Back to the dealer after only 1000 km | Review of our aventurine green Macan 4

[Smarcan]

Since this forum has been (and is) of great help, here’s my review about the first 1000 km in our Aventurine green Macan 4. Sadly, the car is currently back at the service center because of a myriad of safety warnings. Also the charge port cover wasn't flush. We took delivery four weeks ago. Drove for two weeks, car has been back at the dealership for the other two. Hopefully we'll get it back on Wednesday.

From Mercedes EQB to Porsche Macan 4

My wife and I traded in a 2022 Mercedes EQB 250. We liked that car a lot; it was comfortable and spacious, but not really fun to drive. Also, it charged slow at 110 kW and with a 66 kWh battery, didn't always have the range we wanted.

We did two test drives in October, both times a Macan 4. At first, we were not that impressed to be honest. Yes, the Macan drove miles better and more engaging than the EQB, but it also felt dark and cramped inside, and the consumption was a lot higher than we were used to. For a car that was almost double the price of our EQB, we went home a bit disappointed.

A week later, we did another test drive. That day we fell in love with the car. The biggest lesson we've learned: if possible, test drive a car that is specced as close to what you are looking for/find important, it makes a lot of difference.

What ultimately helped us pull the trigger was the ability to have a closer look at around 15 Macans later that day that were sold but not yet delivered to customers. It made us fall in love with an aventurine green one.

Our car: http://www.porsche-code.com/PSTMX518

Opinion on specs

Recommended

- INSULATED GLASS - Because of the difference in cabin noise between the EQB (18" rims) and Macan, and because we really wanted the 22" wheels, we opted for the insulated glass. Having driven the car for 1000 km, I have to say I'm really happy with this decision.

- BOSE - The Bose is a nice step up from the 'advanced sound system' that our EQB had. Both test cars also had BOSE, so can't compare it to the standard sound system.

- AIR SUSPENSION - The air suspension is great, I think a must have.

- COMFORT SEATS - This off course is highly personal, but we like the 14 way seats more than the 18 way sport seats, especially on longer drives and when entering and exiting the car.

- NICE WHEELS - Also very personal, but please pick nice ones . They are expensive, but IMO make or break the looks of the car. We opted for the 22" RS spyder wheels in high gloss black. Very happy with them.

- HEAD UP DISPLAY - Wow, especially with the navigation turned on!

- PANORAMIC SUNROOF - Can't wait for spring!

Not recommended

TINTED HEAD LIGHTS - Does not make that much of a difference IMO.

HEATED WINDSHIELD - We are happy with it, but the windshield has an ever so slightly different tint when looking through it than the windows in the doors. After a few drives, we don't really notice it anymore.

Don't miss it

- Innodrive - Judging from the plethora of software issues we've already experienced, especially concerning the driver assistance, I don't miss innodrive. SA said we made a good choice not speccing it...

- Rear wiper - Looks so much cleaner without it IMO.

- Passenger display - Prefer the cleaner look.

Do miss (a little bit)

- In a future car, we might customize the interior more. We have specced the extended leather, because otherwise couldn't pick the HUD, but that's it. It still feels premium, but the Mercedes' interior felt more special to us. Not unhappy, but this has crossed my mind a few times.

- Paint to sample. We thought so long and hard about the color of the car. Even drove to a different Porsche Center to view the Macan in Oak Green. At first, we were inclined to go for black (like the EQB), but my wife didn't want this. Then Oak Green vs Aventurine. Ultimately very happy with the color, but might go all out some day and ordering a PTS car.

Delivery

We ordered our Macan 4 in the beginning of October. Delivery was scheduled for mid to late February. To our surprise, our SA sent us a photo of our car already delivered to the service center a few days after new year’s, more than month ahead of time! We were able to pick up the car 1,5 week later, which was great!

Driving it

The good

It's a lot nicer to drive than the EQB. It handles better, is more fun, really all around better. We like that there's a charge port on both sides, we never had a frunk before and the Macan charges a lot faster than the EQB (270 kW vs 110 kW). It looks a lot better, too. The seats are amazing, as is the steering wheel. This is our third electric car and is by far the best driving one.

