ManoTexas

Love this thread. Embodies almost almost every American trait. Take on the big corps. Piracy. Lawsuits. Violence. Legality. Morality. 3 pedal vs PDK. Only thing missing are posts about a gun, drugs, and alcohol!

Twilightblue28A

You forgot Harvey Weinstein. His trial began today in NYC. And Mr Weinstein retained an excellent lawyer, Attorney Donna Rotunno. Thankfully, I don't work for the government.....

PV997

Lol, good points, I agree except the first and third ones. After twenty five years of shifting 911's I went with the PDK because my knees aren't what they once were and I got really tired of constantly clutching in LA traffic. I only did so after spending a few months researching it and convinced myself I had reverse engineered it well enough that I had a reasonable chance of fixing it myself and wouldn't be dependent on a dealer to tell me I was SOL. That research is what led to my sticky post.

As to using a Durametric, I know it can read the PDK error codes. Can it read the individual solenoid and sensor values? I've got the clone software running in simulation mode (have not got the hardware yet) and it gives me some very nice options such as this real time value readout. Those "distance position" measurements are the locations of the shift forks. Can you tell me if your Durametric does something similar? Their website regarding the PDK says it can read or clear codes but cannot read actual values, perform activations, or perfrom commands. I don't have a Durametric so I can't confirm this myself.





One thing I know the Durametric cannot do is perform the required fill procedure and transmission calibration needed after replacing parts. So for these you will have to go to a dealer (or an indy with a PIWIS or more likely a clone). The dealer would probably do it but there is no guarantee they will, particularly if a lot of people start showing up after fixing their own PDK. So we are again dependent on the whims of Porsche and what they tell their dealers to do. At the risk of starting another moral debate, I think this is really something worth considering. There are required procedures to get a repaired PDK back on the road that can only (currently) be done with a PIWIS.

At least running in simulation mode the clone does support these procedures as shown here. We'll see what happens when I actually get hooked with the hardware.

ThunderRolls

I should have said too (before I let myself get sidetracked) that I have had 3 PDK's with no issues, and wouldn't hesitate to buy another especially under warranty. Some enterprising 3rd party may start picking these up at some point, repairing them, and investing in the licensed software so I'm glad you are exploring all of the avenues you are. With as much money at stake and as many PDK cars continue to be made, that indy may read this thread and start doing it for the rest of us at something less than Mr. Porsche's replacement solution. Myself, I invested in a durametric pro for my needs because anything more involved than resetting a few things, selecting a couple of options or just self-diagnosing is quickly beyond my reach or comfort level. If OP wants to use pirated software to tinker on his own Porsche for his own purposes, and not use it to generate profits from servicing other people's cars, I think that is a mild inroad that Porsche doesn't really care about even if it violated the letter of the law. 99.99% of Porsche owners will never even contemplate it.

Thanks OP for the knowledge I'm picking up and hopefully your continued efforts will generate a 100% legal and palatable fix down the road for someone! Best to you too NuttyProf, I do understand your point and agree with you on the whole. Durametric Pro is well worth the money even if you only own one Porsche

318touring

Will need the latest PIWIS to code cruise control, and perhaps other functions? I had to pay both the indy and OPC to get my cruise control working due to this issue.

stjoh

As to using a Durametric, I know it can read the PDK error codes. Can it read the individual solenoid and sensor values? I've got the clone software running in simulation mode (have not got the hardware yet) and it gives me some very nice options such as this real time value readout. Those "distance position" measurements are the locations of the shift forks. Can you tell me if your Durametric does something similar? Their website regarding the PDK says it can read or clear codes but cannot read actual values, perform activations, or perfrom commands. I don't have a Durametric so I can't confirm this myself.

Durametric can not read any Actual Values, Activations etc for the PDK, only read and reset fault codes. Something I could really use to troubleshoot an overtemp message on my new to me Spyder.

I've successfully used a PIWIS clone before to do the fill and calibration procedures on my Cayman.

PV997

Thanks for confirming that. What year is your car? Early PDKs had an issue with a faulty crimp on the PDK temp sensor.

