Old Guy

Took delivery of our Macan S on April 13th. It now has over 8000 miles on the clock, run up with long drives here in CA and a long drive to VA and back via NC and TX. When it comes to Macans, I humbly suggest that I'm an expert. Fantastic road car; perfect for long trips for 2 people. My advice: 1) the roof rack and load management systems are cheap at the price, and super functional - get them! 2) I had to back-fit the running boards as my salesperson talked me out of them...but obviously I needed them (this is my beach and surf car), and back-fitting them cost me $2500 - almost twice the factory order price!! 3) THE BIG ONE!! We have a 2011 Carrera GTS and its Nav/Sirius XM system gives me the traffic reports I rely on here in SoCal. Ordering the 2017 Macan S with Nav/Sirius XM I assumed I'd be able to get traffic. NO!!! Before our long trip last month I spent hours on the phone with Sirius trying to get the traffic ap to work. No luck. Only then, after hours with Sirius and finally a suggestion I talk to Porsche did a Porsche boss call me back to inform me that because we did not add Connection Plus on the original order, we never will be able to get Sirius traffic updates. Never. Ever. I'm PO'd. The Porsche guy said: "try WAZE." Gimme a break...so I want to look at another device while trying to drive at 80+ mph?? Did I mention that I'm PO'd!!?? What the heck are the Porsche engineers thinking? Obviously when we ordered the new Macan S we had "the right" to assume some technology overlaps...like the traffic ap on Sirius XM!! So now we have put almost 8000 miles in 4 months on a new car we plan to keep, and never, ever will we be able to check traffic like we do every day with our 2011 Carrera GTS (we live in the San Diego/LA area...yes, traffic info is "rather" important). Shouldn't someone in the Porsche organization have tipped us off about the technology "upgrade?" I'm an old guy...turning our Macan into a WiFi hotspot or whatever just wasn't an issue...but honestly, I would have appreciated a tip off that the 2017 model was materially different than our 2011. Sirius XM is Sirius XM, right?? Well, apparently not. The Connection Plus option was only a grand or so...it isn't that we couldn't have afforded it if we knew we needed it...geezzz. Oh, did I mention that I'm PO'd!!!!

TheBen

Sucks. One has to pay attention to all the packages and what they entail. IMO traffic should have been included in your package as standard.

I have traffic on my 15 macan.

ksozay

Great information. Wife and I tried our hand at building our Macan on the Porsche configuration tool and many options lacked the appropriate context to actually make an informed decision based on a specific need (e.g. traffic).

Fortunately, the Macan we ended up with was incredibly well optioned. I can't imagine all of the functionality I would have missed out on, had I ordered myself.

KS

laranja

This also applies to bluetooth phone packages
if you don't order the correct mobile phone
prep for your car, and you don't have PCM
you will never have bluetooth capability
with the stock systems.

It's very strange for Porsche to require people
to option wiring setups that cost nothing
to provide.

vjd3

This is why when I went to lease a new 2017 S I came home in a new 2016 S instead. The dealers don't really understand that you need to shell out for nav and connect to get any live traffic updates in the car and they are not ordering both to try and keep the sticker price down. Crazy.

rcg412

Same exact problem. Didn't get connect plus on my 17 macan s and no traffic. Such a joke. You would bunk there may be a retrofit or workaround.

toxic_porsche

I will tell you worse, traffic is supported ONLY if you have BOTH a Connect Plus AND active account with AT&T with Data Balance live and active (after 3 months period or 3 Gb of free data, it is min 20 bucks a month option). So in my case I had it all working for a month but ran out of 3 Gb trial data balance in about 30-35 days and I lost:
- Google Search
- Google Traffic Data
- PCM Connectivity
- Apps accessibility
- Hot Spot connectivity (obviously)
- May be something else but these are the features that immediately sprung to my mind at the moment.

Tried speaking to PNA, but they didn't know the answer and bounced me back to my dealer, who never returned my call so I actually ended up going to a nearest dealer and speaking to a Genius. He explained, that I MUST have an active data plan to use all the above functions, if not, forget about it. You CAN'T HAVE ONE OR THE OTHER!

So effectively, if you are not planning to pay AT&T every month their rip-off data plan prices, get ready to forget about these features. All the interactive features are relying on that data access, and those trial period 3 Gb are NOT purely for data sharing via hotspot, what I mistakenly thought they were.

Such a rip-off on a Porsche's account too, basically I paid $1300 for an Apple Car Play that comes with the Connect Plus. And yes, the Navigation module is a rip-off as well at $1730 for what it is. No dynamic routing as there is no live traffic data, effectively it's a glorified navigation system from a big-box retailer, from early 2000s. BMW is so much more advanced in this department, I can have google search and other goodies with the car until it is sent off to a press or its wheels fall off, even then I think I will have my basic data streamed to the car...

Otherwise, aside from my grudges with IT department, the car is a good fun to drive and nothing to complain about so far. Well, it's been a bit over a month so not much to report here yet. Stay tuned.

986Prozet

just as an FYI to everyone you don't need to continue with AT&T. Any of the major carriers will allow you do add a sim card to your current plan and piggy back on your current plans DATA.

Sorry your salesman did not inform you of the functionality with connect plus and not getting real time traffic through Sirius anymore. Pretty much every car that was ordered from the dealership came with connect plus, only orders came without it.

Old Guy

We happen to be AT&T customers for cell phones/home/internet and never even come close to using our 3G of data, so that aspect probably wouldn't have been a show-stopper. Of course not knowing about the major 2017 model technical change...the issue. After the discussions I've been privy to in/around our local dealership, I think the word is out. Of course the "workaround" of carrying an I-Pad or some such and accessing the WAZE app requires roaming data as well. When I get around to it I'll check on how much data we used driving across the USA (twice) in June/July. In a recent discussion with BMW techs I was tsk, tsked with the point that our problem wouldn't happen with a BMW because their master electronic module included "everything" and it was simply a matter of what the dealer turned on/off based on what the customer pays for. True or not? Don't know. And to be honest, don't care. Otherwise: really nice car...now with almost 10,000 miles in less than 4 months.

Zeus993

On specing out and locking in on my 2017 GTS I found this whole area of nav, CarPlay, sat radio etc... very confusing, not only for me but with the Porsche sales people as well. I ended up ticking all the boxes but now just use my iPhone maps and CarPlay for guidance and wished I'd saved and not ticked the Nav. As for traffic reports with Sirius? I think i had that but have no idea how it works.

Now there was some discussion a while back here about downloading Google Maps on a sim card and plugging that in. As Google owns Waze you would now have up to date traffic info with this. To the OP, you have the sim card option? This could be a VERY simple solution to your justifialble woes!

Anyone recall that thread?

white6speed

Connect plus is only $10 per month if you have at&t's family plan.

Green_Hornet

We just picked up a new Mecan with Connect Plus. Love the car!
But, I've had so many problems with AT&T over the years I have no desire whatsoever to use anything from them.
I have and like Verizon. Verizon phones don't use sim cards.
Any ideas what options I can explore. If I can't find a work around I'll just have to forget about the Connect Plus.

visitador

I believe that Verizon has sim cards now for LTE data purposes. Check your Verizon store.

Green_Hornet

Thanks -

Jeffdehr

I'm a Verizon fan too and prefer it over AT&T. However, I believe a Verizon SIM card will work only as long as you get LTE service. If you are in an area without LTE and have 4G, 3G or lower I do not believe the Verizon SIM will work because it is CDMA. The PCM only supports LTE and GSM. AT&T is GSM so if your fall out of LTE it will still work.