PDK failures

[Stuno1]

I assumed this was very very rare and while I still believe that is the case and if warmed up and used properly they seem to be bullet proof, they are not invaluable. The Indy I used for my aircon work said they have replaced 3 in the last two years. All refurbished items direct from Porsche. 7.5k for the unit then 2k ish to install. I was surprised to hear this. 

[Stuno1]

infallible not invaluable!

[iborguk]

Yes rare but you still don’t want it to be you, which is why I ran Porsche warranty on my last car.

[JurassicBGTS]

^^This and the potential of PADM failures is the reason I put a 3 year Porsche warranty on mine.

[daz05]

They don't tend to fail mechanically it's the sensors in them that seem to fail and since Porsche won't sell the components they tend to recommend replacement.

If mine fails a used one will replace it or I'll try and ship it off for repair there are places that can help.

[ATM]

If you ask me Porsche don't sell spares deliberately so this forces owners to have to go down the replacement route.

 

I had a problem with my box. I spoke to Porsche and yes they offered to sell me a replacement which is or was 6750 I believe but I thought that was plus VAT - can't remember exactly. What's not been mentioned is this price is for exchange so they get the old one back. I was also warned that the old one must look visually fine so no visible damage or they will reject it. I'd guess the price of a new box without exchanging the old one is a lot more. Just for comparison I believe the much simpler basic manual box for a vanilla 996 is more like 10500 but that's not an exchange deal. So you might say 6750 for a more complicated PDK box is cheap.

 

So I phoned various gearbox specialists and various Porsche specialists and none were even willing to look at my car. They all politely explained to me the reason was because of Porsche's policy of not selling spare parts for these gearboxes. I think this makes the problem even worse. Even if a specialist had the brains and the will to remedy a repair on one of these boxes why would they? Why would they risk the potential problem of a customer demanding a replacement box because the one they repaired had failed. 

 

So my experience gave me a very bad taste in my mouth and I blame Porsche for this. 

 

I did get my problem fixed. My gearbox was fine but just had a little leak. You'd think that's a simple repair but trust me it's made very complicated by Porsche's policy of not selling spare parts. I'm sure I read a thread on here where someone replaced their PDK gearbox with an exchange unit from Porsche because their old one sprung a leak. Surely a replacement gearbox to fix a leak makes no sense.

 

I will say that I believe the PDK box is pretty solid. I ran mine low on fluid several times to the point where I got yellow errors turning to red and the car refusing to drive. Once I figured out how to top up the various fluids at home on the jack outside the house it was all good. 

 

I think as a second hand purchase the PDK car is a better buy. I had a 996 manual gearbox fail on me. I then learnt that manual gearbox failures are reasonably common on the 996 and 997 cars. No idea about the newer 981 or 991 cars. When I needed a gearbox for my 996 I couldn't find any and had to spend 2500 for one from a breaker based in Germany. But even if your gearbox never fails you will probably need a new clutch at some point and generally when replacing the clutch you need to replace the flywheel. On my 996 I replaced everything else too so the master cylinder, slave cylinder, clutch pipe, shifter mechanism and also the gear lever cables themselves. That all adds up to a reasonable amount but obviously with a PDK these just don't exist in terms of maintenance items.

 

Finally it should not cost 2k to remove and refit a gearbox on one of these cars. That's absolute madness. I'd say it's 3 or 4 hours work tops.

[½cwt]

Good write up @ATM.  It did make me think of the 'Right to Repair' regulations, a version of the exisiting EU regs that Porsche may have to consider complying with by 1 July 2023, unless their position that a replacement exchange 'box adequately complies...

