Lost all drive on a roundabout shortly after leaving a M Way service area, M1/A43, on way to Experience Centre at Silverstone. Tried moving out of and back to 'D', and the buttons - nothing, but moving it fully into Manual gave me some gears. It wasn't 'right' but i knew OPC Silverstone was a couple of miles down the road and got to them. Initially no warnings or anything on dash when it happened, did get a warning on way to OPC, but it came and went so quickly didn't assimilate what it was.
Silverstone did a quick diagnostic and said they thought it was a faulty temperature sender and I needed the 'modified' one fitting - they'd done a few - and that the system had thought the pdk oil was too hot (possibly due to heat soak whilst at services?), we'd only been driving at steady 70 on M Way for a couple of hours, so normal motoring. Said we should be OK to continue, but if it did it again then switching engine off and on again ought to recycle the error and regain the gears, and then to consider Porsche Assistance.
Got it into my local OPC, Leeds, for the sensor change having updated them and got a call to say 'deeper problems in the box' when they'd got stuck into it, and a new pdk was needed. Didn't/couldn't get any further clarification, but OPC's don't open or mend any pdk's, just routine maintenance on them, any probs its a new one from Germany and the old one goes back, so they may not even have any clear idea, just the fault codes and/or diagnostics said 'change'!
New box seems OK, just watching it to ensure no issues with it, or following the fitting. Worrying on a 5 year old low miler, but whilst there are some tales of pdk woes on the internet volumes do not seem high compared to number that will be out there, so hopefully just one of those things.
As yet no 3rd parties offering any servicing of the boxes I'm aware of, so Porsche is the only source if there is an issue, unless you can find /want to use one from a breaker. Maybe someone will come along soon offering such a service particularly as the first pdk cars can only be a couple of years away from no longer qualifying for a Porsche warranty, and of course some will not have that warranty on them anyway.
Not a cheap part to put right if you do have issues, but guess if you drive a performance car which in our case would have been circa £90k new, then some parts won't be cheap, hence reason we'll stay with a Porsche Warranty as long as we can.
Speaking generally and not Porsche specific I guess as cars get more complex it will be harder to find any 3rd parties able to service/mend some bits, and even if they can will it actually be that much cheaper than a replacement from the Dealer or with older cars even cost effective vis a vis value of car?
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