Even though I somewhat promised not to clog the thread with my own experiences, my friend managed to dodge this bullet:
Cylinder failure in a Porsche (source: Tekniikan Maailma 7/2025)
Tapani Koski bought a 2007 Porsche Cayman from Kamux in May 2020. It had been driven less than 90,000 kilometers, and only in summers, which is typical for cars in that class. The car was owned by the car dealership’s salesperson.
“The car was assured to be in perfect condition. There is an email message confirming this. In addition, the salesperson said he was a trained car mechanic and stated that he had taken very good care of the car,” Koski wrote in his complaint.
An inspection at a dealership specializing in Porsche cars had revealed scratches in the coating of two cylinders. The repair would cost well over ten thousand euros, and if left unrepaired, there would be a high risk that pieces of the coating detaching from the cylinder would enter the engine oil circulation and cause a complete engine failure.
The car dealership denied all responsibility, citing the car’s age and normal wear and tear. Koski demanded either the cancellation of the sale, the repair of the defect, or a significant price reduction from the car dealership. Even used, a Porsche is a valuable car; the purchase price had been 31,900 euros.
The dispute was resolved by exchanging the car. Kamux had a Ford Mustang GT of roughly the same age but slightly cheaper, which Koski was allowed to exchange his Porsche for.
“I calculated that it was better for me to take a three-thousand-euro loss at that point than to possibly wait a long time for the Consumer Disputes Board’s decision with a car I couldn’t use.”
My friend was going to buy that car after Tapani Koski from Kamux’s Järvenpää branch. I went to see the car myself and noticed that the oil level was too low in relation to the oil change schedule and the kilometers driven since then. Of course, I investigated the car’s history and noticed that the car had been owned by Kamux, then by a private individual, and had returned to Kamux. This also made alarm bells ring. The salesperson claimed with a straight face that the customer had, after all, wanted a Mustang instead of a Porsche and had therefore quickly brought the car in for an exchange. The story did not sound credible. Before Tapani, the car had been owned by a Kamux salesperson, and abnormal oil consumption must have become apparent during his time.
My friend decided not to buy the Porsche.
Later, the same unit, easily identifiable by its color scheme, was sold to another customer and ended up in the workshop of a repair shop specializing in Porsches in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The car indeed had scratches in the cylinder lining, Kamux knew about it when selling the car, but nevertheless did not tell the buyer and did not participate in the repair costs. The costs were about 1/3 of the car’s purchase price. The customer who bought the car from Kamux ultimately, to my knowledge, sold the car as broken to the repair shop, which was able to refurbish the car cost-effectively using its own parts channels and utilizing quiet periods.
In my opinion, Kamux should have clearly thrown up their hands and repaired the car immediately after it was sold to Tapani Koski. Instead, they started to waffle and squirm, and then sold the broken car again and refused to repair it again. I’m not at all surprised that the KKV (Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority) is investigating their practices.