Buy a used Porsche Taycan GTS and face a bill of nearly 50,000 euros within 24 hours
A Taycan GTS owner claims that Porsche wants to revoke the battery warranty due to a 5 millimeter deformation in the protective cover. An odyssey in one of the most luxurious electric cars.
A recently purchased Porsche Taycan GTS has a failure within 24 hours. So far, the typical post-sale scare. What comes next has ignited a forum of owners: according to the owner, a British citizen, Porsche would have refused to cover a part like the battery protector, which is not present, due to a 5 millimeter deformation.
The somewhat bizarre story begins with a faulty onboard charger that the sports sedan suffers shortly after leaving a used car dealership, where a customer had acquired the unit. The owner informs the seller, and he transfers the car to an official Porsche service to replace it. What is expected. But everything changes in the next call.
When the onboard charger is the least of your worries
The official Porsche service informs him that the battery warranty is voided because the panel protecting the battery pack underneath has a localized deformation of about 5 millimeters. Just removing this cover to check for damage would cost about 4,500 pounds (at the current exchange rate, 5,380 euros), and if the battery tray is damaged, the replacement would amount to approximately 47,800 euros.
The Porsche dealership service advisors take a series of images, like the one you see above these lines, showing the owner, who understands that they are perfectly compatible with normal car use, without significant dents. But this is nothing compared to what this unit of the Taycan range accumulates.
The most delicate part is what, according to the owner, was told to him by the Porsche service advisor. That is, the dealership was already aware of this car, having performed a 111-point inspection with a view to selling it as a used “Approved” vehicle, and when it supposedly detected the damage, it decided to get rid of it by sending it to auction.
If this is true, the question is uncomfortable: can a manufacturer put a car with damage it already knew about into circulation, which, according to its own standards, affects the warranty of the most expensive part of the vehicle, without the next buyer knowing?
All of this is one version of events. No one has been able to verify it with Porsche or the dealerships involved.
But it's not an isolated case. In owner forums, there are other similar stories, with estimates that soar beyond the clouds. Anecdotes that describe the same pattern: a small damage underneath, and the battery bill on the table.
What Porsche's warranty really says and what it doesn't
Porsche's high-voltage warranty lasts for 8 years or 160,000 kilometers, whichever comes first, and covers material and manufacturing defects. For electric cars, it also guarantees 80% of net capacity for 3 years or 60,000 kilometers, and 70% until the end of the period.
The key lies in what the coverage does not specify: a factory defect is not the same as external damage, and that is where everything is decided. It circulates in the forums that just a dent of a few millimeters is enough for Porsche to exclude the battery, but the brand has not published an official deformation threshold. If there is one, the customer who pays for 8 years of warranty should be able to consult it before buying.
There is a context that helps understand the manufacturer’s caution. The Taycan has had several recalls in the United States due to the risk of short circuits in the high-voltage battery, with free module replacements. A brand that has already paid for defective batteries has more incentive to monitor external damage. But that caution is not matched with transparency: the burden of proving that a damage does not affect the battery falls on the owner.
In Spain, what does the second-hand warranty say?
The case is British, but the questions apply here. In Spain, RDL 7/2021 establishes a legal warranty of 3 years for new goods and 2 years for second-hand ones, which seller and buyer can agree on 1 year as a minimum. This warranty is the seller's responsibility, not the manufacturer's, and is independent of the brand warranty. In a purchase from a professional, what the seller knew or should have known about the state of the car is important.
What remains for Porsche to clarify
Porsche's version. If the car was inspected, the damage detected, and it was sold anyway, there is a problem of information to the buyer that a brand cannot afford. If not, there is an owner who believes he is right and a brand that can prove it with an inspection. In the meantime, there remains a figure that explains why this story matters: 5 millimeters of deformation amount to more than 5,300 euros, just for looking, and almost 50,000 euros if the battery needs to be replaced.
* This news is an AI translation of the original content. Motenic.com is part of Motor.es.