PV997

So I went ahead and spent $400 to buy the clone and got it hooked up today. First impressions are that it's solidly built, the box is heavy duty with a brushed aluminum case and high quality cables. After I got through a few configuration issues (my fault not the unit's) it was communicating with my car and working beautifully. I read back the PDK real time sensor data, confirmed the maintenance capabilities (fluid change, calibration), found an old stored fault code, and read the over rev report (70 stage 1 and 6 stage 2, seems typical for a PDK). So far I'm pretty impressed. The ability to read the "actual values" rather than just fault codes should be a huge help in troubleshooting.

There have been a few reports of these units overheating so I may add a small 40mm fan to the box or perhaps a heatsink to the processor. It did not seem to get overly hot when I used it today and hopefully that issue has been resolved. If anyone is considering this the link up in comment #7 is what I followed and it worked great. Two items not documented there are to 1) enable virtualization in the BIOS and 2) add your username to the virtual box user group if using Linux.

stjoh

My car had the temp sensor TSB done just a few miles before the failure. In case you haven't seen it I'm trying to document my troubleshooting here:

https://rennlist.com/forums/987-981-...nd-repair.html

Looking at the temp sensor using PIWIS did not show anything making me suspect the sensor or sensor wiring.

PV997

Great post stjoh, good luck and I hope you got it fixed. I completely agree that the best way to measure the sensors is at the TCU rather than trying to measure the PDK connector itself. I'm working on an update to my PDK post with the pinouts and expected resistances covering that subject.

scadams

That’s great to hear, PV. Are you running it with WinXP on your laptop as native or a VM? I wouldn’t mind getting this and using my own hardware. Any idea how hot it runs? Nothing a few heat sinks and a fan can’t fix I imagine.

PV997

I'm running it as a VM using Oracle's Virtual Box (free download) and have had no issues at all. I didn't want to deal with trying to keep XP running after all these years and the VM is a great alternative as it won't go obsolete. It's a little slow loading taking maybe twenty seconds at first but runs fine after that. My OS is Ubuntu Linux running on an eight year old HP laptop, it should also work fine on Windows from what I've read. The link on comment #7 has the full explanation.

No obvious signs of overheating as the case was just slightly warm to the touch. However the internals may not have a good heat path so I'm going to run it with it open and check the parts with an IR thermometer. If needed I'll add some supplemental cooling. I'll post what I find. The unit I bought is a Samtec clone that is recommended as the better unit over the J2534 version in the posts I've found online.

Phrog Phlyer

PV - Out of the 3 choices on the website which one did you buy, #1- Hardware only $356 or #2 - Hardware $356 plus software $72. You said you are using your own computer so #3 is out.
Further in the description highlights the web site says "4.Requires Online Modules: (F BCM R BCM DME ELV SRS KEY)" - What is that about?

PV997

I bought hardware only (#1). I used the software found at the link in comment #7 which is an image file already set up for use as a VirtualBox VM (which can run on any OS). You can load this software on your computer without the hardware and play around with it in simulation mode before you shell out any money for the hardware. This is what I used for the screen shots above and made me confident the device would do what I needed. I'm pretty sure the software sold with the hardware actually runs on Windows XP which is the wrong way to go IMO due to obsolescence issues.

A real PIWIS phones home to Porsche when it needs to program a device (such as programming a new key). These online modules are the clone version where the PIWIS clone phones home (to China in this case) to get some bootleg version. There are different modules depending on what needs to be programmed, and they charge you for this, I've read $200 per module. This seems really sketchy to me and I would not do it. You can use the PIWIS clone without this to read all real time data, perform troubleshooting activations, maintenance items, etc. without having these modules. It also appears that you can do minor programming modifications (as opposed to reprogramming) without the modules though I have not confirmed this. If you do want these online modules you probably have to buy their software version as I don't think the VM version I discuss above supports this function.

Edit: BTW, the stuff regarding the online modules is what I've pieced together from reading various posts online and exchanging a few unproductive emails with the supplier. It may not be exactly right and if anyone has further info it would be appreciated.

scadams

PV, I played around with it last night in sim mode using the VM you referenced. It takes a little getting used to to figure out where everything is and what it does but other than that it works without issue. It’s a bit slow loading data but being a 32-bit app made for a dated 32-bit OS (forgot how much I don’t miss XP). Throwing hardware at it isn’t gonna make it any faster when it’s limited by the app. The UI feels
weird but that’s probably just because it’s intended for a touch-screen. I’m pretty sure this is the route I’m gonna go though. Thanks for taking the risk and sharing your findings and experience back with us. It’s much appreciated.