The UK Government has introduced new ecodesign and labelling requirements for specified electrical products sold in Great Britain. The Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information Regulations 2021 (SI 2021 No. 745), sometimes referred to as the “Right to Repair Regulations”, were made on 18 June 2021, accompanied by Explanatory Memorandum. Most of the provisions came into force on 1 July 2021. The Regulations aim to increase producer responsibility, reduce energy usage and electrical waste, and enable consumers to identify the most energy efficient products on the market. Following the UK leaving the EU, the UK chose to mirror requirements in equivalent EU regulations. The ‘right to repair’ provides ‘professional repairers’ with access to spare parts and technical information from July 2021, but manufacturers have a grace period of up to 2 years to make spare parts available.

Edited July 31, 2022 by ½cwt

[Greenman]

39 minutes ago, ½cwt said:

Good write up @ATM.  It did make me think of the 'Right to Repair' regulations, a version of the exisiting EU regs that Porsche may have to consider complying with by 1 July 2023, unless their position that a replacement exchange 'box adequately complies...

The UK Government has introduced new ecodesign and labelling requirements for specified electrical products sold in Great Britain. The Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information Regulations 2021 (SI 2021 No. 745), sometimes referred to as the “Right to Repair Regulations”, were made on 18 June 2021, accompanied by Explanatory Memorandum. Most of the provisions came into force on 1 July 2021. The Regulations aim to increase producer responsibility, reduce energy usage and electrical waste, and enable consumers to identify the most energy efficient products on the market. Following the UK leaving the EU, the UK chose to mirror requirements in equivalent EU regulations. The ‘right to repair’ provides ‘professional repairers’ with access to spare parts and technical information from July 2021, but manufacturers have a grace period of up to 2 years to make spare parts available.

Indeed. I can’t quite believe Porsche can get away with this stance, especially in the USA that tend to be more customer centric on issues like this. To replace a whole gearbox for sensor issues or leaks, for example, is just pure madness.   As stated previously this is the reason I run a warranty (PADM issues are more likely but affordable).

 

There’s some interesting info on this rennlist thread.

https://rennlist.com/forums/997-forum/1172826-guide-to-repairing-a-pdk-transmission.html

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by Greenman

[daz05]

Hopefully in time then the policy will change, I think it's most likely like this to prevent copycats and reverse engineering of the product. That said they should be willing to do more for their genuine customer base when things do go wrong.

[iborguk]

Reads like it's mainly the valve body, sensors and seals which are the main failure points, mechanical issues less so.

The distance sensor seems to be an expensive, OEM unobtainable replacement component, seen at least one third party solution mentioned.

Edited July 31, 2022 by iborguk

[ATM]

The gubbins inside is all from well known gearbox companies. This isn't Porsche only technology. It is basically a DSG gearbox right?

[iborguk]

ZF box,  doesn't sound like that distance sensor is available from them, other common faulting parts read as fixable with the right bits and hands in play.

[½cwt]

18 minutes ago, ATM said:

The gubbins inside is all from well known gearbox companies. This isn't Porsche only technology. It is basically a DSG gearbox right?

Similar tech but different designs and different IP, I believe.  One is transverse (DSG also apparently a lower toque capability) and one longitudinal (PDK).  I believe Ford and Renault also both have mechanical double clutch 'auto' boxes so the genie is out of the bottle in that respect.  If someone really wanted to reverse engineer one of these, given the level of investment in doing that, buying a couple of complete cars would be well within budget, so that can't be the reason or at least a very weak one.

Edited July 31, 2022 by ½cwt

[mneil]

Alpine use a Getrag dsg box in the A110

 

[daz05]

2 hours ago, ½cwt said:

Similar tech but different designs and different IP, I believe.  One is transverse (DSG also apparently a lower toque capability) and one longitudinal (PDK).  I believe Ford and Renault also both have mechanical double clutch 'auto' boxes so the genie is out of the bottle in that respect.  If someone really wanted to reverse engineer one of these, given the level of investment in doing that, buying a couple of complete cars would be well within budget, so that can't be the reason or at least a very weak one.

The policy definitely makes it more difficult, even opening them up is a challenge. At some point contractually I'm sure zf will be allowed to supply parts externally.

