[Luke]

You guys get a hang-up on a singel word on a webpage that says "included" in a web-configurator? It's not that you finalize the car purchase online. I suggest that you guys take a read here before you send further e-mails. Specifically the section "Disclaimer" Porsche Legal Notice - Porsche Cars North America

 

[ghstudio]

You are right, of course, this would never make it to any court...but it might make it to some state consumer protection agency. The $'s are insignificant...the business policy is really the issue...and the boilerplate you point to is just that...similar to many CYA terms and conditions that are routinely thrown out because they are one sided.

But let me give you some other thoughts on some (hypothetical) Porsche web and policy changes that will be made later today....applicable to your car which you already purchased, of course. Both are applicable to all 2017 models, irrespective of what was on the web or you were told or not told by your dealer.


1) sports plus mode includes a one year trial license...if you want to continue to use the sports + mode or launch control after one year, you have to pay $200 per year for the function. You can, of course use the dash gauge without any additional charge.

2) The navigation feature comes with a one year license. After one year, if you wish to continue to use navigation, there is a license fee of $200 per year.

Are you OK with those type of changes?

 

[Luke]

I think there is a big difference between the examples you provide and the 3rd party services that porsche source for it's Connect services. But I won't go into a detailed discussion about this since I don't find it relevant. What I wanted to point out with my post was that no web site content should be treated as absolute correct. Hence the disclaimers that is commonly used. As consumers we should be well aware of this and treat the information accordingly.

There are lot's of other errors in the configurator. BOSE for instance is specified to be 545watts, but it's actually 665watts from MY17. So you're getting something better than specified.... Maybe it is possible to make a legal thing out of this also? Higher wattage specified might cause hearing issues.

 

[ghstudio]

I think there is a big difference between the examples you provide and the 3rd party services that porsche source for it's Connect services. But I won't go into a detailed discussion about this since I don't find it relevant. What I wanted to point out with my post was that no web site content should be treated as absolute correct. Hence the disclaimers that is commonly used. As a consumer we're well aware of this and should treat the information that way also.

There are lot's of other errors in the configurator. BOSE for instance is specified to be 545watts, but it's actually 665watts from MY17. So you're getting something better than specified....

Actually, no difference at all.....you are being billed by Porsche in all the cases...and whether they deliver it themselves or through a third party has nothing to do with the issue.

As far as the subscriptions, if porsche doesn't tell you about the subscriptions and the dealer doesn't tell you about the subscriptions....how is the consumer supposed to know about the ongoing subscription fee....if you believe all the disclaimers of course, the consumer is to blame for not knowing what he isn't told This is the type of issue the EU seems to get involved in....it would probably be a big issue in the UK....in the US, probably not so much as consumers really have little real protection other than the legal system, sometimes.

 

[Namo]

I have a question, about how to use Navigation, yesterday I had to go to the city called Grand Valley in Ontario, far and rural area, I put in the city name, no problem, but when I tried to put the address, County road, it didn't give the option to put this name in. I tried a few times. At the end, I couldn't use it, just use the map to see where I was driving all the time, but I saw the Route #25 , on the map, and that is where I was going to....County Rd. 25 North. I had no problem coming home using navigation because I live in the big city, the address is recognized in the nav system. But when I tried even to put just the highway number on the navigation, it doesn't recognize it. How do you put just let say highway #401 , or highway #10 on the navigation, would it work. Can you just put the city name on the nav for the destination?
Anyone has the same problem using Nav?

 

[ghstudio]

I have a question, about how to use Navigation, yesterday I had to go to the city called Grand Valley in Ontario, far and rural area, I put in the city name, no problem, but when I tried to put the address, County road, it didn't give the option to put this name in. I tried a few times. At the end, I couldn't use it, just use the map to see where I was driving all the time, but I saw the Route #25 , on the map, and that is where I was going to....County Rd. 25 North. I had no problem coming home using navigation because I live in the big city, the address is recognized in the nav system. But when I tried even to put just the highway number on the navigation, it doesn't recognize it. How do you put just let say highway #401 , or highway #10 on the navigation, would it work. Can you just put the city name on the nav for the destination?
Anyone has the same problem using Nav?

