Well, As I was getting just a little cheesed off with the lack of response from either PC Chester and/or Porsche GB, I today went into PC Chester to speak face-to-face with Ian Williams who is their Warranty Administrator.
After the usual pleasantries, he informed me that he had spoken to one of the two guys at Porsche GB who deal with Warranty claims. They (Porsche GB) had informed him (Ian Williams, PC Chester) that this was "not a known issue" but that "if there is a failure then there is a warranty claim" and, further, "as far as Porsche GB are concerned a failure means that the roof fabric should be replaced".
I responded along the following lines:
a) That this was a known failure/fault as far as Porsche worldwide is concerned as there were something of the order of nine reported failures in Germany and that, up to now, the Porsche Zentrums in Nuremberg, Dusseldorf and Bonn had either replaced or repaired roofs. And I assumed that this work had been done with Porsche Germany's approval/sanction.
I did ask whether Porsche GB actually talk to their counterparts in Germany!
b) I also reminded Ian that of those Spyder owners active on the Porsche Club GB forum, there were now FOUR owners reporting faults/tears/rips/fraying. Mine may be the first to be reported to Porsche GB, but that was purely because I was the first to pick up on this issue on the Spyder Owners Club forum (which is mainly, but not exclusively, german owners). But I assured him that Porsche GB would soon be receiving further warranty claims from owners from the PCGB forum who had also found the fault on their cars.
[The following 4 owners have found tears in their roofs: paul08 (this is me) - torn on one side/corner legin - fraying visible on both sides Stevemore - torn on both sides boxster7 - rhs "badly frayed" And these owners report no issues visible: daro911 Spyderdavid kitchens] c) I picked Ian up on how he had reported the comment that "if there is a failure then there is a warranty claim", and told him that to my mind, if there was a rip/tear/fraying in the roof fabric, then that (to me at least) was a failure. - he was non-commital on this, which is somewhat worrying! d) I added that, as Porsche GB were saying that if this is a failure, then the roof material should be replaced, I would respectfully suggest that before the new roof fabric was installed, that they (Porsche GB or PC Chester) should get a "specialist" to sew in some reinforcement around the weak area that was ripping. - as reported in an earlier post, this is what has been done at Porsche Zentrum Bonn when they repaired a tear. e) Ian said that there had been some internal discussions in Chester about whether they had the competencies to remove & replace the roof and that, whilst they had done some work on fabric roofs in the past, they had also used a specialist in the Wirral for such work. f) Ian asked me to leave this matter with him until the end of the week and that he promised to call me then. So, it seems to be two steps forward and one or two back! I am still left with the nagging doubt that Porsche GB (and therefore PC Chester) may still claim that this failure is NOT a warranty issue, as they have NOT explicitly accepted liability. Should they accept liability, then they are saying that the roof needs replacing. I can then see an argument ensuing about whether the new roof should be reinforced before fitting. I am guessing that PGB's view will be that, as this fault is not widespread, to accept that the roof should be reinforced would be seen as accepting that there is a design fault with the roof. This issue is really dragging on and I am becoming somewhat disillusioned with the lack of urgency displayed by both Porsche GB and Porsche Chester. This is my forst Porsche, so I have no experience of what they are normally like to deal with but, to date, I cannot say that I am impressed. What are the experiences to date of the 'collective' here? Stevemore: what was the outcome when you reported this problem to your dealer? And one final point, as this will apply to ALL owners, both those with tears and those reporting no problems. If this is accepted as a warranty issue by Porsche, then what happens beyond the warranty period when the fault either reappears and appears for the first time? Will Porsche wash their hands of it? It is certainly no good just looking to fall back on the Porsche Extended Warranty that you can buy, as that warranty specifically excludes the roof fabric on convertible roofs. Which makes this a problem for all of us.
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