I have towed a ski boat (Nautique) and Whaler (15 ft) this past week and think the P truck does a fine job. I do not have light probems ( non-LED) with either trailer. Only problem, is when towing the Whaler, one wants to forget the trailer/boat is attached and pass and drive as if it were not there! I have 18K miles and no problems. do you belong to SDYC?

 

wow guys, thanks for all the feedback. Lets see if I can't reply-all on this one:

By the time the dust settles, buying out the lease would probably be cheaper than fighting it No offense to our lawyer friends.

Hmm, sounds like a common thread .. sounds like too many lights causing too big of a voltage drop? Fortunately, the boat goes from storage to the water and back. Fortunately, storage is about 5 miles away from the launch pad.

You are the second person this week that I've encountered that has had less than favorable service from a Jeep dealer. I'm not sure who owns the VeeDub dealer in town, but I'm pretty certain it isn't the same outfit as the group who owns the Porsche dealer (..who also owns the Honda, Merc, Mazda, Infiniti, et al dealers). I am a stickler for service, it's the other half of the deal. To make a long story short, my daily driver is an '03 SAAB 93, the new body style. I managed to blow up my motor at around 40k miles, probably due to the fact that I had slightly modified it from the factory settings. The service manager did everything possible to get GM to cover the replacement, which much to my surprise, they did. Oil change or new motor, service better be with a f***ing smile, right?

I tried talking the wife into the X5 prior to the ML last year, she didn't want to hear it. Not exactly sure what that was about.

I would tend to agree, however, she's the only woman I know that refers to an ML as a "truck" ... I'll have to check out both suspensions.

No, but the wife is a staff officer for CGAUX San Diego. Considering joining SDYC if we make this move to Coronado...right now the club out of Oceanside is much closer.

Again all thanks for the valuable input!!

 

Not exactly.
The issue is with the 'bulb check diagnostics' that are employed in the Cayenne in an attempt to be able to display to the driver that a bulb filament has blown out; not with a voltage drop affecting bulb luminosity.

The designers of the electronics to do this function needed to assume:
A. normal resistive filament bulbs were to be employed ( not LED lighting, as the forward transfer function of a filament is wildly different than that of a forward biased semiconductor junction(s)
B. a certain nominal load current operating point, corresponding to a fixed number of bulbs.

For example, if you design a circuit that is fused at 15A, then you would guess that for lighting, anything over 10A that you measure (via a short pulse diagnostic) is a short circuit.
In the case of skl, his normal lighting load with 22 running lamps may be 12A (depending on bulb type). The circuit will do an instatenous current measurement and report a problem (too much current), hence "Check Trailer Lights" "!" messages...unplug a few lights (of course you don't know how many to unplug since you don't know the design set point) and the messages are greatly reduced.
In the case of LED lighting, the same number of lights would likely draw less than 2A, so to the circuit, it would look like there are NO bulbs present (open circuits), so you get the "Check Trailer Lights" "!".

(for the curious, I have a pending European patent on a similar in circuit diagnostic principle, so I can sort of reverse engineer what Westfalia (who designed the factory trailer tow control unit IIRC) was trying to accomplish for Porsche and VW.

Of course, since there is NOTHING mentioned ANYWHERE in the Porsche factory manuals, service manuals, etc...then there is no guidelines on exactly what to attach to the 7 pin trailer connector.
You paid for the factory tow package and the factory doesn't tell you anything other than tow/tongue weights, but they do supply the industry standard 7pin connector.

If you attach a trailer and you don't get any warnings, congratulations.
If you purchase a dedicated enclosed car hauler for $20K (like some members of this forum) and you get "Check Trailer Lights "!" when in fact there is nothing wrong wtih your trailer lights, then it's too bad.

In the latter case, PAG/PCNA will claim to have no liability, based on the fact that they didn't provide any information on what IS allowed to be plugged into the industry standard factory supplied 7pin trailer connector, even when you buy a trailer designed and sold by a certified trailer manufacturer.
So no matter what happens, it's not their fault.

Of course, this issue could be considered an 'Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practice' under most State Laws...check with your State Attorney General if you so desire.