mdrobc1213

Well our recent Porsche purchase seems to have cropped up some issues. Purchased a 2011 Panamera v6 CPO car from our local dealer on 5 April for the wife and have had it roughly a shor ttime before the wife noted that the PCM 3.1 kept dropping the XM Sat links in the car. Every few days she would have to call Sirius to have them re-enter/re-send the XM Sat signals the car which would promptly loose them in a few hours to days only to repeat the process again. This occured over the next few weeks and we contacted the dealership who had us bring the car in suspecting a coding issue. Car kept doing the same again and dealer contacted Porsche NA and assume issued Service Bullietin's which had them replace the whole PCM 3.1 unit in mid May as a fix. So we're on PCM 3.1 unit #2 at this point.

All good correct? No. New PCM 3.1 unit (direct from Germany) lasted less than 48hrs in the car before it too failed. Upon leaving the dealership all worked well. Vehicle had all PCM 3.1 functions working (ipod, BT radio, BT streaming Audio, NAV, ipod, Sat Radio, AM/FM, CD). Drove home with a smile on my face. Next AM wife drove to work and called the dealership to report she'd lost all BT capability in the car as well as ipod and SAT radio no longer showed up in the PCM 3.1 at all. Dealership instructed her to shut down the car turn it off let it sit and re-start to "reboot" the system. She did and same thing. I drove the car the next day and now NAV and phone functions are GONE. Missing entirely in the PCM 3.1. Only AM/FM and CD and BT streaming are available. No phone, NAV, Ipod, SAT Radio and you have to reconnect the BT streaming audio each time. All other functions are either NON existent on the screen or when you press the hard PCM buttons ont he bottom of the PCM it says non-available. So the whole unit has failed again. Dealer has the car and cannot get it to accept re-coding other than to get the NAV up but all other functions are kaput and car may or may not lose the NAV coding if driven and parked.

So here we are now in June with a Panamera that has been at the dealership since the 3rd week of May again and was there for earlier in May for the 1st PCM replacement. We're now on PCM #3 or awaiting its arrival BUT dealer service manager and part manager are having a very difficult time getting a new PCM 3.1 unit even with them expediting an order of one from Porsche! They have been great in giving us a loaner for the lastest failure (a 2012 Cayenne v6) so we have transportation while we await a solution. However what are the options here?

So we have a Panamera that we've owned for less than 2 months but has been hard broke for at least 1/2 that time. As this is the same PCM unit I am told that I had in my 09 Cayenne and my 09 Carrera I am at a loss as to what is going on in the Panamera...but it does need to be resolved/fixed! At last conversation with my sales guy and the service manager is seems the following options are:


1) giving the car back AS iS and fixing it later (likely @another dealer dealer (ho may/may not have same problems results with successfully getting the PCM working and properly coded.
2) giving us another Panamera out of stock (new or CPO) that works in FULL (same model/type but different car/VIN)
3) giving us another car car/Cayenne (new or CPO) that works in FULL (ie. different model/type and VIN)
4) Fixing our Panamera successfully so everything works and all are happy! (best option)

Sales guy says that if they had to do option #2 or #3 then they'd have to buy back my car for what I paid for it and sell me a similar/identical car for basically the same deal. It would be a pain paperwork wise and surely isn't their 1st choice but may be the last resort IF they cannot fix the car. Complicating things are the fact that I move out of the area at the end of July (job change/assignment) and will be 2200 miles away with no plans to return to the state. There is a Porsche dealership in Seattle/Tacoma where I'll be stationed but then again the dealer does NOT want to pawn off a problematic car they have the responsibility for to another dealer IF they don't have to and would rather see me off in a working vehicle (I guess Porsche NA would hold them ultimately responsible for the car if it was a lemon?) So they'd much rather fix this now than later.

So question guys is Did I get a lemon in this Panamera? Does lemon laws apply? What are my courses of action other than wait to have them decided/do something? And has anyone had this sort of issue before with their Panamera? Similar Porsches? I know the situation is not common (my 09 C4S has really no PCM issues) and my dealership has been great (this is the 2nd Porsche I've got from them) and since they have always serviced my p-cars since I got here 2 yrs ago we have a good relationship. But I do want my car working! As the wife pointed out at the price of that car (her car); eveyrthing should work as advertisded and since the PCM 3.1 is so intergrated into the car...it has to work to enjoy and drive the car as expected...otherwise she says its just a means for A to B transportation and she could have kept here Audi A4 (which worked great/consistently) for that! Thoughts? Comments? Appreciated!

PS wife really likes the Panamera but is falling quickly in love with the Cayenne (loaner - she had a 2009 Cayenne S before going to the Audi A4) so need to resolve this one way - hopefully with no $$ out my pocket as this failure isn't my fault but Porsche's!

X51

Gosh, it would sure be nice to get it fixed instead of one of the other options. This scenario is pretty bizarre, given the reliability of the unit across the models (including yours).

Can your dealer enlist some help from PCNA and get some heavy duty technical assistance in for the techs at your dealership (not saying your techs aren't top notch, but there's always a benefit in a team approach when it comes to problem solving).

I'm not a lemon law expert, but I would think PCNA should be contacted by your dealer as part of a normal escalation procedure to determine the most viable solution for you and them.

Yet anothercrisis

This is a serious problem. Given your options (and your situation with your move), I would sell it back. I have fought through a minor problem that is not yet fully resolved, but I did not have your options.
Good luck.

gasongasoff

If multiple PCM units have failed in your car, that might make me suspicious that something else (other than the PCM unit) is causing a problem, such as the MOST devices that communicate with it, or perhaps the power supply to the unit. Or maybe your dealership is doing something wrong. You might want to consider the possibility that the dealer won't be able to fix the problem, especially since it sounds like they don't know specifically what's wrong.

Minok

I agree that the problem isn't likely the PCM but some other electrical part in the car the PCM is plugged in to. Having two units fail in similar bizarre ways is highly unlikely, and it may be some other component not part of the PCM swap is causing issues. I would suspect that unless they have a batch of bad PCM units from the supplier, that some other part is broken and needs replacing and the new PCM will display similar failure after its installed.

mdrobc1213

Thanks for the advice. I agree the car needs to be repaired. The only problem with pulling a PCM from another vehicle is that it will not work in another car. Porsche AG in their infinite wisdom with the PCM 2.1 to PCM 3.1 designed the system such that you CANNOT take one unit and place it in another vehicle which it was not originally placed during production. They have to be coded and each unit is coded per the VIN for the vehicle it was produced ONLY and CANNOT be RECODED. Thus you can't take one from say another Panamera and put it in the my car and vice versa. The keys/codes are held by Porsche NA and are NOT released to the dealership by ANY means. So the ONLY way to get a new coded unit is to have one sent by Porsche AG for a warranty repair/replacement. According to Porsche this protects proprietary info and keeps 3rd party/aftermarket folks from messing with their products. BUT to the dealers its just a PITA when they need to fix a car or have a problem.

According to a search on 6speedonline..the failure of PCM's isn't new. My dealer has already had a handful of cars that have had 2-3 PCM's fail in the same car and were replaced. He said with one...the 3rd PCM was the charm and seemed to have taken while one thread I read on 6speedonline said the owner went thru like 6-7 PCMs before getting one that worked! WTF That I do NOT want to go throught!

http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/p...9-lost-xm.html

http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/p...-bit-mess.html

Chris from Cali

After hearing this, I'm seconding a bad power supply to the PCM. I had an electronic boost controller (long ago in my ricer days) that had a bad ground and wouldn't hold boost settings. Once it was grounded properly, all was good. Have them check that out, Rob...