The things we are a bit disappointed about

The delivery. It was amazing that it arrived so quick, but if the first thing you notice when unveiling your car is a protruding charge port cover, you ask yourself if it wouldn't have been better if they took a few more weeks before handing it over... Also, the software warnings being visible in your brand new car when you turn it on for the first time while sitting with a 'Porsche Pro' next to you also didn't feel right. Him telling us all these warnings will directly go away, which wasn't the case, was also disappointing. Finally, and I know this might feel like a bit of nitpicking to some, but a brand new car should be spotless; the best it has and will ever look. So you don't want to see drops of water behind the charge port from washing it or a few dried water spots here and there on the car. Oh well...

Other things? Well, we really hope the range will increase when spring arrives here in The Netherlands, as the larger battery of the Macan vs the EQB only gives us a bit more range due to the significantly higher consumption. We also miss a bit of leg room in the back and space in trunk, despite the car being both longer and wider than the EQB. We further find that the heated seats and steering wheel don't get hot enough. The seat belt rattles when you drive without a passenger, as do our drinks (cans) in the cup holders. As there is no way to decrease the size of the cup holders like in the Mercedes (which had small clips), we put tissue paper underneath the cans to stop the rattling. Need to find a better solution for this. Finally, we need to get used to the lay-out of the car more than we thought we would during our test drives; the position of the door handle, the cup holders being quite far back, the position of the arm rest, the very deep storage space in the center console, the storage space underneath the two 'bars' that split the interior in half etc etc.

The app. Sending prompts to the car takes ages.

The really bad

The software. What a complete disaster. See below.

Back to the service center

As said in the title, we were only able to drive the car for 1000 km (two weeks). During this, there wasn't a single drive without safety warnings. We haven't been able to use adaptive cruise control at all. The HUD didn't work on several drives. Lane assist works 50% of the time. Other safety features such as the warnings lights in the mirrors don't work 90% of the time. I don't know all the English names for the safety features, but practically nothing works as it should.

Also, one time when we came back to the car at night we noticed that one of the rear windows was halfway open. Car was locked and connected to a charger. It was minus 3 degrees celsius. We only came back to it, because we noticed in the app that the car didn't start charging. Otherwise, we wouldn't have noticed it. Luckily, nothing of value was in the car. It took us 5 times of turning the car on and off again to get the window to stay up. The first four it went up, but immediately down again when releasing the button in the door.

As I had to use the app the see our consumption, because the right side of the dashboard was almost permanently blocked with warnings and popups, we decided to contact our SA and bring the car back.

What's next?

The service center said they needed two days to fix the car. We got a rwd 2025 Taycan loaner. Nice car, but too low for our taste. We miss our Macan!

Unfortunately, we got two phone calls, both times with the message that it will take longer than expected. They have replaced the front sensors of the car, which didn't solve the problem. Then checked all the wiring, nothing looked wrong. Did some other things that I don't remember, but nothing worked.

Currently, we are waiting on replacement parts that have to be delivered from Stuttgart, I believe an ECU and something that has to do with the blind spot monitoring. They said they hope it is not the software, but at this point don't know.

Hopefully we can pick our car up on Wednesday, two weeks after bringing it in.

Conclusion

The whole experience has left us disappointed. This is our first experience with Porsche. You know, the brand I had a poster of above my bed since I was little. Joking aside, I have never experienced something like this. We previously drove a VW, BMW and Mercedes. The e-Golf just worked. The X1 had some small things, but nothing major. The EQB, like the Macan also a brand new car, worked perfectly. In 60.000 km, we visited the service center once with that car, only to get the front tires replaced.

Don't get me wrong, I did still smile when we walked up to the car last week at the service center to pick up my sunglasses. I also think Porsche makes the best driving electric car I have ever driven. Both the Macan and the Taycan drive amazing. The best allround car, though? At this moment, I'm not sure. Would I recommend everyone to buy a Macan? Also not sure. If everything works, yes! But reading the stories on this forum, some much worse than what we have experienced, at this moment I'm cautious. I really hope this was all just a false start and that we are able to enjoy the car in all its glory very soon!

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[Alex74]

Sad to hear, happens a lot with Porsche, the latast years.a lot of issues with the Taycan.
who is your dealership?

