Fahrfun

Couldn’t find a post on this topic for the recent Cayenne generation so I’m posting this in the hopes of saving owners the frustration in the future.

Just had the first service (10k miles) on my ‘24 Cayenne done yesterday. The in-car oil level display correctly showed the new refill level. But the phone app didn’t budge from its ~25% above min level. Tried different things, including driving the car to get to temperature then let it idle for a moment etc. The fix for me eventually was following the advice from someone on the 911 forum who said to uninstall the My Porsche app from the phone (iPhone 15 in my case) and reinstall it clean then login again.

By the way, anybody else get their Cayenne back from an oil service and the oil is not at max level on the PCM? When I pointed it out to the service rep his reply was that it is normal. Just wondering if he was blowing smoke. When I took delivery last year, it was at max from the factory.

95_993

not sure about the app, I don’t use it.

But, the practice of “short fill” on oil changes has been discussed quite a bit here and appears way more often than it should.

I wonder how the SA would feel about ordering and paying for a pizza, opening the box to find 1 slice missing. Not cool and pretty easy to get it right.

Woofman

I don't remember how many miles I drove before the oil level in the in-dash gauge was updated. 10? 15? (Mine is a 2022 base 3.0 V6.). The oil level in the My Porsche app on my phone didn't show the correct oil level until the next morning. My local Porsche dealership did a short oil fill at 10K and 15K - nearly one quart low. I complained at the 15K service and was told it was normal. I found Porsche's oil change procedure documentation somewhere - maybe on this forum. IIRC, the procedure is to use PIWIS to bring the oil up to a certain level and then to add 9/10ths of a quart. It would seem that Porsche dealership techs are not doing the last step of adding 9/10ths of a quart. I asked the service writer to have their techs follow the entire oil change procedure in the future and was assured that they would. I'll be reminding the service writer about this a few weeks from now at the 20K service.

I bought several quarts of Porsche approved Mobile 1 oil at Advance Auto. I had to special order it in 2022 but now it's carried in stock. I carry a full unopened quart of oil on road trips the longest of which so far has been about 800 miles.

Also, the displayed oil level varies a little with oil temperature.

Does anyone have the official oil change procedure? I don't think I downloaded it.

Fahrfun

@95_993 Love your analogy of the pizza slice. Right on.

@Woofman Thanks for your feedback about the Porsche oil fill procedure. I’ll be better prepared next time.

gatorfast

The "short fill" is not really short by definition. As long as the oil level is above min and below max, it is in the acceptable range. The pizza analogy is not exactly a fair comparison as a pizza being whole is binary - it either is or it isn't. Operating oil level is not binary, it is a range.

Woofman

No, the official Porsche oil change instructions, which Porsche dealership technicians are supposed to be following, are specific that the oil level should be brought to the full mark and provide instruction on exactly how to accomplish that. Plus, I and some others are being charged for more oil than was used for oil changes. Of course, following these instructions takes more time and uses more oil and thus reduces dealer profit.

PorscheACC

Exactly right.. The ofgicial Porsche oil service procedure instructions have a last required stage to use their special more precise tool that specifies how much oil is necessary to fill it to the required fill level.

That some lazy mechanics want to skip the last step gives a bad image to Porsche, even more for those oil burning engines that consume up to 10 quarts of oil in between the 10,000 miles service..

When I was in Germany, Porsche stated oil should be added to the filled mark, as stated in their procedures..

Even worst, is when Porsche dealers charges for enough oil to fully fill it up, but then they only partially fills it.. while fully charging for the entire oil.

Fahrfun

Wow, that’s awful. Never had a car (that wasn’t from Porsche) that was not filled to the max by the service department. I called the service department manager this morning to hear his explanation. The logic was too lengthy to keep my attention span. Disappointing. Of course, I can buy my own extra bottle to top it off, but why should I even have to on a car at a “luxury” price. One of his many reasonings was that the next 10k miles will consume less oil. I said I sure hope so because the first 10k burned up 80% of it and his tech refilled it at about 75% level. He assured me he'd top it off if I fell below minimum before the next service.

gatorfast

I do not have access to the official Porsche technical documents that prescribe the dealer oil change. That said, I believe you that it suggests filling to the max mark (assuming you meant max and not full).

This is not the first time this topic has come up on here and in my years on many different car forums I have never seen people complain of this “issue” other than in this Cayenne forum. Of all the ways a shop can poorly perform maintenance, I certainly would not consider an oil fill level in the approved operating range (albeit not all the way up to the max indicator) to be one of them.

PorscheACC

Here are the last set of instructions/tools that Porsche mechanics should follow/use when using Porsche tools during an oil service in order to correctly fill the oil to the required filled level.

They need to use the special and more accurate "Piwi Tester II" oil level tester tool to get the correct delta amount of oil required to fill the oil level to its proper filled level.

For Porsche and other vehicle brands, having to add up to 10 quarts of oil between oil services is normal/legal enough to not need to repair/change the engine, which is BS and a nightmare for any owner.

retom

And to think that once all this was possible with a piece of wire called an oil dipstick. And who did that bother?

PorscheACC

Still is possible, if they will offer the dipstick, but that will make for a much easier oil change than what it already is.

It takes around 45 minutes for performing an oil service, after you learn how to do it once, and around $70, for me to completely perform my oil service using a cheap vacuum oil pump through the engine oil dipstick hole without the need to remove any of the screws/panels from the bottom. Dealer charges $500+/$600+ for a simple oil service..

There are some great YouTube videos on how to perform the oil service on the 9Y0's.

With what dealers charge for an oil service you can compleyely buy the oil reset device, the oil vacuuming pump device, and the oil filter and still have money left, after that you only need the oil filter and oil. You can even easily change the engine air filter since you have to take it out everytime you have to service the oil filter.

At 101,500 miles, I have done the oil service myself for 50,000 miles already, and since the dealer went from charging me $500+ to $1,000+ when my 50,000 warranty expired and all was visual inspection and simple oil service.

retom

I also service my cars myself. I recently changed the oil in my new TEH after the first 3k km. The problem is that new V8 hybrids don't even have a pipe for the oil dipstick anymore and the oil has to be drained through the oil pan plug. After draining the oil, I measured its volume and poured in the same amount of fresh oil. It was 9.5 liters and now my oil level is at max. as before the change.

ThomasWShea

the dipstick was simple, and foolproof...

victoria b.c. porsche had mine right to the full mark, nice smaller dealership. I will be testing out porsche north seattle mid august. i am thinking of saying nothing and seeing what they do. they talked at our large seattle car show back in Nov. 2023 about how great their mechanics are. they said since they are a new dealer they had to go to a lot of trouble to get what they say are "some of the best guys around" hired. i think we should not have to say in advance that we want the oil filled to the full mark, that is rediculous.

ThomasWShea

so since i got a flat in my passenger rear tire, i had bellevue porsche do my oil change. oil is at the full mark in the app and car. i didn’t tell them anything or state my expectations.