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Emergency Transmission Run Error Message

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Old 06-15-2021, 11:18 AM
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Jim Ciontea
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Default Emergency Transmission Run Error Message

A couple of months ago I was driving up a local mountain road at 45 MPH behind a large truck and received an Emergency Transmission Run error message on the dash accompanied by a yellow light. 2011 Porsche 911 Cabriolet with PDK transmission. Approximately 70,000 miles.

The car kept running but shifting occurred much more slowly than normal.

I pulled over as soon as possible (about a half mile) and parked in the shade to troubleshoot.

A quick search of various forums on the Internet (including this one) included comments such as a faulty transmission temperature sensor and bad coils.

I called my dealership but they suggested that as the problem had not recurred it could have been simply a random sensor error so I kept driving the car.

About 6 weeks later the problem began recurring with regularity (twice in one day) so I immediately made an appointment.

Of course when I took the car in all faults were cleared (a restart tended to do that) but they found ‘evidence’ of a faulty coil.

Having 70k miles on the vehicle the dealership recommended replacing all coils and spark plugs. $1,600+ later the car again runs perfectly.

If I had a proper vehicle lift in my garage I would have been happy to attempt this myself, but it’s tough to do with floor jacks and jack stands.

Hopefully this information will help someone else.

As a side note this is my 2nd 911. I previously had an ‘89 Targa for 15 years. In that time it had virtually ZERO problems.

I’ve had the 997.2 for 5 years (it had 31k miles when I bought it from a dealership). In that time I have had to replace:

1. High pressure fuel pump
2. Driver’s door armrest (opening/closing mechanism was broken)
3. Coils and plugs
4. Plastic ‘weld’ repair to the driver’s door - the poorly made plastic broke when removing it for the arm rest repair
5. Driver’s door electric mirror switch - again the poorly made plastic broke when it was being removed to repair the arm rest
6. PCM system - mine completely died in March, 2021. Zero functionality (stereo, phone, navigation, etc.). Porsche recommended a new unit for approximately $4,000. Instead I took it to Hi-Tech Electronics in Van Nuys, CA who removed the unit, diagnosed it as a fault motherboard, ordered a replacement motherboard and repaired the unit for roughly $1,200. They said a dealership would have to reprogram the PCM for my car which was done by my dealership for just under $400. The unit has been perfect ever since.

Overall I love the 997.2 which, when running, is truly a superior car to my old 911. However I feel that Porsche’s quality control has gone downhill significantly which is quite disappointing. My old 911 was an outstanding car that was very well made.

The new one is an outstanding car that is constantly breaking.

The plastic bits are especially unfortunate as the poorly made parts break easily (apparently) on a car that is otherwise well maintained.

Last edited by Jim Ciontea; 06-15-2021 at 11:20 AM.
Old 06-15-2021, 01:54 PM
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ADias
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Originally Posted by Jim Ciontea
...

I’ve had the 997.2 for 5 years (it had 31k miles when I bought it from a dealership). In that time I have had to replace:

1. High pressure fuel pump
2. Driver’s door armrest (opening/closing mechanism was broken)
3. Coils and plugs
4. Plastic ‘weld’ repair to the driver’s door - the poorly made plastic broke when removing it for the arm rest repair
5. Driver’s door electric mirror switch - again the poorly made plastic broke when it was being removed to repair the arm rest
6. PCM system - mine completely died in March, 2021. Zero functionality (stereo, phone, navigation, etc.). Porsche recommended a new unit for approximately $4,000. Instead I took it to Hi-Tech Electronics in Van Nuys, CA who removed the unit, diagnosed it as a fault motherboard, ordered a replacement motherboard and repaired the unit for roughly $1,200. They said a dealership would have to reprogram the PCM for my car which was done by my dealership for just under $400. The unit has been perfect ever since.

Overall I love the 997.2 which, when running, is truly a superior car to my old 911. However I feel that Porsche’s quality control has gone downhill significantly which is quite disappointing. My old 911 was an outstanding car that was very well made.

The new one is an outstanding car that is constantly breaking.

The plastic bits are especially unfortunate as the poorly made parts break easily (apparently) on a car that is otherwise well maintained.
Plugs and coils are wear items. Other than that what you have seen is mostly due to modern gizmos in modern cars. Plastic bits were present in air-cooled cars and they also did break when removed by untrained craftsmen.
Old 06-15-2021, 02:46 PM
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Bruce In Philly
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2009 C2S 174K miles

First, sometimes things break... they just do.

