Off-road spec Porsche Cayenne S 957

[whytheory]

Escy said:

I've got the factory folding tow bar, it worked when I bought it, went to open it recently and nothing happened. I had some towing planned so needed to look into it. The light on the switch was flashing red. I tried to connect to it with PIWIS, the module for the tow bar was greyed out. I tried with VCDS and that connected fine, not sure why PIWIS couldn't, I find it rubbish. There were no fault codes, I could run an initialisation where it would deploy and retract the tow bar, it would do that fine then register a fault code, 02588 - swiveling trailer hitch, no or incorrect basic setting/adaption. I've not got to the bottom of this yet, I couldn't find the code to get past the security access to run an adaption. Luckily, I can run the tow bar deploy output on VCDS and it would swing it out.

I don't think this tow bar has ever been used. The electrics are tucked up under where the tow bar lives, you swing this down by hand, mine was rusted solid, with the help of a crow bar I managed to snap the pivot.

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To sort this out meant taking the bumper off, removing the tow bar and holding it on it's side so I could get a drill on it. These tow bars are very heavy, I think 50+kg so I used my engine hoist to hold it.

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Where the bolt had snapped, I drilled it out, put a thread in it, then drilled out the thread in the sleeve that's supposed to move freely, then put a bolt through it. It worked perfectly.

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Then I put it to the test. Collecting a spicy S2000. If I want a car collected I usually pay someone to collect it for me but with the price of fuel going up and I think there are generally less people transporting cars these days, prices have got a bit strong, I was looking at £350 plus. I can hire a trailer for £45 for a day so thought it's time to make the Cayenne earn it's keep.

On a trip to London last weekend it managed 23mpg which wasn't too bad considering the tyres and it being loaded up. Today, with the trailer on the back it did 20mpg, with the car on the trailer it did 18mpg. I was happy enough with that, could have got better if I'd tried. The Cayenne took it in it's stride, I don't think I used more than a 3rd of the throttle the whole trip, I only really noticed the car on the back when braking. Near my house there is a big hill, there was bumper to bumper traffic, I was stuck in it for ages, moving tiny amounts each time. I was grateful for an auto, I remember a situation like that would hammer the clutch when my dad was towing a caravan when I was a kid. I bet the transmission fluid was getting hot, it would have been taking a beating with all that weight on the back. You could hear the strain but the car handled it fine. I'm really impressed with this big old bus.

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Always nice to see a cool tow car towing a cool car on the road

[ATM]

Escy said:

I think 50+kg so I used my engine hoist to hold it.

That's crazy

I read somewhere that Porsche take the towing capability of their Cayennes pretty seriously. That's why they choose certain gearboxes and suspension setups. I like to think they decided to make a serious competitor for the Range Rover.

[C70R]

ATM said:

That's crazy

I read somewhere that Porsche take the towing capability of their Cayennes pretty seriously. That's why they choose certain gearboxes and suspension setups. I like to think they decided to make a serious competitor for the Range Rover.

All of the early Cayennes can tow 3.5T, the same as some much more 'serious' kit. They are very capable cars.

[ATM]

C70R said:

ATM said:

That's crazy

I read somewhere that Porsche take the towing capability of their Cayennes pretty seriously. That's why they choose certain gearboxes and suspension setups. I like to think they decided to make a serious competitor for the Range Rover.

All of the early Cayennes can tow 3.5T, the same as some much more 'serious' kit. They are very capable cars.

I'd like one but everything I read is about them falling apart. I'm only a keen DIY'er in spirit so they scare me a bit.

[Ranger 6]

A friend has a Turbo - he pulls some stuff with it, including......



He's had a couple of prop shaft joints done, but nothing else major.

[C70R]

ATM said:

C70R said:

ATM said:

That's crazy

I read somewhere that Porsche take the towing capability of their Cayennes pretty seriously. That's why they choose certain gearboxes and suspension setups. I like to think they decided to make a serious competitor for the Range Rover.

All of the early Cayennes can tow 3.5T, the same as some much more 'serious' kit. They are very capable cars.

I'd like one but everything I read is about them falling apart. I'm only a keen DIY'er in spirit so they scare me a bit.

