Porsche 911 C4S - long-term review

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 suffering from terribly squeaky brakes at slow speeds. Given that 50 per cent of my two-hour commute is spent crawling through London traffic, 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 fit 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 float 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 efficient, clear, communicative and effective process which had started at the first 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 different 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 first instance. Next time we’ll go for the brute force and ignorance approach.

Good stuff: As the winter sets in, the C4S’s capabilities shine ever brighter, and it’s a worthy winner of Best Winter Weapon. PCM infotainment is well thought-out and winning against Apple CarPlay

Bad stuff: Dealership service was excellent but problem could probably have been solved by brute-force braking. The worse the road conditions get, the more the C4S comes to life