Regarding the plugs and coils, I have done plugs four times now myself with just jacks and jackstands. Not difficult.. plenty of threads on how to do it. Regarding the coils specifically, I am on my original set.

Regarding the door armrest... bummer.. never heard of that breaking. That must be a real "one off"... I am holding in my hands right now, a door armrest.... I pulled my leather one off and replaced it with a makassar wood one... and I can tell you the plastic components are really beefy.... I have no clue how that broke... but whatever... anything can happen. It was so strong, taking it out was not easy.

Regarding all the breaking door pieces... I took my door panel off many times due to various things and never broke those items.... sounds like the tech was ham-fisted.... or just more one offs.

The PCM unit failure.... these are starting to fail as they age, mine is wonky. But a total failure is again kind of rare. I replaced my hard drive with an SSD to head off a sure failure some day.

Regarding ageing...... what is really starting to bug me is the interior paint.... Where I open the door armrests and the window switches..... I am scraping the paint off and it does not look good. The problem with these paints is that you can't just buy a new part.... I don't know what I will do about it but it is getting to the point where I will want to do something about it.

Overall: You seem to have some bad luck...... happens. This car is one of the best for maintenance I ever owned and the 997.2, in particular, appears to be really sorted out. If you are too concerned you have an "unlucky penny", now is the time to get out of it... prices are soaring!

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Last edited by Bruce In Philly; 06-15-2021 at 03:54 PM.
Old 06-15-2021, 03:00 PM
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etom
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Yes, and even older Porsches had some bad plastics and switches. My old 964 must have had the auto-window switch break three times, and everyone complained about them . . . but relative to cars of the same vintage, it seems (only seems) that the 997 is a bit more fragile than others, or is that because the forum often gets the bad news?
Old 06-15-2021, 04:42 PM
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Wayne Smith
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140K miles on my 2010 C4S PDK. This has been the most reliable car I've owned in 50+ years of driving. I'm still original almost everything. Sorry to hear about your problems. Hopefully you're past the bulk of them.

Modern cars are prone to ground noise induced error messages. If sensor signals get interrupted then controlling computers don't know what to do so they fail toward the safest operation (slow shift and emergency mode). This is as it needs to be. Changing plugs is essential IMHO. But I'm still on my original coils. The first time I changed plugs was on jack stands. It was easy. By the second change I had my lift in place and changing was easier.
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Old 06-16-2021, 05:48 PM
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Originally Posted by Jim Ciontea

Having 70k miles on the vehicle the dealership recommended replacing all coils and spark plugs. $1,600+ later the car again runs perfectly.
Coils are $73 each and plugs are $11 each - total of $504 (ish, pre tax) - so the dealer charged you $1000+ to install them (6+ hrs @ $150/hr)? That job takes 2 hours max (rear lights, bumper cover, bumper beam, muffler heat shields, side mufflers, coil heat shields and coils/plugs). Even if you toss them a bone/hour for "diagnosis" it's still robbery. Damn.
Old 06-16-2021, 06:34 PM
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Jim Ciontea
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Originally Posted by advrider1967
Coils are $73 each and plugs are $11 each - total of $504 (ish, pre tax) - so the dealer charged you $1000+ to install them (6+ hrs @ $150/hr)? That job takes 2 hours max (rear lights, bumper cover, bumper beam, muffler heat shields, side mufflers, coil heat shields and coils/plugs). Even if you toss them a bone/hour for "diagnosis" it's still robbery. Damn.
Assuming I took my time and didn’t have a proper vehicle lift and had to use jack stands it still seems like I was overcharged.

But I went in for an Emergency Transmission Run error message - not a coil error. They needed their PIWIS tester (in theory) to sort it out.

I have the Durametric for my car - have used it a couple of times and the cable they supplied appears to have buggered up the ODBC port in the car - cost me an extra $100 to fix that. So I’m a bit unimpressed - having used ODBC devices for 20 years without ever having a problem until I used the Durametric with my 997.2.