The 4.5 is dogged by reliability issues, including the fairly well-publicised terminal bore scoring. The 3.2/3.6 units have tended to be a lot more robust, as they are derived from the Golf R32 lump.

[ATM]

C70R said:

ATM said:

C70R said:

ATM said:

That's crazy

I read somewhere that Porsche take the towing capability of their Cayennes pretty seriously. That's why they choose certain gearboxes and suspension setups. I like to think they decided to make a serious competitor for the Range Rover.

All of the early Cayennes can tow 3.5T, the same as some much more 'serious' kit. They are very capable cars.

I'd like one but everything I read is about them falling apart. I'm only a keen DIY'er in spirit so they scare me a bit.

The 4.5 is dogged by reliability issues, including the fairly well-publicised terminal bore scoring. The 3.2/3.6 units have tended to be a lot more robust, as they are derived from the Golf R32 lump.

So is the 4.8 better?

[Escy]

Bigger is always better.

I think the 4.8 also suffers from bore score but it's much less common. The 4.8 has direct injection which means a high pressure fuel pump, they are known to fail. It's been done on mine, think the bill was over £1500 off the top of my head.

[braddo]

Am enjoying reading these updates and your ability to fix things.

What's the story with the S2000? A bit of track day fun or is something more competitive in mind?

[Escy]

braddo said:

Am enjoying reading these updates and your ability to fix things.

What's the story with the S2000? A bit of track day fun or is something more competitive in mind?

Thanks, it's all gone better than I expected. I couldn't believe it passed the MOT first time, he must have just missed the blowing exhaust. The last job left to do on the list is the brakes. Did you ever tow with it?

I mainly bought the S2000 as it was a bargain, it was a speculative eBay bid that came off. I'm planning to do a few track days just to see what it's all about but I'm going to need to move it on at some point as I don't have the space to keep a car that's not road legal. It's a proper bit of kit, slick tyres, certified multi point cage, brutal LSD with low ratio final drive, AP Racing brakes, coilovers, etc. I bet it's going to be brilliant fun.

[Mr Tidy]

Escy said:

I mainly bought the S2000 as it was a bargain, it was a speculative eBay bid that came off. I'm planning to do a few track days just to see what it's all about but I'm going to need to move it on at some point as I don't have the space to keep a car that's not road legal. It's a proper bit of kit, slick tyres, certified multi point cage, brutal LSD with low ratio final drive, AP Racing brakes, coilovers, etc. I bet it's going to be brilliant fun.

There I was enjoying reading the Cayenne thread, and now it looks like there will need to be an S2000 one as well!

[poppopbangbang]

C70R said:

The 4.5 is dogged by reliability issues, including the fairly well-publicised terminal bore scoring. The 3.2/3.6 units have tended to be a lot more robust, as they are derived from the Golf R32 lump.

If you want as close to a bomb proof Cayenne as possible you want a 3.6 957. They are usefully more powerful than the 3.2 and not far off the 955 V8 in real world whilst still towing 3.5T quite happily.

The 957 was the last of the Cayenne "Range Rover" challengers really, the 958 etc. lost the two speed transfer box and became a lot more SUV/Soft Roader. The 955/957 was benchmarked against the L322 Range.

[braddo]

Escy said:

Thanks, it's all gone better than I expected. I couldn't believe it passed the MOT first time, he must have just missed the blowing exhaust. The last job left to do on the list is the brakes. Did you ever tow with it?

I thought I'd misread when you said it passed the MOT. Nope, no towing. The towbar was moved around 3 times in 6 years to see if it worked and the electrics bit was never seen, touched, or known about!

S2000 sounds great

[braddo]

poppopbangbang said:

The 955/957 was benchmarked against the L322 Range.

Hence being a fat bd with reliability issues and a drink problem?

[C70R]

poppopbangbang said:

C70R said:

The 4.5 is dogged by reliability issues, including the fairly well-publicised terminal bore scoring. The 3.2/3.6 units have tended to be a lot more robust, as they are derived from the Golf R32 lump.

