How important should one small piece of plastic be?

[awwalker1]

Gen 1 991 owners may not be aware (I certainly wasn't until it went wrong!) that the rear light clusters on their cars are held in place by a single screw. Forgive me if I'm writing about a well-known issue with the 991, but I haven't come across this before. My car is a 2012 62-plate 3.4 Carrera, a two-wheel drive variant, in Guards Red. Here's what happened:

Driving south with my brother as passenger on the A1 last Friday, he happened to glance in the passenger wing mirror and saw something protruding from the rear of the car. Whatever it was, neither of us could identify it but I knew it a) wasn't there when I set off earlier and b) shouldn't be there now. All we could really tell was that it appeared to be red in colour and possible triangular in shape. Regardless, we knew we had to stop to investigate. Everything on the car appeared to be working as normal, and I had no warning lights on the dash of any sort, but in any case I pulled into Blyth services near Doncaster and parked up. We then walked to the rear of the car and were staggered to see that the entire passenger side light cluster was hanging off the back of the car, held in place only by the electrical wire. It had just fallen out. It was possible to put the assembly straight back in its aperture, but it immediately came loose again. At first it was not easy to see why this was happening, or what locating device had somehow failed. On close inspection though, we saw that on the RH internal surface of the light cluster (i.e. the side furthest away from the rear wing), there is a small circular plastic lug into which a single small screw should locate vertically from above. This rather insubstantial plastic lug had cracked in half, meaning that the screw no longer held the light assembly in place. On the LH internal surface (next to the rear wing), the light assembly has a simple locating tab that rests behind a protruding body section. While that lug could be easily located, the failure of the one on the other side meant that the light assembly could not be secured back. (All of this is of course absolutely invisible from outside the car). The slightest bump would simply cause it to fall out again. Our solution on the spot was to purchase some insulating tape from the petrol station and tape the light assembly all around, a fix that thankfully worked securely enough to enable safe and legal onward travel. As I write this the car is awaiting a visit to Porsche for a repair.

My thoughts on this incident are that it is disappointing to discover that an (arguably) safety-critical piece of equipment on the 991 incorporates what could be a serious design weakness. It may be very rare for this failure to happen (first one maybe!), but I think we were lucky on this occasion. Had the light assembly fallen free of the car, we probably would not have noticed. Even if we had spotted it, there would be no chance of recovering it while travelling at speed on a dual carriageway. We would then have been driving a car with no nearside rear lights - for an unknown distance. We were very fortunate that the lighting wire held. Not what I really expect on a car like this.

I'll be interested in the thoughts of readers - and clearly it will come to the attention of Porsche via the Porsche Centre where it goes for the repair.

 

[ralphmusic]

Interestingly, the PET file has a Repair Kit, comprising Support, Screw, and Ventilation component. Parts 991.631.925/926.00 L/R respectively.

 

[991JAW]

Sorry to hear this about your car but hopefully it would be covered by the extended warranty if taken out.
Once the opc has had a look could you post their decision and any costs involved, maybe push for some good will on their side....So if they gave a repair kit advised sounds like a design error or even not fit for purpose...maybe use that info as your ace card if there's any sign of wiggling out of it ....good luck.

 

[awwalker1]

Many thanks for your helpful comments. Looks like a known issue then...
Since I posted my report the car has been booked in to the OPC at Sheffield, so it'll be interesting to hear what comments if any are forthcoming by the technicians there. I will report further!

 

[awwalker1]

Hello, and thanks for your notes - yes, I did take out the official warranty on the car so I am fully expecting it to cover this failure, though I'll be prepared to raise some (polite) objections if I end up footing the bill! What surprised me when examining the component was how insubstantial the plastic locating piece is. If you tighten a metal screw into a plastic socket then there's always a chance that the screw will exert a stress force that is too much for the surrounding material, and it'll just crack. I wouldn't mind if it was only securing the cup holder, but the rear light cluster - that is serious. I'll let you know what transpires!

 

[awwalker1]

Here's an update as of Monday 7th October. The car was taken into the Sheffield OPC today and the fault explained. Initial reaction of staff on the desk? It won't be covered by the official Porsche warranty because 'it is not mechanical'. Price for replacement unit? Go on, have a guess. £440*. Yes, I did not mis-type that. So, we await tomorrow's verdict when the car is picked up. Maybe we've been quoted for more than the Repair Kit that ralphmusic cites above (support, screw and ventilation component)...!

To say that it will be outrageous to pay that kind of money to fix something that should not have failed in the first place is an understatement in my view...but maybe it will transpire that it is covered after all. Initial perusal of the warranty terms and conditions doesn't immediately suggest that a component failure of this sort would be excluded, so we'll have to wait and see. Fingers crossed anyway.

*that's just the price of the light cluster - there's labour and VAT to go on top of that...

 

[ralphmusic]

The 'not mechanical' maybe someone thinking it is 'trim' which I believe is outside warranty.

Centres will have a Warranty Claims Manager and I believe they send warranty claims to Porsche, either pre or post claim decision. I'd not limit discussions to the service reception staff.