<sigh>

So I paid. And it’s done. I’d prefer a proper vehicle lift such as the Quick Jack. Maybe next time. I definitely feel the service was massively overpriced for the value received. But at least the car runs well and doesn’t toss meaningless error messages that aren’t relevant to the actual problem.....
Old 06-20-2021, 11:06 PM
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You don’t even have to remove the bumper or the side mufflers ( just loosen them ) for coils and plugs out the variable cam solenoid. It can easily be done in less than 2 hours.
Old 06-21-2021, 07:47 AM
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Originally Posted by Jim Ciontea
A couple of months ago I was driving up a local mountain road at 45 MPH behind a large truck and received an Emergency Transmission Run error message on the dash accompanied by a yellow light. 2011 Porsche 911 Cabriolet with PDK transmission. Approximately 70,000 miles.

The car kept running but shifting occurred much more slowly than normal.

I pulled over as soon as possible (about a half mile) and parked in the shade to troubleshoot.

A quick search of various forums on the Internet (including this one) included comments such as a faulty transmission temperature sensor and bad coils.

I called my dealership but they suggested that as the problem had not recurred it could have been simply a random sensor error so I kept driving the car.

About 6 weeks later the problem began recurring with regularity (twice in one day) so I immediately made an appointment.

Of course when I took the car in all faults were cleared (a restart tended to do that) but they found ‘evidence’ of a faulty coil.

Having 70k miles on the vehicle the dealership recommended replacing all coils and spark plugs. $1,600+ later the car again runs perfectly.

If I had a proper vehicle lift in my garage I would have been happy to attempt this myself, but it’s tough to do with floor jacks and jack stands.

Hopefully this information will help someone else.

As a side note this is my 2nd 911. I previously had an ‘89 Targa for 15 years. In that time it had virtually ZERO problems.

I’ve had the 997.2 for 5 years (it had 31k miles when I bought it from a dealership). In that time I have had to replace:

1. High pressure fuel pump
2. Driver’s door armrest (opening/closing mechanism was broken)
3. Coils and plugs
4. Plastic ‘weld’ repair to the driver’s door - the poorly made plastic broke when removing it for the arm rest repair
5. Driver’s door electric mirror switch - again the poorly made plastic broke when it was being removed to repair the arm rest
6. PCM system - mine completely died in March, 2021. Zero functionality (stereo, phone, navigation, etc.). Porsche recommended a new unit for approximately $4,000. Instead I took it to Hi-Tech Electronics in Van Nuys, CA who removed the unit, diagnosed it as a fault motherboard, ordered a replacement motherboard and repaired the unit for roughly $1,200. They said a dealership would have to reprogram the PCM for my car which was done by my dealership for just under $400. The unit has been perfect ever since.

Overall I love the 997.2 which, when running, is truly a superior car to my old 911. However I feel that Porsche’s quality control has gone downhill significantly which is quite disappointing. My old 911 was an outstanding car that was very well made.

The new one is an outstanding car that is constantly breaking.

The plastic bits are especially unfortunate as the poorly made parts break easily (apparently) on a car that is otherwise well maintained.
This is very very helpful and thanks for sharing!
The coils and plugs in our vehicles are of direct significance to the various systems including PDK.
Few know how to make the connection but this is one of the reasons I replace coils and lighters every 40,000 km / 2 years (similar to GT3 maintenance intervals)... Which is in my opinion more important than replacing PDK oil.
Cheers
Old 06-21-2021, 01:13 PM
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Originally Posted by GTSpure
This is very very helpful and thanks for sharing!
The coils and plugs in our vehicles are of direct significance to the various systems including PDK.
Few know how to make the connection but this is one of the reasons I replace coils and lighters every 40,000 km / 2 years (similar to GT3 maintenance intervals)... Which is in my opinion more important than replacing PDK oil.
Cheers
Last summer I replaced my spark plugs (first time they had been replaced) - based purely on time rather than miles. My car is an '09 and had 27k miles on it at the time. Here's what the plugs looked like after only 27k miles of use:




Going forward - I'll be replacing them every 15k miles / 3 years.

Old 06-21-2021, 02:03 PM
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Originally Posted by Ironman88
Last summer I replaced my spark plugs (first time they had been replaced) - based purely on time rather than miles. My car is an '09 and had 27k miles on it at the time. Here's what the plugs looked like after only 27k miles of use:




Going forward - I'll be replacing them every 15k miles / 3 years.
I'm with you. I meant 40 kilometers not email (;



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