 

[prime]

I was left overall disappointed with my Porsche dealership experience too. Most expensive vehicle I’ve purchased and just about the worst overall service. Vehicle came with several scratches (ant delivery) after the wash, they attempted to buff and made it worse. I told them just leave it I’ll get it detailed. A few alignment / noise issues from the get go on test drive prior to signing, i was assured everything would get fixed to my satisfaction on my first service visit. It was not, had to follow some posts her and DIY noise issues and have to make another appointment for some other issues.

Long time Lexus family, then went to Tesla and Rivian. Tesla service is pretty much like Toyota, not terrible but not like a luxury brand. Rivian customer service was excellent but the service quality was terrible, nothing would ever get fixed, the techs are not trained well.. lemoned the truck. Lexus is still the standard, Porsche is unfortunately based on my experience at South Bay Porsche in LA at the bottom of the pack. I just hope once things get sorted out I don’t have to make many service visits there again.

 

[henrus]

I feel you. But it’s a first gen car, which always comes with a lot of bugs. Just comes with the territory. Once my software bugs were worked out, the car’s been a dream (though in your case it sounds more complicated). Hope you get them all sorted soon.

 

[taycanstuff]

Hope you get it fixed soon, sorry to hear about your experience. Interesingly we had it the other way round, we had an EQB which was riddled with issues back and forth to the dealership who had no idea what to do, so much that it was returned back to mercedes. With EV's it seems to be a bit of a lottery whether you get a good one with minimal issues or not.

 

[W1NGE]

I feel you. But it’s a first gen car, which always comes with a lot of bugs. Just comes with the territory. Once my software bugs were worked out, the car’s been a dream (though in your case it sounds more complicated). Hope you get them all sorted soon.

Porsche have had 5 years with the Taycan meaning that the Macan which has a lot of borrowed parts and tech should be much better and the software sorted.

The protruding manual charge port door is common to all Macan EVs that I've seen and driven. There can be no excuse for this. Oddly I've noticed the same issue on the new Seat Formentor which is also part of the VW group.

 

[susanb]

Sorry to hear about your issues! sounds very similar to my experience. After 3 weeks, I got into my Macan 4 EV and received multiple warnings including "assistance systems limited", "engine control error" and "electrical systems error" and the car wouldn't start. I called the dealer who sent a tow truck and I didn't get the car back for 28 days. But now I love it!!! Hang in there!

 

[Smarcan]

Update: Two days turned into three weeks, but we finally got our car back!

Is everything fixed?

Well, yes and no. The charge port cover is now more aligned with the car, but it's still not perfect. See my post here with photos.

The safety features now work, for the most part. Yesterday, we still got the same 'driver assistance limited' message on the dash as before. It disappeared after one or two minutes of driving. It also didn't pop up immediately when putting the car in drive, like before, but after a few kilometers. It hasn't happened since.

Finally, and perhaps the most annoying thing, the same window as before keeps coming down randomly. Always when the car is locked. One time in the car park after a 10 minute trip to the supermarket, twice at home in the middle of the night. Like last time, at first I wasn't able to close it, as it immediately came down again when releasing the button. Will need to contact the dealer about it if this keeps happening.

About the experience

Our service center told us several times that the electric Macan is still a very new car to them, as many of you here have pointed out as well. As a result, I felt that it took them quite a long time to figure things out. They called us five times to tell they needed more time to fix the car.

Our dealer had to get assistance from Pon, a Dutch transportation conglomerate and car importer here, as they did not have the right computers/software themselves to calibrate the sensors they had just installed.

They replaced the steering angle sensor (I believe that is what its called, in Dutch 'hoeksensor'). At first, they only replaced one. Pon then told them they can't calibrate it, as all the sensors needed to be replaced in order to do so. No one at my dealership apparently knew that. This meant having to wait for another couple of days for parts and another few days of installing it, waiting for Pon and testing it etc etc.

All in all I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed in the whole experience at the service center. You guys here seem to know (a lot) more about the car than they do. They also didn't address any of the questions I wrote down on a piece of paper and wanted to discuss with them when picking up the car. Things such as if there's a fix for the seat belt rattle, if there's an OEM way to decrease the cupholder size like the small clips in our EQB to stop cans from rattling, some software/config questions etc. Luckily this forum exists.

