Approved Warranty Shock Absorbers Not Covered

[MMacedo]

Hi.

My car is a 2015 Cayman GT4 has 12k miles and is presently at an OPC due to the rear dampers leaking and the fact that the o/s/r wheel is rubbing against the wheel arch!

I am keen for them to change the dampers but they say the shock absorbers are not covered under the porsche approved warranty!


The warranty however states that this is not covered where the cause is ageing or wear and tear. At 12,000 miles I wouldn't class this as a premature mechanical failure and not wear and tear and I have some experience in these matters having spent many years working for all the major warranty companies.


Sadly I am not overly confident that the OPC will properly plead my case to Porsche Approved Warranty.

Has anyone had a similar situation? How did you overcome it? What worked?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

[RJW]

No personal experience of this but, if you don’t get the result you want, you could take the matter up direct by way of appeal to Porsche central, Reading.

 

[MMacedo]

No personal experience of this but, if you don’t get the result you want, you could take the matter up direct by way of appeal to Porsche central, Reading.

Thanks, do you have contact details from which I can do this with please?

 

[RJW]

My suggestion would be to be up front with the OPC saying to them (if this is the case) that you do not agree that the work is not covered under the warranty and ask them how you can appeal their decision. Chances are the appeal will be to Porsche GB which I think is based in Reading. A Google search should confirm this. I’m sure this situation is not uncommon and there may be a procedure or route you can follow to make an appeal. The OPC will/should inform you on such a procedure. As said, I’ve no experience of doing this but the warranty is an insurance based item and somehow you need to get to and, make an appeal to, the underwriters most likely through Porsche GB.

 

[AndrewCS]

Porsche Contact Porsche - Porsche Great Britain

 

[Motorhead]

Hi Michael,

It’s important to remember that the Porsche Extended Warranty is different from the factory warranty in that it’s offered by a third party and has specific exclusions, one of which I’m sure is that along with a lot of other wear-and-tear items, dampers aren’t covered, so you’re in the hands of the warranty provider and not Porsche themselves. Despite the lack of mileage on the dampers I think it likely that they would want you to prove that the failure is due to a manufacturing or material defect.

Depending upon your relationship with the dealer they might make a contribution towards the cost of replacement, but it’s a bit of a lottery.

Good luck!

Jeff

 

[MMacedo]

Hi Michael,

It’s important to remember that the Porsche Extended Warranty is different from the factory warranty in that it’s offered by a third party and has specific exclusions, one of which I’m sure is that along with a lot of other wear-and-tear items, dampers aren’t covered, so you’re in the hands of the warranty provider and not Porsche themselves. Despite the lack of mileage on the dampers I think it likely that they would want you to prove that the failure is due to a manufacturing or material defect.

Depending upon your relationship with the dealer they might make a contribution towards the cost of replacement, but it’s a bit of a lottery.

Good luck!

Jeff

Thanks Jeff

I agree it's a lottery however the policy covers mechanical breakdown/defects. I would expect that dampers that have covered 60,000 or 100,000 miles would be subject to fair wear and tear, but not at 12,000 miles and not when the dampers are causing the tyre to rub against the bodywork!

In this instance this is clearly a breakdown/defect within the damper.

The problem is its very difficult for me to prove and easy for them to disprove!

 

[AndrewCS]

Michael ...

Do you have a picture to share ?

I certainly support the breakage / failure view

Am failing to see how a leaking damper could cause the rubbing issue, the spring supports the body

Hope that it is resolved, at their cost !

 

[MMacedo]

Here you can see where the tyre has rubbed against the wheel arch.

 

[MMacedo]

Michael ...

Do you have a picture to share ?

I certainly support the breakage / failure view

Am failing to see how a leaking damper could cause the rubbing issue, the spring supports the body

Hope that it is resolved, at their cost !

Michael ...

Do you have a picture to share ?

I certainly support the breakage / failure view

Am failing to see how a leaking damper could cause the rubbing issue, the spring supports the body

Hope that it is resolved, at their cost !

