Mine was parked in my garage for a few weeks, then driven about 25 minutes, then parked for about 45 min to an hour, then wouldn't restart.

 

This is a very critical datapoint. The idea that you hit any alleged timer in that span of time is improbable at best.

Occam's razor, people.

We have 5 VTS related failures. Some to all of them have been confirmed as the module itself failing.

People park underground. People store their vehicles in places that don't get cell service. People unplug their cars for months at a time over the winter. So far, none of these people have had VTS issues. The idea that the 3G sunset is bricking cars is, at this point, flagrantly ignoring the data provided so far. If I'm not mistaken, the VTS system leverages the Vodafone network, which is run on the T-Mobile network in the USA. T-Mobile plans the 3G sunset to be on July 1, 2022. They have already started removing 3G services from what I can tell.

Could be the alternator pushing hard against a dying battery, pushing too-high voltage in the electrical system for a moment and frying something in the VTS module.
Could be wires chafing, shorting out or disconnecting the module.
Could be rodents from storage jostling or chewing the one wire that matters.

There are many explanations that are far, far more likely than "VAG is actively tryin' to **** us."

 

Just picked up my 2017 991.2 three week ago and it is my daily driver. Luckily it is a CPO car but I would definitely be pissed if this happens to my car and Porsche didn't provide me with a loaner vehicle due to extended lead time to source the VTS.

 

The T-Mobile 3g network goes completely dark in July, will there be more incidents of the VTS malfunctioning then?

Guess we'll find out.

Again, the 3g sunset was common knowledge for years, though it was postponed multiple times, a bit of common sense by Porsche could have avoided the issue.

 

So much for thinking I had one of the most reliable Sports cars. My concern is the wife will be at the "other" house without me for 2 weeks and the 991 is the only car there. Im not one to buy into the hysteria but the thought of the car suddenly not working and no way to fix it for months was never something I associated with the Porsche brand and the reason I have 2 of them.

 

Yep, July 1st. My bet is that it'll have no impact whatsoever related to this specific issue. If it did, that recall in December would not have been optional, and there wouldn't be such a shortage on the VTS module.

 

I agree and I never thought VW/Porsche would be rigging the computers to give out false emissions data in Dieselgate. Depending on how widespread this VTS thing becomes, this can turn into another real embarrassment. They need to make things right, and in a hurry - none of this BS 10 week waiting for a part.

 

I don't think anyone suggested that. However it was poor forethought on their part. It may also be an issue that was driven by financial considerations. Maybe they owned a considerable amount of these modules. When they ran the numbers they may have seen it was cheaper to just move them into vehicles and see what happens. Why would they place them in .2 vehicles knowing full well 3G was going to sunset? It wasn't a secret or unexpected. And I don't for one second doubt this isn't related to the Car Connect recall in some way.

This reminds me of the IMS issue. They knew, yet still placed them in cars. Some failed and some did not. In the end, they redesigned the bearing when releasing a new gen and installed them in the failed bearings. The VW Groups wasn't part of the former, but they are very capable of these sorts of things. Not very honest when considering the fuel economy debacle.

There may be a business opportunity for some entity to do something about this. The cars get bricked because of this module. How that happens and what does it talk to to do that? IDK. But I'm sure the cars can run without them but some programming is necessary. Are Cup Cars fitted with these modules?

 

agree with asellus, nothing we know suggests 3G related.

(i think my fear about a failing NiMH battery (similar to the Cayenne alarm issue) is more likely at this point.)

 

I suspect that these are 5 cases of cars having a part that dies.

I think it is more likely that his is a part that has a finite lifespan rather than a conspiracy related to the 3G phase out.

That being said, the denominator is large and the numerator is very small (so far) with 5 cases on this forum.

Will have to watch and see what happens over the next few years.

 

Maybe not here in this thread or even on this site, but here are more than 5 cases reported around the net on other forums and for other Porsche models as well. Interestingly, I found a thread on another site regarding this VTS issue and it's from 2019. Something is obviously amiss. Whether it's Vodafone or Porsche responsible for this, there should be some kind of explanation to quell "conspiracy". Silence doesn't lend confidence nor favor the producers of these vehicles. Manufacturers got away with silence before the Net and forums for discussing their product. Now? Not so much. Even those that have not expressed concern, must have a question in the back of their mind whether or not they be stuck out somewhere because their car got bricked.

 

I believe that there will be more than 5 cases.

However I believe that this is just a part failing rather than a conspiracy.

We will find out more over the coming years.

As others have mentioned this is a part that has been used for a decade, so the cases probably will increase in number. And if a real issue with the component than the number of cases will increase.

At least we have a thread were we can try and get a better understanding.

 

Well this has escalated!
On the downside it seems I will be wrong about the wiring as with more failures coming in it'll probably end up being faulty module design or manufacturing batch...

On the plus side I did ask a contact that works on Porsche and he said it is posible to code it out, he said one of his regulars had it done but not by him.

On a different note the reason the car does not work if this module does not communicate is reasonable as it is an anti theft device, if thieves can just cut the power to it to disable then it becomes very ineffective.

 

Explanation? It's standard part failure. Done, solved. Porsche is under no obligation to personally assure you that whatever idea you've come up with is incorrect. Their lack of doing this does not confirm your theory, either.

Equipment failure is bog standard stuff. It happens literally all the time. Porsche, or any other company for that matter, is not required nor expected to run to the press and issue mass recalls for standard equipment failure until it starts existing at a rate that is an order of magnitude above some standard margin of error. For example, if 12 people posted about their front tires losing air slowly on their brand new 992s, no one would expect Porsche to make some press release about it or recall. If eight people had their wipers installed backwards? Brush that off as something set up the robot wrong, or they were "friday" cars. You don't see anyone up in arms about the seat heaters/ventilation blowing fuses or the blower resistor pack failing either.

The only reason people are getting pants-on-head stupid over this is because of the 3G sunset and "oh man porsche should have thought of that a decade ago shame on them!" which, again, currently has exactly zero data showing any link whatsoever to these failures.

Let me say this again because I feel that it's being missed repeatedly:

There is currently no data that correlates the pending 3G sunset and these VTS failures. Any suggestion otherwise is a tenuous-at-best extrapolation of unrelated data to fit someone's narrative. Further, and it pains me that I feel that this needs to be written out as if people don't understand it already, the whole concept of "I thought of a possible explanation" is not data, that's called a baseless theory.

 

There is a document from Porsche that says, albeit unclearly, that every car they've made since 2010 has an engineered single point of failure that depends on a third-party network to continue operating normally. The device in question has one purpose: to make the car stop working under certain conditions which, it appears, are not under the control of either Porsche or the cars' owners.

If Porsche doesn't want baseless rumormongering, wild speculation, and widespread assumptions of bad faith, they could put a stop to it immediately by issuing a single TSB. Failing that, the only remaining conclusion is that they are enjoying the publicity.