “limp mode” on 121,000km. Not a nice experience, but it was repaired by Porsche centre Cape Town. On the afternoon of 16 July 2018, while on route from Mossel Bay to Marydale the vehicle suddenly lost power near Victoria West (odometer reading 129,000km). The engine had a miss and was smoking. I immediately stopped although no engine management warning lights came on. I had the vehicle delivered to Porsche Cape Town the next day via a vehicle freight company at my cost and inconvenience. Porsche Cape Town invoiced me on July 25th for an amount of R36 000, payable up front, for the replacement a faulty engine management unit. They also did a full check-up on injectors and compression. The management unit was replaced 10 days after my upfront payment, but the initial engine miss problem was still present. I received an email from Porsche on the 16th of August (now 30 days after the breakdown) with a photo of a small crack on top of no. 2 piston plus a R302,000 repair estimate as Porsche would not replace one piston, but all. No explanation was given by Porsche why the piston did in fact crack and no effort or tests were done to see if it could have been a manufacturers error or pre-mature metal fatigue; absolutely no explanation or effort to check why a Porsche piston would crack at this mileage. This was unacceptable to me at this relative low mileage and I instructed them to not go ahead and that I would arrange collection of my vehicle as is. Although all services and maintenance to date was done exclusively by Porsche I, for the first time, considered a non-Porsche repair at a lower cost. I was then informed by Porsche the engine and gearbox are out of the vehicle and I would not be able to collect it. They furthermore could not provide a date when I could collect the vehicle. Porsche then proposed an engine replacement from an accident damage Porsche Cayenne Diesel and quoted me R84 000 for installation, testing and clearance. I agreed to this on the condition that they credit me for the earlier unnecessary engine management replacement, which they subsequently did. I travelled the 700 km to Cape Town to collect my vehicle on the 12th of September (2 months after the breakdown). Upon my arrival Porsche informed me they could not provide any warranty, as in zero, and would also keep the “old” engine. Furthermore, to my utter disappointment, the vehicle was still not cleared and I could therefore not collect it. They could also not inform me when it would eventually be cleared. Porsche then offered me R290 000 for the vehicle which in effect was R206,000 as I had to pay the R84,000 engine replacement cost. If I deduct the vehicle courier and my travel cost then my nett value for the car would be substantially below R200,000. This was hard to swallow after my pristine condition car (bar engine) have been with Porsche for 2 months and still without road legal access to it. At the end, I realized I was not the outright owner of my own car…. I have been bul**** by Porsche and their last “ace up the sleeve” was to stall the vehicle clearance for the replacement engine. They, in my opinion, did this on purpose and then tried to sell me a new vehicle while the clearance was “work in progress” with no end to it. When taking into consideration the insured value, the cover price offered by them, and I would guess the R450K+ for which they would sell the, now probably Porsche approved vehicle with a warranty all I can say is: Porsche SA is profiteering all the way from November 2011 until the “***** the client” climax during September 2018. I did some homework and it seems Porsche SA is masters in controlling the market for 2nd hand, and especially accident damage vehicles. I have been informed that first rights of refusal and doing whatever they can to prevent private repairs on out of warranty vehicles is also the rule of thumb. Let this incident serve as a caution to Porsche owners, owners to be and insurers too. I left my dream car and changed brand with a bitter taste.

Flip van der Westhuizen Marydale, Northern Cape Tel: ********** 459