Apologies I'm having trouble uploading photos to the forum from Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/2nAoyi1

https://flic.kr/p/2nAh3nu

Essentially when you look at both rear dampers they are leaking at the base where they sit in the hub carrier. I believe this has caused the dampers to become weak and over fast bumps, dips/compressions the damper is becoming over extended to the point where it rubs against the wheel arch.

 

[AndrewCS]

Thank you Michael

I now `see` ...

 

[COD981]

I had a similar failure on the rear of my 981S although the tyre wasn't rubbing and it was just under 20k miles if I remember correctly.

My was leaking from the pasm unit rather than the actual damper itself, having worked in franchise dealerships for over 30 odd years I believed it should have been covered under manufacturers goodwill but in the end porsche UK agreed to pay 25% if the opc (not the one I bought it from BTW) paid 25% and I had to pay the other 50%

Rather disappointing but fair play to the opc for contributing, incidentally I had never come across a manufacturer leaning on a dealer like that before to contribute and consider it a bit out of order, usually the manufacturer either covers the full amount under goodwill or rejects it completely

 

[MMacedo]

I had a similar failure on the rear of my 981S although the tyre wasn't rubbing and it was just under 20k miles if I remember correctly.

My was leaking from the pasm unit rather than the actual damper itself, having worked in franchise dealerships for over 30 odd years I believed it should have been covered under manufacturers goodwill but in the end porsche UK agreed to pay 25% if the opc (not the one I bought it from BTW) paid 25% and I had to pay the other 50%

Rather disappointing but fair play to the opc for contributing, incidentally I had never come across a manufacturer leaning on a dealer like that before to contribute and consider it a bit out of order, usually the manufacturer either covers the full amount under goodwill or rejects it completely

My experience has been that if a dealer is owned by the manufacturer then they follow the warranty company, however franchised dealers may champion the customer more. I certainly hope the dealer supports the claim. Otherwise I will need to take it to Porsche HQ as suggested above and the insurance ombudsman

 

[Motorhead]

Michael,

From your pics it’s evident that the damper seal has failed and one thing in your favour is that both dampers have failed at low mileage, indicating a manufacturing fault on a batch of dampers. Certainly it’s worth raising that fact with Porsche UK when you contact them.

Hope you have some success, and keep us posted on progress.

Jeff

 

[Peter_Bull]

Its such a sad tale, but unfortunately its not uncommon with the Porsche extended warranty.

I do hope you manage to get these done FOC as its clearly a breakdown of the seals. Clearly, your dampers are not fit for purpose

Failing that, I would suggest you get an independent inspection to prove your theory and take it to the small claims court.

 

[AlistairF]

Listed in my Porsche extended warranty as wear and tear items. ‘Which fail if due to wear and tear’.

Alistair

 

[Twinfan]

It's a tricky one. 12k road miles shouldn't be an issue and the part should not fail. 12k track miles bouncing over sausage kerbs are a different matter. How does the Porsche warranty know which category you fall into?

As suggested you should speak to your OPC and see if they will refer the case up to Porsche GB.

Good luck.

 

[Timrice]

Some parts are more likely to fail based on calendar rather than use, and low use can be a problem (e.g. corrosion and seal failure).

 

[MMacedo]

At the moment the dealer is trying to blame the tyre rubbing on ride height which is exactly on porsche spec!!!

 

[IndischRot]

I can’t get my head around how a weak shock absorber can cause a tyre to rub. The movement “arc” of the rear wheel is defined by the suspension arms and small adjustments to that “arc” can be made by changing the camber and toe adjustments. The shock absorbers literally dampen the movement but their dampening efforts don’t have a significant effect on the travel limits; the springs and bumps stops do that. That tyre looks to have rubbed due to incorrect geometry settings or physical damage to the suspension.

The tyre looks to have signs of track use; is that the case?

When was the geo last checked/adjusted? What is the history of the car?

I’m not trying to be accusatory but I feel there’s more to the story.