This post comprises a few lessons-learned and tips for collecting a Porsche at the “Porsche Werk” in Leipzig.
We collected our car (Cayenne S Hybrid) in early June, 2011. Keep in mind, some details may change by the time you read this. Also, we live in Seattle, so some of the details about flying to Leipzig will vary for other cities.
We have a blog post about out actual experience on collection day here.
Getting to Leipzig
Leipzig is a sizeable German city (> 500K people) in the old East Germany. Its airport is in no way a hub for any airline. From the US you need to connect somewhere likely Frankfurt or Munich. We flew through Frankfurt as Lufthansa has a direct flight there from Seattle. Check with the airline; it was cheaper for us to fly Seattle-Frankfurt-Leipzig than Seattle-Frankfurt would have been.
The flight from Seattle leaves at 2pm and arrives in Frankfurt at 9am the next day, local time. So you lose one night. When you arrive, you need to walk to a different terminal (from B to A in our case) for your flight to Leipzig. Note: You will go through a passport control and another security screening. Allow some time for all of that. We had a four-hour layover, so we had no time pressure on our trip.
The flight to Leipzig is about an hour.
Returning to Seattle, as of June 2011 is sort-of ugly. If you want to do it in one day, you need to take a 5:50am flight out of Leipzig. You’ll probably arrange to drop your car off the night before. We spoke to the airline and they allowed us to split the return trip over consecutive days. We flew out of Leipzig at 2:45pm (local time) and stayed at an airport hotel in Frankfurt. Lufthansa did not charge us anything extra for this, but we did of course have one additional night of hotel expense.
Note: If you split your return trip over two days, don’t miss your first return flight. They warned us that missing the flight to Frankfurt would void our flight to Seattle.
Staying overnight in Leipzig
We really enjoyed the Leipzig Marriott. Porsche puts you on the executive floor. The rooms are large and you get breakfast in the executive lounge. Leipzig is interesting enough to walk around; but like us, you are probably more interested in getting some sleep and being fresh to collect your car the next day.
The taxi fare from the airport to the hotel is about 30 Euros, not counting a small tip. The fare to the Porsche factory is just about the same. The factory is a few minutes away from the airport.
Collecting the car
Porsche will reimburse your for your cab ride to the factory. Get a receipt; you submit it when you get back home. Make sure you have your letter of introduction for the gate guard when you pull up. They will let the taxi take you all the way in to the customer center once they know you are authorized. You can take your luggage with you; they will store it for you until you are ready to drive off.
We were told to arrive at the factory at 8am. On arrival they immediately told us nothing would happen until 8:45am. They do have coffee and pastries for you while you wait. You share your collection day with others, but you are never mixed in with the other customers. You get your own time on the track and your own tour.
As noted above, the details of our collection day are documented elsewhere on this blog. We had a snafu with the iPod interface, so we were not on the road until sometime after 2pm. Normally you would be done by about 1:30pm or even sooner if you don’t linger at lunch.
Things to do before you leave the US
· Make sure you have arranged insurance coverage for the whole time you intend to drive the car. Your German temporary plates are stamped with your return date. They cannot be changed. We got caught by surprise in Stuttgart (different car, in 2008) because the dealer told us we could extend when we got to Germany. That is not true. The dealer collects two weeks of insurance payments from you; if you are staying longer, you will pay the extra insurance at the factory.
· The big issue to handle before leaving is navigation. The Cayenne, and I assume the Panamera as well, has a hard-disk based navigation system. The factory needs two weeks’ notice to load the European maps. We didn’t know this and our car was loaded for the US. They anticipate this however, and loan you, at no fee, a small Garmin-like navigation unit. It sucks compared to the one you paid for; get your dealer to arrange European maps before you go.
If you do end up with the Navigon (their version of Garmin), note that it does not cover anything other than ‘Central Europe’. We drove to Scandinavia, which was not in the unit. We could buy and download Scandinavia from the Navigon web site. But that would have cost a few hundred dollars and been gone to us when we returned the unit. Instead we went to a department store and bought a cheap ($115) Garmin and got all the maps we needed.
· A second potential issue concerns the iPod interface. We had this problem with the Cayenne; there is a good chance the Panamera has this issue too. The iPod interface only works with the iPod Touch or the iPad. It will not work with older iPods. We brought a fourth-generation non-touch iPod and the car could not see it. The iPod knew it was connected and was trying to take orders from the car. But the car never displayed ‘iPod’ as an audio source. We tried two cables and then asked for help. Our host got a third cable, which did not help. Then he called and engineer who confirmed, you need an iPod Touch or iPad. We happened to have iPads with us and used the older one of them for our trip. The iPod controls are pretty good; just make sure you bring the right device.