[½cwt]

4 minutes ago, daz05 said:

The policy definitely makes it more difficult, even opening them up is a challenge. At some point contractually I'm sure zf will be allowed to supply parts externally.

Regardless, current policy seem contrary to the regulations, albeit that they have a 2 year grace period to implement for 1 Jul 2021, they are 13 months into that now.  Seems to me that the first person who is out of warranty and has a PDK failure after 1 July 2023 should challenge Porsche under the regs, although they may be able to wriggle out by saying you can repair the car, here's a gearbox that a professional can install for you.  That'll be £6750 please.  I does however seem unreasonable for a £20 or even £200 part to effectively cost £8k to replace.  It would be OK when all are still under warranty where it is Porsche's risk but these are now 12+ years old, not brand new, therefor it would seem reasonable for there to be authorised repairers trained, equipped and approved to do it.  I wonder what VAG's stance is on DSG 'boxes which have been around for longer?

[ATM]

If you think about it, for 6750 all they are doing is refurbing your old box. That's a chunky number for a refurb. Although I suspect they just throw the old one away and sell you a brand new one, so not one from some other car refurbed at all. You could probably imagine someone at Porsche believing that's a good deal. Instead of charging you say 12 to 15k for a brand new box they only charge you 6750 but also take the old one in exchange. 

 

My 996 gearbox was uneconomical to repair because it would have needed some new parts to go inside which Porsche do sell but they cost an absolute fortune. General rebuild costs for a 996 gearbox are about 2 to 4 grand depending on who you ask. All that gets you is new bearings. Costs then start to escalate if you need any new synchro or the gear sets themselves. As I understand it all 996 and 997 gearboxes eventually need rebuilding because the bearings break down and get noisier and noisier.  Not even regular oil changes can prevent that. So the Porsche brand doesn't have a good reputation with engines and now also boxes.

[andygo]

I'd imagine Porsche want the old box back to prevent inquisitive types opening them up to repair. I think there are a couple of places in America that do refurb, not cost effective for the UK though I'd have thought.

[½cwt]

12 minutes ago, andygo said:

I'd imagine Porsche want the old box back to prevent inquisitive types opening them up to repair. I think there are a couple of places in America that do refurb, not cost effective for the UK though I'd have thought.

Don't know, let's say $1000 fix, and even if $1000 each way shipping that's $3k = £2.5k.  Makes it less than 40% of an £6750 exchange unit.  Still makes sense if a $4k fix.....  Time might be a factor though.

[ATM]

53 minutes ago, ½cwt said:

Don't know, let's say $1000 fix, and even if $1000 each way shipping that's $3k = £2.5k.  Makes it less than 40% of an £6750 exchange unit.  Still makes sense if a $4k fix.....  Time might be a factor though.

Surely shipping is only $200 ish but you might need to send both ways.  I think I paid around EUR200 to get my box shipped from Germania to the UK.  It cant be $1000.  I'd wager $500 tops each way.

[½cwt]

3 hours ago, ATM said:

Surely shipping is only $200 ish but you might need to send both ways.  I think I paid around EUR200 to get my box shipped from Germania to the UK.  It cant be $1000.  I'd wager $500 tops each way.

Quoting absolute worst case, with duty (??), I could think of to demonstrate a repair in the US may well still be financially viable.  Warranty on the repaired unit might be more of an issue.

[ATM]

3 hours ago, ½cwt said:

Quoting absolute worst case, with duty (??), I could think of to demonstrate a repair in the US may well still be financially viable.  Warranty on the repaired unit might be more of an issue.

Don't think there would be any duty to pay as you're not buying any new goods. The world revolves around shipped goods. It can't cost a fortune. Might be slower options on boats and quicker in planes. I know which one I'd be choosing. 

 

We have our own cottage industries rebuilding engines here just like they do over there. Surely someone in Europe will step up and start doing these boxes.