In conclusion, we finally have a car that functions largely as it should. That's a big relief. It also makes the drive even better than before. Today we drove our first highway stretch of 300 km. It was very comfortable and fun at the same time. Charging was great as well; it immediately jumped up to 272 Kw after plugging it in at Ionity. Really hope the window stays up, though, and that the 'driver assist' errors stay away. If that's the case, then the electric Macan is an amazing car. Fingers crossed!

 

[PSPJames]

I tried to get a service appointment with my local dealer. They are booked 45 days out on non-urgent items, and 30 days for anything safety related. My guess is they don't have the techs to service the new platform but what would happen if you had an issue while on a road trip? Yikes.

 

[Fun TC Driving]

I am very sorry for everyone who has had a problem with their 2024 or 2025 Macan EV, Glad to see a few of you have had your issues resolved. Hopefully as suggested earlier, they are going to soon get beyond these initial growing/learning pains.

This is one of the first times I am glad our multi year iX lease continues onwards — so the earliest we could get our Macan EV is a 2026 model.

Good luck to all of you who still do not have your Macan EV to excellent in every way.

 

[Frankie]

Our dealer had to get assistance from Pon, a Dutch transportation conglomerate and car importer here, as they did not have the right computers/software themselves to calibrate the sensors they had just installed.

Importer Pon is not exactly known as the best importer in our country. And I am still putting it mildly. They are actually too big with far too many car brands and bicycle manufacturers that they manage.
But it is a shame that you have had so many problems with your Macan. I have had my Macan since January 8 and to date not one error message or malfunction. Fingers crossed!

 

[susanb]

Update: Two days turned into three weeks, but we finally got our car back!

Is everything fixed?

Well, yes and no. The charge port cover is now more aligned with the car, but it's still not perfect. See my post here with photos.

The safety features now work, for the most part. Yesterday, we still got the same 'driver assistance limited' message on the dash as before. It disappeared after one or two minutes of driving. It also didn't pop up immediately when putting the car in drive, like before, but after a few kilometers. It hasn't happened since.

Finally, and perhaps the most annoying thing, the same window as before keeps coming down randomly. Always when the car is locked. One time in the car park after a 10 minute trip to the supermarket, twice at home in the middle of the night. Like last time, at first I wasn't able to close it, as it immediately came down again when releasing the button. Will need to contact the dealer about it if this keeps happening.

About the experience

Our service center told us several times that the electric Macan is still a very new car to them, as many of you here have pointed out as well. As a result, I felt that it took them quite a long time to figure things out. They called us five times to tell they needed more time to fix the car.

Our dealer had to get assistance from Pon, a Dutch transportation conglomerate and car importer here, as they did not have the right computers/software themselves to calibrate the sensors they had just installed.

They replaced the steering angle sensor (I believe that is what its called, in Dutch 'hoeksensor'). At first, they only replaced one. Pon then told them they can't calibrate it, as all the sensors needed to be replaced in order to do so. No one at my dealership apparently knew that. This meant having to wait for another couple of days for parts and another few days of installing it, waiting for Pon and testing it etc etc.

All in all I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed in the whole experience at the service center. You guys here seem to know (a lot) more about the car than they do. They also didn't address any of the questions I wrote down on a piece of paper and wanted to discuss with them when picking up the car. Things such as if there's a fix for the seat belt rattle, if there's an OEM way to decrease the cupholder size like the small clips in our EQB to stop cans from rattling, some software/config questions etc. Luckily this forum exists.

In conclusion, we finally have a car that functions largely as it should. That's a big relief. It also makes the drive even better than before. Today we drove our first highway stretch of 300 km. It was very comfortable and fun at the same time. Charging was great as well; it immediately jumped up to 272 Kw after plugging it in at Ionity. Really hope the window stays up, though, and that the 'driver assist' errors stay away. If that's the case, then the electric Macan is an amazing car. Fingers crossed!

I pressured my dealer into reimbursing me for my lease payment for the 4 weeks that my Macan EV spent in the shop & they had Porsche USA send me a check. I told them it wasn't fair for me to pay for a car that I didn't have. This may be worth a try.

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