Battery / Generator Fault - 981 PDK

ctheodossiou · Aug 7, 2021

Dear all, my 981 broke down in the middle of busy city traffic with a "red warning" sign, "power/generator fault" which required me to stop driving the car immediately. What is frustrating is that 2 weeks ago I picked up the car from the OPC after a full major service (as an aside, car has only been serviced with OPC from new as per requirements). A quick chat with the OPC while I was waiting for the recovery truck was that "we didn't pick anything up in the diagnostics". I find it tough to believe because on the day I got the car the engine occasionally "sounded" different, clankier, albeit for very short periods of time. I dismissed that as irrelevant even though I did hear the sound again sporadically when we were crossing France and then Italy. So I'm surprised that they couldn't pick it up in their read outs or when they took the car for a drive.

I have never been suspicious of OPCs but I'm somehow not buying this story.

Can it really be possible that the OPC missed that at a major service or is it something that can happen regardless and is not linked to a service check up? (for what it's worth, I was also advised that they had to conduct an additonal "ancillary unit mounts and chassis check" as per the manufacturer's recommendation, which of coure I did)

Thank you.
Constantine

COD981 · Aug 7, 2021

In short despite having worked in franchise dealerships for over 30 years (not porsche) and knowing all the excuses and stories customers get fed yes it probably is entirely coincidental that it happened in that time frame and that there was no indication of a future problem when thay serviced it, having said that opc's in my experience don't help themselves in regards to customer confidence because they often seem to BS the customer instead of just being honest, they even do it knowing you have worked in the industry which is crazy, maybe they just forget that you have seen it/heard it/done it all before

Motorhead · Aug 7, 2021

Hi Constantine,

Sorry to hear about your problem. Did the dealer actually find what caused the fault message or do you still have the problem? Modern cars have complex CAN bus electrical systems and unfortunately - like our personal computer devices - can experience the occasional glitch, which may have occurred in your case. As Chris has noted, it’s probably just a coincidence that it has happened shortly after your service, part of which would have been to run a diagnostic check for errors.

Jeff