b1st

I got air suspension on my Cayenne S for mainly comfort. The freeways in LA are a disaster and I love how the air suspension rides over those nasty expansion joints. It seems the air suspension will go to the low setting when I drive over 80mph for like 30 seconds or something. I usually like to cruise at 85mph because that's generally the traffic speed on the left lane around here. I'm pretty sensitive to the ride quality and I notice difference when the car is lowered - I feel those expansion joints more. Is there a way to either disable the automatic lowering of the car (I can lower myself if I'm gonna go really fast) or at least change it so that I can set it to like 87mph or something? Didn't see anything on the manual.

Schnave

The owner’s manual on page 203 describes two situations when the chassis lowers automatically due to speed. Terrain chassis height is adopted automatically when off-road mode is set to “Rocks”. It is deselected (presumably lowered to Normal height) at higher speeds (exact speed undefined). High chassis level is automatically selected in off-road mode "Sand", "Mud" and "Gravel" and is deselected automatically at a speed of 75 mph.
As far as low setting goes, low level is adopted automatically in "Sport Plus" chassis mode. No reference to automatic speed change is documented.
Next time it seems like this happens, check if the chassis is actually in the low mode. An easy way to check is to look at the instrument cluster above gauge #5 for the vehicle icon with a down arrow. If in normal height there will be no icon at all. Additionally, in high mode the icon will show an up arrow and terrain mode will show two up arrows.
Let us know how it goes - you might have discovered another undocumented feature!


Chassis height LOW. Note: In NORMAL height, no icon is displayed.

Chassis height HIGH.

Chassis height TERRIAN.

b1st

Yep, the chassis definitely goes to the low mode when I'm driving at over 80mph for more than say 30 seconds or so - It doesn't matter which mode I'm in. Then if I drive under 80mph for a minute or so it will go back to the normal height. I can definitely confirm both by that icon and also how the car feels. Sometimes I can actually feel the air suspension increasing height (decreasing is harder to feel because I'd be driving pretty fast) And certainly when I'm put the car in Sports+ it will also go to the low setting no matter the speed. It just bothers me because 1) I drive between 70 and 85mph during my daily commute so the chassis changes like a dozen times every day I drive it 2) I don't find the low chassis setting as comfortable as the normal height. Definitely in the category of 1st world problem but it does annoy me a bit. If this feature isn't documented then there's probably no way to change this setting. Perhaps it can be coded out?

kayjh

It must be a safety and fuel economy thing.

b1st

Yeah, no doubt. I just find it annoying that I can't change/disable it.

Schnave

I’m wondering if manually selecting NORMAL height after the automatic lowering would restore the ride height. Not sure if messing with the PCM while driving 85 mph is a good idea, though! 😃

dasams

I was cruising on the freeway and noticed the low height so I tried to manually raise it. Nope. Does not work. At speed, you cannot adjust the ride height. If anyone has differing experience, please post.

Schnave

I found a reference in an early press kit to the automatic lowering at speed that Porsche calls the DEEP setting:

“In addition to the normal level, five further vehicle levels are available. With the exception of the loading level, these are set automatically depending on the driving situation and the selected driving mode. Regardless of the automatic setting, the driver can manually set the desired level via the PCM at any time, with the exception of the “Deep” setting, which is exclusively controlled by the system at speeds above 210 km/h (130 mph). This setting improves stability and reduces air resistance at high speeds.”
https://presskit.porsche.de/workshop...e-cayenne.html

Perhaps later software updates lowered the threshold speed for DEEP setting to 80 mph. If so, and to the OP’S point, this is software based and therefore configurable by those much smarter than me.

b1st

This has been my experience as well with a small caveat: When driving under 80mph you can force it to go to the normal height sooner than it will on it's own by toggling to a driving mode that with normal height. Generally it seems you have to drive at a lower speed for like minute for the car to get back up to the normal height.

Scenario 1:
Seconds 0-30: 85 mph
Around Second 30 your car will now go to the lower height
Seconds 31-90: 75mph
Around Second 90 your car will go back up to the normal height

Scenario 2:
Seconds 0-30: 85 mph
Around Second 30 your car will now go to the lower height
Seconds 31-90: 75mph
Second 32: You toggle to sport mode and then back to normal mode
At Second 32 your car will go back to the normal height without having to wait like a minute or whatever

Thankfully I have sport chrono so toggling between driving modes while cruising at ~80mph is trivial. I have individual mapped with normal height as well so I've been toggling between individual and normal whenever I want to get back to normal height when going under 80mph.

b1st

Nice find. I had read about it somewhere else too, perhaps on another rennlist post. But the way it was explained is that lowering at 130mph is beyond the "regular" lower mode. It's like somewhere between lower height and loading height. But I haven't driven at 130mph yet so not sure yet.

Either way you're right that it's absolutely a software setting. I was hoping that since Porsche lets you configure so many things this could be one of those. (But we can't even toggle between favorite stations so...) I hope enough people find this feature annoying that perhaps a tuner finds a way to code this out.

dasams

^ Good info. I was cruising around 90 mph in Normal mode when I could not get the car to raise to Normal height. Now it all makes sense.

Greyphantom

I find this annoying too.
I was wondering what if you had put the car on “jack lift mode” ? Im not sure if its safe to drive around with “jack mode” engaged, which is expected to disable automatic height adjustment of the air suspension

Woofman

Per my 2022 owners manual, "The leveling system switches on automatically at speeds above approx. 4 mph (7 km/h)."

PorscheACC

Yes, that's normal, at least on the 2019 Cayenne S with air suspension.

If you set the Chassis Height to Terrain mode, it will automatically go to High mode after around 18 mph, then it will go to normal mode around 49 mph, then to Low mode after around 80 mph.

I found that in my model/year, if you set the "Individual" mode to "Sport" and "Low" when you are driving past 80 mph, the Individual mode will remember tjose settings, if you set the Individual mode below 80, the Individual mode will not remember both settings together.

s85b50

I feel I get 0.5~1 more mpg driving on the highway with pre-selected low suspension. Believe or not, aerodynamic matters when you are cruising at above 80mph.