You can just put in a city name with or without a street name

As far as your 25 North...I have that all the time....sometimes it's highway 25, sometimes it's 25 N, sometimes it's the name of the road (which I never know). This isn't unique to Porsche....

 

[Namo]

Thanks @ghstudio, so what do you put in the Nav, if you want to go to let say route # 25, I tried highway 25 it didn't seem to work.

 

[DJRob]

I think it's well understood that mistakes are bound to happen and there's no better place than the internet to find them. Sure, blanket disclaimers are provided as a catch-all for unintended mistakes- and that's fine. To me, a lot of agreements and EULAs are incomprehensible to the average person and in general are consumer-hostile.

Connect Plus, in my opinion has been misrepresented by omission. It's not just the configurator- most mentions are mum on subscription services. Without paying those subscription charges, what we bought was Apple CarPlay and an LTE Hotspot. All the connected services in my previous cars were all gimmicks at best, junk at worst. From all appearances, it looked like Porsche put some thought and effort into this to bring PCM up to date. While PCM 4.0 is indeed brilliant, especially when compared to the previous generation, there is nothing compelling <to me> to pay the up to $454/year plus data plan costs for those services (YMMV)- other than maybe Google Earth and Street View. It's disappointing that these are behind paywalls. In a previous post I questioned whether this is even allowed in Google's usage guidelines.

 

[ghstudio]

Thanks @ghstudio, so what do you put in the Nav, if you want to go to let say route # 25, I tried highway 25 it didn't seem to work.

Sometimes you can just enter a 2 in street name and then select "list"...and you'll be given a list of street names in the city you've entered starting with those starting with 2. Like if you know your destination is on Berber street or was it Barbour street or Barber street...you can just enter a B and see a list of streets to see which spelling is right.

 

[Namo]

Thanks so much @ghstudio for your fast response. I will give it a try today.

 

[KT88]

Worst case, if the destination is visible on the map, you can point to it on the touch screen and press Start. Something like that, not in the car to give you exact details.

Thanks @ghstudio, so what do you put in the Nav, if you want to go to let say route # 25, I tried highway 25 it didn't seem to work.

 

[Martin]

I can report on this more soon. AT&T gave you no way to look at usage on the trial plan.

I had to call Porsche to get my data usage under the trial period. During this time I had WiFi enabled and my phone connected to it. I did a bit of music streaming, maps (Google and Carplay), and took one trip where my son streamed video for about 2-hours total. So how much data did I use? Hold onto your hats... for months 1 through 3 it was 11GB, 10GB, and 12GB, respectively. That's GB, not MB!!

The rep I talked to was very surprised but told me not to worry about the overage. I thought the trial was 3-months or 3GB, whatever comes first. That was her understanding as well.

Since then (3 days ago), I bought 1 month, 1GB of data for $20 just to see how long it would last. I have disconnected any device from using WiFi. My only data use that I'm aware of is Google maps for a total of about 100 miles over the past three days. Any music or podcast streaming is using data from my phone. So far I'm at 160MB, which I cannot understand given how little I'm in the car.

I only need the hotspot irregularly and figured 1GB would be good for sporadic use. However, if I can't figure out what else might be using the data, I'll have to pull the card and maybe insert it as necessary. The next thing I'm going to try is not using the Porsche navigation and use Apple maps instead. Seems crazy that Google traffic would use that much data (this is over the past three days).

For those of you who know, what amounts of data usage are you seeing?

 

[Gaphillipson@me.com]

PCM Hot Spot

Have you tried using your phone as the hotspot for the PCM instead of the SIM provided? I asked Porsche if this would be possible and was answered in the affirmative. Perhaps my question was misunderstood. I am waiting for my Macan S (now at the Port of Houston) with Connect+. It has been delayed due to the unavailability of the head units.

 

[MACANdcheese]

I only need the hotspot irregularly and figured 1GB would be good for sporadic use. However, if I can't figure out what else might be using the data, I'll have to pull the card and maybe insert it as necessary. The next thing I'm going to try is not using the Porsche navigation and use Apple maps instead. Seems crazy that Google traffic would use that much data (this is over the past three days).