 

[awwalker1]

Here's a quick update. The view from Sheffield OPC and (presumably) Porsche UK's warranty people is that this arguably safety-critical component failure is not covered under the official extended Porsche warranty. But...both Porsche UK and JCT600 at Sheffield are prepared to contribute 'goodwill' towards the cost of the repair. This would leave us with a couple of hundred quid to pay. With no satisfactory explanation forthcoming as to why a fairly expensive extended warranty from one of the premier car manufacturers on the planet would not cover this repair, we have said no to this offer, and have removed the car from Sheffield OPC's custody. Instead it will now go to Stratstone at Nottingham OPC at the end of this month, where a second opinion will be sought. A couple of interesting things have emerged from this saga so far. One is that both JCT600 and Stratstone are adamant that only the entire rear light assembly can be ordered from Porsche, despite the fact that it clearly comprises a series of individually assembled parts, including the bit that has actually broken on our car. Another thing is that I know far more about the construction and assembly of these lights than I ever thought I would, partly due to the fact that a very helpful technician at Stratstone showed me an 'exploded' diagram of the light, so I could see exactly which bit of it had broken on our 991 and how all the various parts (more than you might think!) go together to make the complete unit. Finally, everyone I've spoken to at Stratstone in sales and service departments have never experienced this particular failure on another car.

I'll post a further update when I have more news.

 

[Tony Warr]

This is a concerning story. On the other hand I wonder: if you could acquire a second hand rear light assembly (even a slightly damaged one) could you (with your newly acquired knowledge of the construction and assembly) remove the plastic part that has failed on yours and then fit this into your light?

 

[awwalker1]

Hi Tony - it's a good thought but I think the fix will involve removing some bodywork to gain access in order to replace the part securely behind the rear light. So I think I'm in Porsche's hands, but at least I have been able to quote the repair kit part number that was helpfully identified by ralphmusic (above), and my local OPC is now looking into that. The car is going in for its MoT shortly - wonder what interesting discoveries that might yield?!!

 

[awwalker1]

A brief update on the 991 rear light story - the car is now going into OPC Nottingham in two weeks' time to assess whether the Repair Kit cited by ralphmusic will indeed fix the breakage. I'll report on the outcome!

 

[awwalker1]

Well the 911 is back on the road again after its visit to OPC Nottingham. There's good news and bad news depending on how you look at this somewhat frustrating saga. The bad news is that despite the very helpful intervention of ralphmusic (see above), it turned out that the repair kit was not the solution that we were hoping it would be. The breakage on the rear of our light cluster was apparently where an integral part of the plastic moulding had sheared off, and not, as I had thought, a separate component (despite my careful study of the 'exploded parts' diagram). Hence it did unfortunately need an entire replacement light (despite the existing one being 99.9% intact and in full working order electrically). Once again, I was told that this fault was not covered by my expensive and supposedly comprehensive manufacturer's warranty. When questioned as to how this could remotely be justifiable, the only explanation offered was that it could have failed due to 'outside forces', which would render it outwith the ambit of the warranty. Now this outside forces concept is not unique to my OPC at Nottingham. The same terminology was used by OPC Sheffield where the car was taken for attention initially. I again queried what possible outside force could have feasibly been brought to bear on a component that is fully enclosed and immobile within the body of the vehicle - other than, that is, the force used by a Porsche technician when removing and re-fitting the light unit during servicing (aha!!) The answer is of course, none.

Anyway - to cut a long story short, I reiterated my point that under no circumstances would I be paying for rectification of a fault that arguably should not have arisen in the first place and which by rights should be covered by the warranty. I must credit the service adviser at OPC Nottingham who listened very patiently to my reasoning, and for going away and promising to consider it. The good news is that the 911 was returned the following day with the new light unit fitted and a bill for the scheduled MoT test only. I'm going to leave it at that, except to say that I'm rather disappointed with the amount of argument that it took to get me to a position that should have been the immediate default adopted by Porsche. Goodwill restored? Possibly. I sincerely hope no other 991 owners ever find themselves driving blissfully down the outside lane of a dual carriageway with a rear light hanging off the back of the car. But it's perhaps an assurance of sorts that at least there are now two OPCs that cannot say they've never known this happen before...

My thanks to everyone who has read and commented on the posts in this particular thread.

 

[Peter_Bull]

Thanks for the update to this saga and really pleased you managed to get this sorted at last,

 

[awwalker1]

Many thanks Peter - it's a relief all round.

 

[Tony Warr]

Congratulations on the result from your very reasonable persistence

 

[awwalker1]

Many thanks Tony - and I'm glad it came across as reasonable - which I think it was of course!

 

[JAW911]

I am currently driving the NC500 and this happened on day 2! Exactly the same issue. Not looking forward to arguing the toss with OPC Bristol but good to be armed with your detailed summary. Thank you. In the meantime gaffer tape doing its thing!

 

[JAW911]

awwalker1 - I have pm’d you…..??