Panamera - ownership proposition?
Discussion
I'm pondering getting a Panamera in the next two years. Probably a late 4.8 Turbo in the liftback body style, but I might be able to stretch to an early 4.0. This would be used as a daily driven family car, 10-12k miles per year of mostly sedate driving with the odd blast.
I've had a few fast barges in my time, so I'm experienced in the fact that a complicated and powerful car which was expensive new, doesn't magically become cheap to run once depreciation has taken a chunk out of the car's resale value.
What's the general experience of reliability for these cars built around the 2015-2018 timeframe? Besides basic fluids servicing and consumables, how much time do you find it spends in the workshop? With a 2004 Mercedes I have found that I either spend zero on repairs, or I have a £3k bill. Averages to about £1k a year in repairs. What are you finding when keeping one long term?
I've had a few fast barges in my time, so I'm experienced in the fact that a complicated and powerful car which was expensive new, doesn't magically become cheap to run once depreciation has taken a chunk out of the car's resale value.
What's the general experience of reliability for these cars built around the 2015-2018 timeframe? Besides basic fluids servicing and consumables, how much time do you find it spends in the workshop? With a 2004 Mercedes I have found that I either spend zero on repairs, or I have a £3k bill. Averages to about £1k a year in repairs. What are you finding when keeping one long term?
donkmeister said:
I'm pondering getting a Panamera in the next two years. Probably a late 4.8 Turbo in the liftback body style, but I might be able to stretch to an early 4.0. This would be used as a daily driven family car, 10-12k miles per year of mostly sedate driving with the odd blast.
I've had a few fast barges in my time, so I'm experienced in the fact that a complicated and powerful car which was expensive new, doesn't magically become cheap to run once depreciation has taken a chunk out of the car's resale value.
What's the general experience of reliability for these cars built around the 2015-2018 timeframe? Besides basic fluids servicing and consumables, how much time do you find it spends in the workshop? With a 2004 Mercedes I have found that I either spend zero on repairs, or I have a £3k bill. Averages to about £1k a year in repairs. What are you finding when keeping one long term?
I had 3 Panamera on the trot, a 2012 GTS, a 2014 Turbo S and then a 2019 Turbo, and after a decade of Porsche ownership I jumped ship late last year to Maserati but still have a big soft spot for Panameras. I've had a few fast barges in my time, so I'm experienced in the fact that a complicated and powerful car which was expensive new, doesn't magically become cheap to run once depreciation has taken a chunk out of the car's resale value.
What's the general experience of reliability for these cars built around the 2015-2018 timeframe? Besides basic fluids servicing and consumables, how much time do you find it spends in the workshop? With a 2004 Mercedes I have found that I either spend zero on repairs, or I have a £3k bill. Averages to about £1k a year in repairs. What are you finding when keeping one long term?
My view is that the pre-2016 Panameras were better built than later ones and were generally more luxurious, with comfier seats, better noise insulation and a softer ride - the last two of which could be made more aggressive if the sports exhaust option had been fitted. I found the 2019 car suffered from pretty awful tyre noise and wasn’t quite as relaxing as the previous model but was still an amazing car.
Reliability wise, each car had its own problems. My GTS gearbox developed a judder at low speed downshifts that couldn’t be fixed. My Turbo S felt solid as a rock but had problems with A/C and a leaking PDCC reservoir but both were fixed under warranty. The 2019 car was generally fine but the front suspension creaked and rattled, which Porsche wasn’t keen to fix under warranty so I got the ombudsman involved and after a 9 month quarrel, I got it fixed for free (the problem became apparent 4 months after I bought the car from an OPC). Despite my 2019 car having the sports exhaust, that didn’t make a huge difference, something Porsche addressed with the 2020-ish facelift, when they also revised the suspension to give a better ride and also added better noise insulation.
Overall, I think I preferred the 4.8 engine to the 4.0. It was developed before environmental legislation made engines slightly muted and dull and it also felt like it had more grunt to me.
I don’t think there’s a bad choice at all but they’re quite different cars. As you’ll know, any heavy, high performance saloon will eat through consumables if driven reasonably hard but I wouldn’t have any qualms about buying another at some stage.
Forgot to add, the electronics on the later Panamera weren’t great, very glitchy and the phone connection was somewhat intermittent, not just for calls but music too. We had the same problem with both my wife’s Cayennes, which is why we now have a Mercedes.
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