Porsche 911 C4S

TG ’s winter weapon needs a firm hand

In the month that we celebrate the diverse capabilities of the C4S by naming it Best Winter Weapon, it wasn’t all plain sailing. With mileage fast approaching 13,000, the 911 was sufering from terribly squeaky brakes at slow speeds. Given that 50 per cent of my two-hour commute is spent crawling through London trafc, this was beginning to substantially detract from the C4S’s otherwise excellent experience. I called Porsche Cambridge on a Wednesday, expecting a minimum two-week delay before they could ft me in, and was staggered when they could see the car that Friday. Just 24 hours later, they called to say that my car was part of a “campaign” ( not a recall) which required the replacement of the coolant reservoir and that this would necessitate the car being left overnight to ensure the coolant was, er, cool.

The issue was picked up during Porsche’s ongoing testing, which found that there was potential for the coolant reservoir foat to stick at its lowest setting, causing an erroneous error message. In the UK, all 758 MY2017 cars will have this issue dealt with at their next service.

I duly took RX16 BVF to the Cambridge dealership, which opened at 8:30am, and the efcient, clear, communicative and efective process which had started at the frst point of contact continued.

Midway through its time with the dealer I received a technician’s video report showing the car with the rear end removed and having its coolant reservoir replaced, as well as footage of drilling out the brake-disc vent holes. Two days later, the C4S was back and on the next trip into town… the brakes still squeaked. Another call to Porsche, and this time some diferent advice: “Go out and stomp on the brakes hard from speed a couple of times.” This cured it and probably would have done so in the frst instance. Next time we’ll go for the brute force and ignorance approach.