I had a brief love affair with a 2017 Porsche Cayenne S

It was a quick fling. Nothing else. Honest!

While my trusty (and I say that loosely) old 2008 Cayenne Truck was for a freebie recall (new airbags and a revised engine management software upgrade) at Gaudin Porsche of Las Vegas — I had a little fling!

They kindly gave me a loaner while my car was being prodded and poked. A white 2017, nearly new, Cayenne S.

Lots of things that I really liked about this car but also a handful of things that irritated me. Notably the climate and fuel consumption friendly “turn off at idle”. Damn that’s annoying. The constant stopping starting drove me crazy.

Apart from that… very nice… have a few minute of driving around and lots of artless mumbling and waffling here:

#loveaffairover

Wet Porsche Cayenne Floor Mats?

Wet carpet on drivers side?

The story so far – I had a drip-drip-drip onto my drivers side carpet. I didnt think too much about it. Until the car died with a massive electrical brain fart which turned out to be caused by the gradual buildup of moisture under the carpet. This moisture eventually corroded some wires hiding down there and caused an electrical nightmare.

This is my first try at fixing it – which didnt solve the dripping carpet problem but did find and unblock some other water drain holes. Definitely something I would recommend to any Cayenne owner – it’s easy and just took a few minutes to do:

After a bit of trial and error — I finally solved the wet floor mat problem. Mine was caused by a blocked AC OVERFLOW VALVE but my first attempt at finding it (this video) was cleaning the other drainage holes. It’s a quick easy fix so check it out here https://www.motolimey.com/solving-the-wet-cayenne-carpet-conundrum/

Need to do 2 things (1) clear the rubber draining holes and (2) clear the air-conditioning evap tube (next video)

or in the words of the Donald… “drain that swamp”

WET FEET with a Porsche Cayenne

I’ve had this little drip-drip-drip on the front floor of the Cayenne for about a year.

It only seemed to happen after hot weather and lots of aircon use.

It never seemed to be a problem.

Just goes to show how wrong I am at times.

hashtag epicly wrong.

Long Story Short

The occasional drip drip (onto the drivers foot and also sometimes passengers foot) slowly soaks into floor mats. Overtime this is trapped under the floor mats in the hugely spongy underlay.

This leads to water damage and corrosion of some electrical wires under there. These corroded wires will eventually (incorrectly) send bad signals to the engine computer which then lights up the dashboard like a Christmas tree and scares you half to death: warnings of Brake Proportioning, ABS Failure, Key not recognized and some others.

But don’t panic – help is easy for anyone with some basic tools and the urge to fix it themselves (rather than the $1800 I was quoted by Porsche)

Solution

• Pull up drivers carpet and dry out the damp – clean and reconnect the wiring (which is really easy) and boom Chrimbo Lights should be fixed
• Now clear out the drain ports under the Cayenne (or Tourag) – another easy job that just needs a couple of screws being undone
• Now clear out the AC Drain hose in the cabin. This little rubber hose blocks itself and is the main culprit for the wet carpets – another easy job which only takes a few minutes.

It took me a lot of trial and error to find these culprits but it’s done and I managed to video each part. I will edit a video together showing how to do it. It’s really very simple. This definitely seems to be a design flaw from the Porsche Peeps and hopefully my solution will help some other folks out…

UPDATE – I found the DRIP DRIP DRIP and fixed it.

How to Fix the Porsche Cayenne Drive Shaft Clamp Bearing Support Mount

Is there a midget with a hammer hiding inside your Porsche Cayenne (or VW Tourag) gearbox? Does light acceleration make your car twitter like a flock of angry birds? Chances are it’s the Porsche Cayenne Drive Shaft support failing – This part is basically a rubber support that is in the middle of the driveshaft. This is a well known piece that wears out on Porsche Cayenne (and VW Tourags) at around 100k miles. On mine it suddenly wore out quite spectacularly, while pulling away reasonably hard into traffic there was a loud *BANG* and then *KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK* which sounded like it was coming from inside the gear box housing, or where the gear change lever is.

I was quoted $2000+ to fix this from a local Porsche Dealer so decided to do it myself. I’m a noob mechanic and this is the first mechanical thing I have ever undertaken with this car.

This “Porsche Cayenne Drive Shaft” fix was a simple procedure (even for a mechanically inept buffoon such as myself) and took me about 40 minutes, and that is including reading instructions, trying to records this nonsense and (obviously) spending many minutes trying to squeeze my fat belly under the car….

I don’t work for Vertex nor do I have any interest – but it fixed the problem and was easy for a fat fingered mechanically inept gray haired old fart like me to install!

You can buy the part from VERTEX and will need to buy some ramps (about $40) and an angle grinder (also about $40-50) and then a few basic tools (couple of spanners, some wire snips and a razor blade to trim the old rubber off the center support on the drive shaft).

#just-do-it

Changing the battery in a Porsche Cayenne S

Miss Kates battery decided to was time to go sleep. #thebigsleep It had fizzled and farted for a couple of months and because she had let it run completely flat a few times, it finally gave up the ghost. So it wont start but has just enough juice to operate the internal electrics and to get it jump started and driven to my place…

The battery in a Porsche Cayenne is cunningly hidden away under the drivers seat – in the traditional place in the front engine compartment there is a + and = terminal that can be used to jump start the vehicle.

I had never changed a Cayenne battery before but decided to video the process after reading the steps on a Forum. It was easy, a little fiddly and took around 15-20 minutes. Now I’ve done it once it would take half that when/if I do it again.

How to replace porsche cayenne battery

Tools: M10 multispline 3/8 socket & ratchet 10mm 3/8 socket 10mm spanner Most Porsche Cayenne 955 (Gen 1) models have a single large battery under the left front seat: that is the passenger seat on a right-hand drive car. The seat base lifts up on a pair of rear-mounted hinges to allow access to the battery box. The multispline M10 bolts which hold the front of the seat frame down are under the two plastic covers in front of the seat: these just clip off to reveal the bolt heads. Undo the bolts and tilt the seat up: hold it up out of the way with a strap to the grab handle if you’re worried. Now you can see the battery cover, which has four clips, one in each corner: undo those and lift the cover off. Your 10mm spanner will undo the terminals (remove earth first), and the 10mm socket will undo the front corner bracket, and the big side clamp holding the battery in place. If you’re worried about losing your radio settings etc, connect a battery charger to the terminals before you unhook them. Once the two clamps are off and the terminals have been detached and secured out of the way, disconnect the small battery vent hose and get the old battery out of there. It is worth cleaning any dirt and dust out of the battery tray before sliding the new battery in.

Ferdinand Magazine