** Warning ** Panoramic Roof Destruction – Potential of serious injury in cold weather

[RandallF]

I received this rather worrying email from a member who has highlighted the risk of potentially serious injury resulting from opening the vehicle tailgate in cold weather.

He has phoned Porsche a week ago to check they'd received his email below but no one had read it and therefore it hadn't been allocated to anyone. The gentleman he spoke to was going to read it and call him right back but as far as I know hasn’t yet.

On a positive note after numerous phone calls to his insurer the car did get picked up to be taken to a Porsche Approved Bodyshop for estimate.

Needless to say that despite not looking forward to paying his excess - fingers crossed it is not a write off.

I'll keep you posted as this develops.

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‘Dear Sir/Madam,

On Saturday I pressed the button on the key to open the tailgate and when part way up I heard a loud bang following by cracking noises. The tailgate stopped.

Upon inspecting I inadvertently got glass embedded in my finger resulting in a trip to A&E (6.5hrs) and subsequently minor surgery today to remove the glass (5hrs).

I believe it was ice that caused it to destroy the panoramic roof glass.

This is very worrying and something I feel both other owners and Porsche Germany should be made aware of re the risk of potential serious injury and damage.

Luckily my grandson wasn't in the car where he would have been a minute or two later !

I am now at the stage of waiting for an estimate from your approved repairer to provide an estimate in the hope of convincing my insurer to repair as opposed to writing it off as they seem to want to.

Please find some photos attached.

I look forward to hearing from you as a matter of urgency regarding this matter.’

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Randall

 

[RandallF]

** UPDATE **

Since I first reported the incident of the destruction of our member's Panamera Sport Turismo panoramic roof, things have moved on – for the worse.

In February 2025, he had his insurance claim approved by his insurer. Total estimate £6,500. Porsche then raised a case and got in touch with the repairers.

Porsche said they'd like to pay the bill and consequently the insurance claim was stood down.

The repairer went back to Porsche once roof, & spoiler were done, claiming the tailgate was out of alignment. They reckon that might have contributed to the problem which led to Porsche having to rethink. Strange how it was fine before and they'd never mentioned it before.

Porsche agreed to pay the extra to have it aligned and some more paintwork done.

The car was ready by mid April by which time they had had it more than twice as long as the owner did. He obviously had to insure, tax it all this time and his warranty was soon expire without him having had enough use of it to know of any faults lurking.

Early December 2025, guess what, it happened again!

The saga starts again, only this time, he had to get it recovered to a Porsche centre for inspection.

In his own words (I’ve removed the name of the body shop and the OPC):

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“From what I've been told, the spoiler assembly takes in water and presumably expands in the cold forcing it to come off the tailgate. Then when you open the tailgate it collides with the panoramic glass roof breaking it.

Porsche supplied a modified part with drainage in it to prevent a re-occurrence (hence known fault of original part). Alas it didn't work.

Car is now at Porsche # for investigation. It's a case of either Porsche or # (Porsche Approved body shop) who did previous remedial works, will be footing the bill and between them sorting who re-repairs it.

Fingers crossed it won't be 13 weeks again & hopefully a loan car this time (alas no loaner yet)”

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“To summarise, first incident was back in January, it had been a little frosty overnight. Pressed button on key to open tailgate and spoiler had either already popped off on offside or did so in motion, panoramic roof destroyed.

13 weeks later got the car back but it had to go back to the approved body shop to rectify issues of their doing.

The body shop claimed tailgate misaligned, Porsche paid bill in full including aligning tailgate.

No courtesy car offered so had to rely on ageing Boxster.

October it went in for a couple of recalls and they pointed out rear screen wash wasn't connected - obviously failure of body shop as it's in the spoiler assembly.

2nd December - same scenario, touch of frost, spoiler again no longer attached on offside and roof destroyed.

Porsche want inspection done at OPC #, body shop arrange transport.

Multiple calls to body shop, OPC and Porsche UK over following weeks.

Eventually offered courtesy car yesterday by body shop only to find out it's a hybrid. I can't travel in a hybrid or electric due to EMR (Electro Magnetic Radiation) effects on SCS medical implant (Spinal Cord Stimulator - bit like a pacemaker but for helping with severe spinal nerve pain) Word of caution - can affect those with pacemakers as well !!

Also had to let down lots of people as was unable to tow Santa's sleigh around Oxford in lead up to Christmas, and unable to take part in a local Christmas cruise for charity. I'm again having to rely on ageing Boxster (987 with 147K miles on the clock now !) which meant no taking the grandchildren or my dogs anywhere over the festive season.

Engineer at the body shop says water gets in them causing it to pop off, but that Porsche supplied a modified part last time which has drainage channels to prevent it reoccurring (obviously didn't work).

Service rep at OPC says she's dealt with several of these and Porsche has never modified the part so who's right ?

After 4 weeks Porsche have offered credit at OPC of £2K including VAT towards the repair and will not review/offer more citing that they paid last time.

They say the service rep has worked hard on reducing cost of parts (surely they’re fixed as have to be via Porsche Germany?). I've yet to find out how this ties into the approved body shop as are a separate company.

The service rep at the OPC is on vacation.

I have raised a case with VOSA as I feel the broken panoramic roof is a major safety issue and the spoiler should be a safety recall and modified to avoid this happening to any owners (current & future)

As an aside, I was originally going through my insurance last time and they wanted to write the car off as roof damaged so I looked into repair costs.

A windscreen company quoted me £2,500 to do the panoramic roof stating it was 0.5 days work.

The spoiler would only require a new outer frame - a complete 2nd hand spoiler was for sale on eBay for ~£600 at the time.

I'll let you know if/as/when things progress."

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Do you have a panoramic roof on your car? Has this happened to you?

If it has, we would like to hear from you.

I’ll keep you updated.

Randall