I’ve had this irritating wiring problem with the gearshift on the Cayenne since I bought it. The manual shift on the Tiptronic shifter/gear lever doesn’t work, but the steering wheel buttons are fine. After a few miles driving, the gear display in the gauge cluster will default to ‘D’ and no gear is shown when using manual shift.
You want to see the gears and shift a Cayenne manually, as driving along in D is the least rewarding way to go. Porsche Tiptronic is all about performance with convenience and when it’s working, it does well with the V8 engine. Shifting on the buttons or the stick as you exit a corner or approach an ascent is the way to keep these things cooking: waiting for the ECU to decide to shift down or kicking down and burning needless fuel is hopeless.
I found this thread on Rennlist where two pointers were raised: magnets on the shift cover or water in the footwell. I stripped the entire centre console out and had a look. Turned out my problem was neither: the wiring to the shifter was chewed up, for some reason. I spliced in some new stuff, heatshrunk over it and put it all back together, giving the centre console gubbins a good clean at the same time.
Starting the Cayenne up, the display worked and shift looked good. Manual was now appearing in the cluster and the stick was working well. I call that a win: maybe it will solve some other stuff too.
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Needed a break from writing today, so took a hour off to chase some mechanical niggles and do some DIY maintenance on my 2004 Porsche Cayenne S.
I’ve not been super impressed with the audio quality from the PCM 2.1 system so far. It’s hard to believe Porsche could ship such bad sounds. Radio reception is absolutely tragic, and playback from CD not much to write home about.
As a long-term car hi-fi geek, I’ve got a lot of quality audio components in the garage, so thought I’d strip a door card off and look at what the Cayenne packs into those massive enclosures. Getting the card off was easily done thanks to Renntech – membership there is the best money I’ve spent on this car so far. It seems like every Porsche tech question you could ask is covered on Renntech or the Rennlist Cayenne Forum: I would be stuffed without them.
I found the PDF for the door card removal and off it came. Look at that woofer! Should definitely sound better than it did. I checked all the connections and fixed a dislocated rubber speaker ring that was rattling. Then sat in the truck and played with some audition discs. Turning the loudness off was a big step up. It sounds a lot better now, though I may still do something with the front end and get more bass in the trunk.
As I’m not selling the PCM this week, I left it playing and did a few more bits. I had been warned me about the rear washer pipe which can become disconnected behind the driver’s A-pillar, so I had a look at that. Apparently that can pour water into the ECU – which has already been replaced on this Cayenne.
Taking the A-pillar trim off was easy thanks to Rennlist. Getting it back on was a pig but let’s gloss over that. I found the pipe and also a kink in the line – no doubt a cause of the thing popping off. I used a cable tie to stop the kink, and put it all back together.
Turning on the squirt was an experience, as it streamed down the width of the screen. I got one of the kids to work the switch and it was coming out from around the third brake light. Obviously a pipe was disconnected.
Rennlist told me how to get that light out – you split the spoiler from inside the tailgate. There’s a lot of gear underneath that roof spoiler! I reckon one of my aerials might be U/S so will have that checked out.
Anyway, I got the brake light out and shot some compressed air though the jet, put it all back together and it works, although there is still a bit coming from the light. I’m sure the connecting pipe has gone hard, so will get a new bend to replace it.
Got a few more jobs to do but am on some deadlines for tomorrow. Back to work!
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I’ve been following the US class action lawsuit brought against Porsche Cars North America, for intermediate shaft (IMS) defects in the engine of the Porsche Boxster and 911 (996/997) from the 2001 to 2005 model years. According to Internet wisdom, the defective single-row bearing at the centre of this class action lawsuit has an estimated failure rate of somewhere between 8 and 10 per cent.
After months of online back-and-forth over whether this suit had settled, the lawyers involved have put out a press release announcing that the suit has been settled in favour of the plaintiffs. From the release: “Porsche owners and lessees may be reimbursed up to 100% of their out-of-pocket costs, depending upon the mileage on the vehicle at the time of repair. The reimbursement includes all out-of-pocket engine damage and replacement costs, up to ten years from the vehicle first being placed in service, regardless of whether such damage or loss occurs before or after the notice of this settlement. The Porsche owners and lessees are also entitled up to two hundred dollars in expenses for mileage and towing.”
“This settlement represents a wonderful result on behalf of current and former Porsche owners and lessees who have had to pay out-of-pocket costs related to repairing or replacing an engine which sustained damage as a result of a defective IMS,” said Class Counsel, Stephen Harris. But is it really all that wonderful?
It’s certainly not wonderful if your car falls outside the prescribed chassis numbers but still has an IMS issue. It’s also not wonderful if your Porsche was fitted with the double-row IMS bearing, which has a much lower failure rate (estimated by the Internet to be circa 1%), but your Porsche 911 or Boxster’s residual value was tarred with the bad IMS brush. It’s definitely not wonderful if you bought an IMS-affected lemon and suffered emotional trauma and financial hardship in sorting out the problem.