If you want as close to a bomb proof Cayenne as possible you want a 3.6 957. They are usefully more powerful than the 3.2 and not far off the 955 V8 in real world whilst still towing 3.5T quite happily.

The 957 was the last of the Cayenne "Range Rover" challengers really, the 958 etc. lost the two speed transfer box and became a lot more SUV/Soft Roader. The 955/957 was benchmarked against the L322 Range.

The problem is that the market knows this, and the good ones tend to get snapped up VERY quickly.

Plus, the 6cyl cars seem to be very poorly spec'd for the most part. Very few have air suspension, and many are missing basics like cruise and heated/memory seats (let alone niceties like Bose).

[Escy]

I wanted to add Bluetooth music streaming. I was looking around on the internet but it wasn't very clear how best to go about it. You've got a load of options that were for up to 2006 Cayenne's, which plug into the fibre optics. Then there were a load of options for 2009 on Cayennes. My car is a 2008 with a PCM 3.0. I bought a cheap Bluetooth module that plugs in, £15 off Ali Express, thought it was worth a go. It's an adapter harness but it didn't look like things would match up. I popped out the plug for the Bluetooth module and put it into my plug, then wired up the 12v and ground for it into my harness.

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Once connected up it turns out I couldn't find the source for it, I didn't have an AUX option. Some Cayenne's have the iPod and USB connections under the arm rest, mine didn't which means my AUX output needed to be coded in.

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Looking on my PIWIS, I couldn't code it myself. I needed to get a code. Tried to call the dealer but they didn't really know what I was asking for. The cheapest place I could find online was Auto SVS, worked out about £60. https://autosvs.com/product/car-manufacturer/porsc...

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Put the code in and it worked. I now have AUX as a selectable source.

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It works fine but it's not exactly brilliant integration. No text on the screen to say what it playing and I can't change track on the headunit. Maybe that would be better with a more expensive module or maybe it's a limitation of the how the input works. It's not the end of the world, at least it works and now I can keep it gangsta in my German.

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Posting the link to a YouTube video, mainly for people who find this on a google search, it's not entertaining but hopefully informative if you are wanting to do the same.

https://youtu.be/2Khl2-N9aAg

[Geekman]

Great thread - very much my kind of car and it looks like you got a great deal. I'm not sure if you have Instagram, but there's loads of US based guys publishing their Cayenne off road builds on there if you need some inspiration.

[C70R]

You probably shouldn't have expected to have any control or information from your Bluetooth. It's effectively a 'dumb' connection, and the car/headunit doesn't know any different than there's something connected to the aux.

[Escy]

Geekman said:

Great thread - very much my kind of car and it looks like you got a great deal. I'm not sure if you have Instagram, but there's loads of US based guys publishing their Cayenne off road builds on there if you need some inspiration.

Thanks. I'm in a Vag Off-Road Facebook group, it's mainly Touareg's but there's a few monster Cayenne's in there, mainly in the US. It seems like it's a very capable platform with a few mods. I'm looking forward to trying out mine.

C70R said:

You probably shouldn't have expected to have any control or information from your Bluetooth. It's effectively a 'dumb' connection, and the car/headunit doesn't know any different than there's something connected to the aux.

I was half hoping because it's using an input called USB / ipod it would be a bit more capable. I'm just glad I can play music on it.

[Escy]

I've been doing more towing, helped to finish up the brakes, the pad warning came on the dash recently.

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I bought front and rear discs, pads and wear sensors. Went for the cheapest I saw, got them off ebay and they worked out 230 with a discount code. I was happy when they turned up, made by Borg and Beck which is a brand I've heard of and they have a coating on them so hopefully the middle of the discs don't go rusty. Better quality stuff then I expected to arrive.

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The old ones were well worn, this is the front, the rears were worse. All looks good though, pads worn evenly. Everything came apart ok.

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Insurance is due, managed to find it for 365 ( 500 excess) with Adrian Flux. All the company's that quoted cheap ( 365 was the lowest) on Confused.com had a huge excess, the cheapest 5 were 1000 (plus a 250 voluntary excess on the quote). Wonder if that's to do with the type of car (old but parts are expensive), or if they are changing their business model? Not noticed this before with other cars.