ben in lj

in the first 6 months. Turns out 1 qt/1k mile (6 qt/6k so far) is "normal". Funny thing is though, no one on any of the boards seems to have experienced such high usage as this "normal" amount I am. A lady was in getting her Pcar serviced and asked me what I thought about the Cayenne Turbo and I'm sure my body language and facial expressions telegraphed brutally what I was trying to sugar coat. I sure hope design and build quality is better on the CGT.

PTEC

What exactly was on this laundry list of concerns?

ben in lj

Remotes don't work.

Horrific hesitation.

Memory seats "forget".

Rear glass hatch pops open randomly and sometimes requires up to a 1/2 dozen closes to get it to stay shut (and just for fun it sometimes waits til you drive a block or so after "thinking" you got it to finally stay shut).

Car counted down to 2k miles since new for the 20k mile service.

1 qt/1k miles (normal though).

air suspension failure notice light (cannot duplicate).

rear park assist sometimes works and sometimes requires you to be nearly right on the object (wall, car, etc) to go off.

rockitman

Ben,

There are TSB's for all those items except the oil consumption concern and maybe the air supension warning. I hope they get ironed out for you finally. As a point of reference, I checked my oil today...1500 miles with little if any detectable consumption on the stick...

mudman2

Agree Chris. I would say the comfort control unit has gone (locks/seats) The rear hatch requires the normal initial adjustment. The remotes will be replaced/reprogrammed. The Air Susp seems to be a normal settling error, mine never returned after it happened at 3k.

My biggest concern is the oil consumption. It seem at least twice the worst I have heard of, something is wrong.

Park assist requires the sensors to be kept clean.

The latest SW should take care of the hesitation, perhaps with the 05 trans module.

Should be OK Ben.

Renn 951

While one quart per 1K miles may not be "average" it also doesn't seem to be considered "abnormal" based on tech issues I've seen discussed in Panorama and Excellence over the last few years. Some cars just use more oil than others; it may or may not have something to do with how the car was driven during the break-in period. One quart/1K miles seems to be considered acceptable (if not typical) by Porsche whether it's a Boxster, Carrera or Cayenne. In the grand scheme of things, adding a $5 quart of Mobil 1 every 1K miles is pretty insignificant compared to the cost of gasoline over the same number of miles.

I guess I'm lucky with my Cayenne S, I've only added about 1/2 quart in 7K miles. But when I run my 951 on the track, it's not unusual to add one quart per day!

38D

Having owned a Boxster S and my C-S, I think that 1 qt every 1k miles is absurd (assuming normal driving...i.e. no track or autox). If you're losing oil, it's going somewhere: either leaking out or burning up...neither sounds good to me. Heck, I owned 3 914s that never approached that much oil usage...and they were 30+ years old!

Torags

I Qt per 1K is unacceptable to me for a daily driver. For a manufacturer to claim this is normal in a broadly sold car in 2004 is a shame.

Frankly, they're full of crap and just trying to preclude responsibility for a manufacturing defect. The spectrum of oil usage is too broad to have a definition of normal at qt/1K. What would one have to do, carry a case of super syn since US syn(dino) may not be compatble

Jeeze in the "broad scheme of things" I feel inconvenienced when I get 11.5 mpg and have to stop to fill up more frequently.

Vino

1qt. every 1000 miles apparently is considered normal on the Cayenne Turbo.

But, If this continues over 10K you should ask Porsche to look over this for you.

Have you driven the car hard or just puching it around?

Here is the funny thing, we were pretty easy on Break-in until about 3000 miles where I added about 2.5 qt.s of oil. I don't know if Porsche put less oil in or not but I added some. We drove the car a little more agressive, opened her up a bit and so far she has been much smoother. We have been real kind until the 200' oil temp mark reaches in the morning.

After owning the car 1 year and "cough cough" 4700 miles now, we got the oil changed. From 3000 to 4700 we didn't add a qt.

Be patient, I know it sucks but I have seen it happen on all cars, usually after 15K or 20K the oil usage should be minimal to nothing, those aluminum blocks are amazing!

Anyway, I took our into service as well for the 3 foot key range, lag issue and allignment as the air suspension settle and gave wear on the outside tires but nothing major.

My main concern is the lag issue service w516, I have to get more time with the car to see if this fixed the issue or not, gave similar symptoms when I was driving back home?

Stick with it, at the end you won't regret it.

ben in lj

I agree. Can you imagine spending $100k on an SUV and having to carry around a buttload of oil around with you (it's not exactly the kind and grade stocked everywhere)? The claim that 1+ qts/month for a daily driver is "normal" for a car of this supposed calibre is absolutely absurd.

The car is 95%+ driven by my wife who drives it like a grandmother.

ben in lj

"Anyway, I took our into service as well for the 3 foot key range, lag issue and allignment as the air suspension settle and gave wear on the outside tires but nothing major."

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell them about the rear tires being at the wear bars after a mere 6k miles! They aren't wearing evenly either and I complained about the alignment immediately after buying it. They aligned it and it stopped pulling in the front, but I wonder if they worked on the rear?

Renn 951

Well, I just did a quick search on the PCA website tech forum, and found some comments relating to oil consumption for a 2001 996:

Oil consumption specs for 996

The response to the question was that Porsche's specs say no more than 1 qt. per 1K kilometers, which is only 600 miles.

ben in lj

Yeah, in 4 years and 16k miles on my 2001 996, I don't think I've ever had to add oil in between annual changes - and it wasn't driven by my wife!

Renn 951

Ben:

That's the point I was originally trying to make, that the oil consumption you are seeing on the Cayenne is not typical by any means, and not typical on other Porsche's either, but Porsche does consider 1 qt/1K miles to be "OK". Nobody experiencing that rate likes it, but it will probably be hard to get the dealer to do anything about it. Hopefully your experience will turn out like Vino's and the consumption will drop as the car gets older.

For your other problems it does certainly seem that the dealer should have been able to take care of them better/faster than what you have experienced. Do you have any options for going to a different dealer, where they might have a more competent service dept? I do hope you can get those issues addressed so you can start enjoying your CT and wish you all the best for prompt resolution.

ben in lj

I'm thrilled with this dealer - both sales and service. I can't say enough good things about both sides of their biz with the exception of not providing Cayenne loaners (like the other dealer in town - where I won't take my cars for service) instead of Hondas. We ditched the (10 mth old) M3 coupe for the CT because we recently had a child and wanted the ride height and weight for safety. The low, light economy car loaners are my only bone of contention with them.