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Ferdinand Porsche Magazine’s Project 924 Turbo restoration was finally covered in fresh paint yesterday. I might be slightly biased, but the finished product really floats my boat.
You remember I bought the silver 924 Turbo on eBay last year from a Porsche barn up in Norfolk. I had the car delivered to best mate Robert Campbell at Racing Restorations in Pershore, Worcestershire, where Rob’s guys started picking through the mechanical work.
This included some rewiring, an alternator rebuild, steering rack overhaul and other works. I still have some bits to do before it can go to MOT, but the focus recently turned to bodywork when an unexpected slot opened up in the Racing Restorations paint schedule. While vintage sportscar specialist Rob is normally booked up six months in advance, delays on an Alfa Romeo restoration meant the 924 could claim a week and slip in.
Car guys talk lots about paint and how long it takes, but painting takes next to no time: just four hours on the 924. The preparation for paint took a full five days! Thanks to a rust-free chassis and (some) good panels, bare-metalling the 924 and getting it in primer took from Monday to Wednesday. Rob primered it on Wednesday night, and left it to bake for a day.
Flatting the primer took another day, so on Saturday this weekend, we drove it into the paint booth just vacated by a custom-painted McLaren MP12-4C, then spent a couple of hours degreasing the bodywork and wiping it off with tack rags before the painter did his thing.
The 924 Turbo now has four coats of the most expensive two-pack primer I could buy. The body has three coats of paint – Porsche code L97A – and three coats of lacquer. It looks pretty good and won’t need much polishing: a quick mop, pick out a few flecks of dust and that’s it.
I’ll start putting this back together next week – should be some fun getting it done. No doubt I’ll spend much more on new body trim bits than originally intended. Let me know if you’ve got a NOS rear bumper rubber lying around!
Last Saturday was spent in the Ferdinand Cayenne, doing some eBay pickups and drop offs in London and the wilds of Essex before heading to a client to catch up on what’s been happening there. I found this big shed in a field (above).
It was a boiling hot day, with temps on the dash display showing a stunning 42 degrees when I got into my lovingly-nicknamed ‘Big Pig’ to come home. Before that, the delights of Palmers Green and Cockfosters in London on a typical Saturday, with meandering seniors parking anywhere and everywhere, and stopping their cars mid-street to talk to neighbours. Can’t wait for my turn.
Once I’d sorted the PCM sat nav by sticking my Garmin to the front of it, the Cayenne made light work of the morning’s challenges. That boot (trunk) showed its limits when I arrived at a breakers to collect a set of 20-inch wheels I had won. Four wheels that would fit flat in the Subaru had to be stacked in the Pepper: not a great tribute to luggage space.
One weak point of the Cayenne since pickup has been the air con. I had it apart last week for a quick visual check, but the fan was still screaming when run at full tilt and struggling to cool the car down in these temps. I’m happy to knock Porsche a bit for selling shoddy engines in 996s and Boxsters (latest thing now affecting engines is stretched timing chains), but even I know they can make working air con, and much of the system in mine is brand new.
Mike had a think before suggesting pollen filter as a likely culprit. Apparently the filters get greasy, sucking up air from right above the exhaust manifold. Sure enough, when he took it out it was choked with a greasy film of dust. A new one cost all of £8.60 – who said Cayennes were expensive to run?! Problem solved in less than a minute: palatial cabin restored.
Next was a code read on the just-updated Porsche PIWIS system, so all the very latest diagnostic codes. A few things came up, including a camshaft position sensor which is known to be an issue on some of these. First logged many miles ago but ‘not present’ on code read. This means it is popping up but not stuck on all the time. It was pretty cool to watch real-time cam timing coming off the engine: very interesting.
We’ll watch this cam timing sensor and change if it it keeps on. Also had a play with setting rear park sensor proximity live on PIWIS to no avail – I’m going to have to change a few. My gear selector on manual is not working – some issues with dashboard gear display also. It locked in neutral on me once while in London traffic: more nosey poking required.
Ferdinand’s Porsche V8 is holding steady at 20 miles per UK gallon with mainly B-road and school run use. Rises swiftly towards the mid-20s when on the open road and the sometimes maligned six-speed auto is more than enough for UK motorway speeds: even 90-ish is not too loud. That nose might look a bit off when parked, but it does the trick for slipperyness and wind noise at speed on the highways.
A full tank will do about 400 miles if you run it scary dry. I’m filling up at 350 and running ordinary 95RON at the minute with no issues. I’ll try a few tanks of 99 soon and see what that does for it. Still loving the Cayenne, its ample strengths and its interesting foibles.
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Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
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