My 2011 Carrera S has only 26k miles and is about 7 months away from being 4 years old. I am thinking to take it in to the dealership this month for an the 40k/4 year service (+oil change and new spark plugs if that's not included) do you guys think it's a waste of time and too early for me to take it in at this point?

The only 2 reasons which make me want to just do it now instead of waiting is because 1: the TPMS sensors seem to be acting funny recently and 2: next week I am taking a few days off work so this would be a convenient time to have it at the dealership for a day or two, if needed.

(Not sure if it matters but am the the Silicon Valley so I would probably take it to the Porsche dealership on stevens creek or maybe redwood city)

What do you guys think?

 

save your ca$h,do oil/filter changes yourself,,mines at 27K, runs great and besides normal maintenance, if it isn't broke I don't fix it..

 

I fully agree with the above statement. Unless you have tons of cash, learn how to take care of your "baby" and do things yourself.

Oil can be purchased at Walmart (5 quarts for $25 Mobil-1 0-40W), oil air and cabin filters and Serpentine belt from Pelican Parts. A few tools, two plastic ramps to raise the car and you can be on your way.

You will enjoy your car even more.

Yves

 

If you decide to tackle the maintenance yourself, we offer a few different minor and major service kits. For more information Click Here. As for your TPMS sensors they will usually start acting funny when the battery is dying, they seem to last between 4-5 years.

 

08 here... 38k miles.


I did my plugs and coils as prev maintenance at 35k. was it necessary... prolly not. I chose to baseline the car for all fluids,etc at those miles as I was in there doing new exhaust,trans mount,cables,etc.


I do my own oil changes. 15 min job. no waiting .

 

I'm tempted to say ... follow the manual???

 

spark plug change is expensive. I did mine myself with a little over 4 year old plugs (only about 10k miles on car). What they don t want is the plug threads to sieze making them difficult to remove. At 26K I m sure your plugs are clean and an extra year or so won t freeze those plugs in there.
I m not saying don t do it but just be informed, nothing bad will happen if you hold your few hundred dollars a while longer.
At 10K miles it was hard to tell the new plugs from the old on the end that counts. LOL.

 

Please don't take it to Stevens Creek. I know it's super convienent but everytime I took my 12' Turbo S there the car was worse then before i took it in either for normal maintainance or warranty work. After two times of having the check engine light come on (it wasn't on prior) after some service or warrenty work I was done with them. Sure they fixed it each time on their dime but the inconvience was a pain. Plus they give you a 3 year old Nissan Sentra as loaner thats dirty and been smoked in. The mechanics there are truly incompedent. You are going to pay for the service so just take it to an independent. I wouldn't take to SCP for warrenty work. Just sayin.

 

Good to know! When I first got the Porsche, I called Stevens creek Porsche and the service advisor I talked to was really nice and helpful but I've never taken in there for work. Do you (or anyone else here) have any experience with redwood city Porsche?

 

Do you mean Carlsen Porsche? I really like them. I used to go to Stevens Creek but was so fed up with their lack of service.
Carlsen has two great technical advisors: Brian and Beto and they go out of their way to help you. You won't get a Porsche as a loaner but a new Audi.
The only drawback is that you will have to pay these ridiculously high Porsche service prices, but that's the same everywhere.

 

Are you going to keep your car for a long time? If so, do the maintenance recommended in the owner's manual. If you intend to trade it off in a year or so then you can ignore some of the recommended items. Myself, at 4 years I had the dealer do the belt, plugs, and second brake fluid flush along with the oil/filter etc. The great thing about owning a Porsche, you can do or not do what you want and you will suffer the benefits and/or consequences.

 

If you're close, go see George @ Rector Audi-Porsche in Burlingame. Great guy. Tell him Lila and Darren sent you.

 

We are an independent Porsche service center down in Southern California - and after seeing some of these motors torn down - I would say it's definitely not too early to take the vehicle in for service, or perform maintenance yourself. The DFI motors tend to have some buildup that accumulates so just keep an eye on that.

The normal service intervals are a little too long in my opinion - but it helps keep the perceived cost of ownership down for the brand.

Feel free to contact us with any questions on the services you may have, always happy to help!

 

The input is appreciated.
Could you please comment what you mean that the normal service interval seems too long and what would you recommend.
You know the addage "to a carpenter everything looks like a nail"

 

Sure thing!

Per the owners manual on the late and current model cars, Porsche recommends a service interval of 1 year, or 10K miles, whichever occurs first.

It also operates on a cycle, so the first service would be a basic oil and filter service at either 10K or 1 year. Then at 20K or 2 years, it would be a Minor service (oil change + air/pollen filters), 30K or 3 years = oil and filter service, 40K or 4 years = Major service (oil change + air/pollen filters + spark plugs) Of course a host of checklist items are included in the Porsche Service guidelines but those are the major items that get changed out. Rinse and repeat!

If you are an enthusiast, and by being on 6 speed I can safely assume you are - I would definitely say doing the basic oil and filter service at half that interval would be wise, if you plan on retaining ownership of the car. 5K oil and filter services should really be recommended from the factory to be honest as having aged/dirty oil in the system serves no good purpose! The plugs are fine to be changed every 40K/4 years, same with the air/pollen filters. But please change the oil and filter sooner! We use Mobil 1 synthetic just like the factory recommends - unless our customer requests a boutique oil and even on synthetic we like to see the oil changed regularly even if only by time if the car has not been driven very often.

For the DFI motors in particular, if your maintenance facility has any sort of throttle body cleaning service, or air and fuel induction service (basically anything that assists with cleaning up the buildup of carbon deposits) - I would definitely be proactive with doing that service every 20K.

It's small price to pay if you are planning on keeping the vehicle long term!