Sounds like my experience with Durametric!

What type of diagnostics is he using? I have thought it would be PIWIS?

 

And thats what separates the good quality experienced tech from the rest - the ability to look at the entire picture (the problem, what the diagnostics/tests are showing and their gut feeling) and decide how best to get to the root of it

 

That's why I let only 3 guys work on my cars, all of them are (former) race car mechanics... They even know how an engine works ;-)

 

** Update ***

PG has informed the Factory rep to replace the Alternator ,PASM pressure sensor & control module, transfercase module as of 3:30pm today .

I'm flying back home, so who knows what will happen tomorrow

 

Dafuq has PASM pressure sensor to do with engine dying.
If it wasn't for warranty, I'd give it to somebody who knows what pistons, rods and crank actually do.

 

Very methodical approach to troubleshooting. Replace a bunch of stuff and see what happens.

So much for figuring out what is wrong.

I'm sorry you're going through all of this.

 

Wow, so the plan is to throw the parts bin at it again and hope for the best

Is this the factory rep?

 

Honestly, it's threads like this that remind me why I would never work in the automotive industry.

Have any of you ever actually gone through a troubleshooting tree chasing random electrical issues - on anything even remotely complicated? The Porsche manual has very specific "if this, then that" type of troubleshooting tree; it's not just a code checker. But, if you check a harness, it's within specs, but maybe it's out of spec for that one instance when it doesn't start, but goes back to being in spec when you have the multi-meter hooked up - you're only option left is to start making educated guesses. Have any of you actually looked at how many steps Porsche has for finding simple problems? It would take me at least half a day to troubleshoot part of an engine harness between pulling panels, moving stuff out of the way, and then running the tests that Porsche lays out, on top of going to the other referenced tests if a portion fails. It's almost like you guys think Porsche has some genie in the bottle that you just give it a handy and it spurts out the part that needs replacing.

A bad mechanic would have said "everything checks out, it starts and runs fine at the shop, come get your car" and then fed you that line of crap about not being able to replicate the problem because it's sporadic.

With all due respect to you guys, tracking down an issue that is random and electrical related usually ends up with "lets start replacing things" because they've reached the end of the troubleshooting tree, and have no other steps. Nobody can write a repair manual that is truly all encompassing.

If Porsche had to send a rep, then you know they've already had their best in the shop take a stab at it, service manager probably made a few calls to other managers to see if they had any ideas, all before getting corporate involved. And, if the Porsche rep is also struggling to track it down, then it's definitely something that's beyond the manual.

My weekend job is fixing jet engines on F16s. We run into the same issues there, too. Sometimes, you're only option is to start replacing parts and hope for the best. And that's after the GE engineers have taken a stab at it.

 

Just for fun, here is the troubleshooting tree for a simple single-cylinder misfire. First, go through p0301. How long do you think it would take you to go through those steps? Lets assume you get to the end, and it's still misfiring. It then directs you to the tree for p0300, which is the second attachment. Now, go through that step by step. That's not exactly just "read the code and fix the part" kind of stuff they're having you do.

That last step in says "Check whether additional faults have been recorded." "Work through faults in accordance with instruction." If you don't have any other faults, and it's still misfiring, you're basically guessing at that point.

Porsche dealers aren't faultless when it comes to misdiagnosing things. But given what the OP has stated, and the issues he's posted - I am sure as **** glad I'm not the guy trying to sort through all this.

 

wow pants,... sounds like you're madd at all of us, when most are just trying to support the poor guy.
whew
easy there big guy

 

wrinkledpants, I used to buid my own bike engines back in the day, had the engine out of most of my cars due to mods (not talking about doing chiptuning either) and studied car mechanical engineering... Nowadays, I don't have enough time to do the work myself but I'm not afraid getting grease on my hands.
BUT (!!!) replacing PASM control module??? Wtf? I had the engine out multiple times in my p!g and it would crank and start while out of the car without half the stuff connected to it. I replaced a bunch of stuff, including injectors and turbos and the car would start right away w/o any codes.
Faults like the one experienced by OP should be handled by gut rather than manual. Black smoke - too rich and that means either there's not enough air, too much fuel or not enough spark and go only after these three things, not throw parts around it. Dafuq has burmeister do with it?? Not a single thing. This engine will run w/o o2 sensors, w/o MAFs and w/o half of the stuff that's on there (air pumps, boost controll valve etc) . It will run crappy, throw a bunch of codes, but it WILL RUN, regardless of what the manual says. As a mechanic, you know that you can get a GE turbine to run without lots of the safety features on it. It will run hot, crappy, destroy itself in a while, but it will run. The OPs engine is not running and can not be started.
They should be chasing the actual issue and not making sure the car isn't throwing codes.

 

Nope - just correcting a notion that somehow there is an obvious problem waiting to be found that will hold the key to all the issues. It's simply not the case and it gets annoying hearing all the armchair mechanics thinking that they could do better than "throwing parts at the car."

How, exactly, would you suggest finding a problem with a harness that only reveals itself when it's being deflected from a bump in the road, and the one channel that gets impacted only causes a problem during a specific load condition? Meaning, the problem only surfaces when the car is at - say 70% load and you hit a bump in the road that causes the harness to move enough to interrupt the continuity? You're only going to fix that problem by guessing the harness is the culprit, and just taking a chance on replacing it.

 

This what the OP posted:

Compression tests passed
Engine Electrical passed
Interior electrical passed
Bermister power to amps failed
Fuel pumps passed
Lights passed
Brakes , abs , esp , passed
Pasm: failed
T-vectoring failed


Sooooo.... I'm guessing burmeister is being replaced because......it failed to power the amp. PASM failed.........so I'm guessing there is an issue there. T-vectoring failed, too. Doesn't sound to me like they're replacing PASM modules for no apparent reason.

Engine tuning isn't analog. Have you ever looked at an ME7 fueling map? I have the Bosch PDF on ME7 from when I tried to tune my S4. It's over 4,000 pages. There is a whooooooooole lot of different inputs that can make tuning go wrong.

 

I get your point, I know it's not analog (had a rod take a look out of the block once on a scooby and found out the gard way) but it reminds me of the AS fault my SO had on her car. The only thing we could do is chase the actual wires and measure all imaginable loads. But we chased wires concerning the freaking compressor and not wiring to the heated seats! That's what they are doing right now, trying to repair stuff that ain't broken and has no effect on the engine running.
I'd just pull all non-engine related fuses and start my diagnosis there. Why bother with PASM or PTV or burmeister?

 

The OP said the tests to those failed, so I'd guess that they're also fixing that stuff.

I really don't think the Porsche rep is going to just throw darts at random parts of the car without something to drive the suspicion. In my experience, tough issues like this often take more than a single input. You often need to have 2 or 3 things happen simultaneously to replicate the problem. Maybe the car needs to be at speed, at a specific load, and PTV needs to react in a certain way the throws a curve ball to the ECU, which happens to be reading something incorrectly because of a loose ground. It's that type of sequence that is literally impossible to trace.

These are usually the cars that end up in a buy-back or trade in with an incredibly angry customer. It's not anyone's fault, per se. When you have thousands of highly complex mechanic devices on the road, statistically, some of those are going to end up with issues that nobody can resolve without basically replacing ever part on the car. It sucks when it happens, but it happens to cars from every manufacturer. At least Porsche is being up front about it, and really throwing everything they can at it.