PowerFlower

Have had a lot of fun with my ride height level sensors. For something this important to the air suspension and PDCC, and potentially leaving you stranded when it breaks... they're so flimsy.

Especially, the silicone "washers" for the ball bearings keeping the linkage together. Already replaced it on the front left... got the Touareg part, just to replace the link. Everything else was still fine, so, great, easy fix... but way more expensive than it should have been :/ My Cayenne was driving like a boat because there was a little bit of play in those bushings, so the link would "twist" sideways a little bit, throwing off the readings and making the suspension overcorrect.

Anyway... yesterday, got the chassis failure message again. And then my CTT decided to just drop the rear. I limped it home, had a look, and sure enough. The right rear level sensor link was dangling loose


This is a photo of an aftermarket replacement, but a clear illustration of what I mean: the top right bolt is gone.

While I figure out what a solid long term replacement would be (I've seen the post here using the Lexus/Toyota part; there's also a cheap "repair kit" that looks good), I still need the car. (This is totally off topic, but my dog is in hospital in Valencia, and I need the Cayenne to hopefully pick him up on Monday.)

And I was wondering... does it really need a ball bearing? Couldn't I use some bolts and nuts for now? And if so... what sizes?

Klaird928

Search for ball and socket rod ends. I replaced all of mine with ball and socket rod ends and all thread.

PowerFlower

I guess I don't really understand why it's a ball and socket. My assumption would be that this allows for suspension movement in different angles. The odd thing is, though, that my front left was still attached on both ends; the issue is that it would just "twist" and that would mess with the readings. If I'd put it straight with my hands, it would be ok for another bit (until the next big bump). So I was kind of surprised to realise these are ball joints (I hadn't noticed before), because that to me seemed unwanted behavior.

Now I'm tempted to use that one from the front, in the rear as a temp fix. But I first have to have a look to see if it's the same length. (Ordering replacements that aren't the extortionate €300 Porsche OEM complete sensor annoyingly takes more than a week.)

This is also why I considered simply using bolts, nuts, and washers to reattach it, because I wouldn't want it to be able to "twist" the way the front left did before I replaced it. But I'm now thinking that's just going to snap off at some stage.

PowerFlower

In the end, I ended up ordering a "universal" coupling rod for level sensors from Amazon:



While adjustable, it was still too long, so I ended up cutting it to size, then made sure it was exactly the same length as the original rod. Which seems to work well, and the car now drives normally, goes up and down and adjusts properly.

However, the car apparently isn't all that convinced... I'm still getting the "chassis system faulty" error in the display.



Oddly, my iCarsoft POR v3 doesn't show any faults on the suspension... does anyone have an idea how I can clear this one?

(The car also doesn't want to go into sport mode, which I'm guessing might be the steering angle sensor... but that's an issue for another day. Very annoyed the iCarsoft won't let me calibrate that though, it just gives me an error when I want to start the calibration.)

theprf

The 955 steering angle sensor is self calibrating, just drive a little bit. Very unlike the 996 steering angle sensor.

PowerFlower

Well, it's a 957 (not that this makes much of a difference). But if it's not the steering angle sensor, I have no idea what's causing the car to decline sport mode. (Even though it does actually allow me to set the suspension to sport.)