For those of you who know, what amounts of data usage are you seeing?

For MY17, I received a AT&T sim card that had 3 months or 3GB of usage, it hasn't been 2 months yet so I am still using it. Since I use Verizon for my phone service I didn't want to switch to AT&T, so I went out and bought a T-Mobile data only sim that offers 2GB of data for $20, and it includes netflix and music streaming, if you use that and setup your car as a hotspot you will be able to use all those services without incurring data costs, so it sounds like a better deal that I will probably use after my 3months are up with AT&T. I still can't find out how much data I have used on the trial sim. I called AT&T support and they were not able to tell me since the card is not registered to an account, and does not have a phone number assigned to it.

 

[MACANdcheese]

Have you tried using your phone as the hotspot for the PCM instead of the SIM provided? I asked Porsche if this would be possible and was answered in the affirmative. Perhaps my question was misunderstood. I am waiting for my Macan S (now at the Port of Houston) with Connect+. It has been delayed due to the unavailability of the head units.

I have a MY17 GTS with Connect and Connect+. If you take out the SIM card the PCM will ask you for a WIFI connection to connect to and you can easily use your phone as a hotspot. You can even use a small hotspot if you have one. I have even used my home WIFI while my car is parked in the garage. You could even connect to a Starbucks wifi if you park in front of a store and their signal is in range.
Just be aware that the iPhone has a limitation that if you get a phone call the hotspot feature will be turned off. Some Android phones will allow you to continue using the hotspot feature while you are talking, so check your phone.

 

[Martin]

Have you tried using your phone as the hotspot for the PCM instead of the SIM provided? I asked Porsche if this would be possible and was answered in the affirmative. Perhaps my question was misunderstood. I am waiting for my Macan S (now at the Port of Houston) with Connect+. It has been delayed due to the unavailability of the head units.

Thanks. Your suggestion would work except I do not have the hotspot option on my cell phone plan. Since I have a pretty old, good deal that is grandfathered, I don't want to add the hotspot service but loose the other benefits of my older plan.

 

[Martin]

For MY17, I received a AT&T sim card that had 3 months or 3GB of usage, it hasn't been 2 months yet so I am still using it. Since I use Verizon for my phone service I didn't want to switch to AT&T, so I went out and bought a T-Mobile data only sim that offers 2GB of data for $20, and it includes netflix and music streaming, if you use that and setup your car as a hotspot you will be able to use all those services without incurring data costs, so it sounds like a better deal that I will probably use after my 3months are up with AT&T. I still can't find out how much data I have used on the trial sim. I called AT&T support and they were not able to tell me since the card is not registered to an account, and does not have a phone number assigned to it.

I'll drop by an AT&T store and give this a try. 2GB for $20 is certainly better than 1GB for $20.

Regarding how much data you've used during the trial, call Porsche USA (800-767-7243) and tell them you want to check your data use. It is likely the rep will not be aware that AT&T cannot give you this information so the rep will take your SIM card number and get back to you within 24-hours.

 

[MACANdcheese]

I'll drop by an AT&T store and give this a try. 2GB for $20 is certainly better than 1GB for $20.

Regarding how much data you've used during the trial, call 800-767-7243 and tell them you want to check your data use. It is likely the rep will not be aware that AT&T cannot give you this information so the rep will take your SIM card number and get back to you within 24-hours.

If you are not already a customer of AT&T, I suggest you try T-Mobile data only sim for 2Gb for $20 a month with their Binge On data streaming.
I did call AT&T and gave them my sim card number, they told me that they needed the phone number assigned to the sim. I then went to my local AT&T store, took my SIM in and they tried to look it up, but could not find any information about it.

 

[Martin]

If you are not already a customer of AT&T, I suggest you try T-Mobile data only sim for 2Gb for $20 a month with their Binge On data streaming.
I did call AT&T and gave them my sim card number, they told me that they needed the phone number assigned to the sim. I then went to my local AT&T store, took my SIM in and they tried to look it up, but could not find any information about it.

Thanks for the clarification. I meant to type TMO but had AT&T on the brain.

 

[Justin Loving]

Are you using satelite mode on the Porsche Nav?