2021ish Taycan Turbo (..in green)
Discussion
Marc118 said:
Enjoyed reading the thread. Have you got your Porsche back yet?
An excellent question, and thanks for the prompt - it is! Here she is back at Chieveley services on the way back from Reading on Tuesday this week. Picked it after only 70 short days of the car being back @ Porsche Reading. Wonderful weather for the drive though
puttything said:
Update: Chased Porsche for an update after not hearing anything for a week - the new battery isn't even in the country yet. Arrives Friday and will, they promise, be fitted by early next week. I reminded them they've had the car for 50 days now. That's 50 of the 60 since the car was delivered.
^ I just double checked and this was the last update - following that the battery arrived and was fitted. Originally I was meant to be picking it up on pancake day (16th of Feb) which, in what seems to be typical fashion, took some cajoling to get a firm date. The battery was in though, actually installed the week before but an additional test drive was insisted on which took the pick up into the next week - what could possibly go wrong? I was promised a phone call when the car had been cleaned and was in the clear to collect on the day - as it happened I was off work due to having tons of holiday stacked up (surprisingly haven't managed to get away much this year). Negative thoughts started to intrude when there was still no phone call by 14:00. By 15:00 I gave in and called them - the service chap was busy, he'd phone back.
Bear in mind I'm in Southampton, the dealer is in Reading, it's over an hour to get there, leaving it to even the afternoon makes the timings tight. Even more importantly this was pancake day, which meant a firm deadline for dinner. Serious business.
At 15:30 I got a call back - bad news, on inspecting the car they found a chip in the drivers door, caused while the car was with them. On one hand, I'm grateful they spotted the problem, but did it really have to wait til the end of the day to let me know? There seems to be an attitude of 'well I'll be at the dealership all day sir so really don't mind when I phone you to let you pick it up'.
The result was the car would have to go into the bodyshop, the door would be resprayed and blended into the back door. The latter point there would prove important. New collection date? Well, it'll be done by Friday for you.
Roll on Thursday and a surprise phone call, the factory PPF for the rear quarter hasn't arrived so, and won't be here until Friday earliest so this week is a wash. Everyone reading already knows that the pick up the following Tuesday actually happened, but at the time I was pleasantly surprised that for the second time in my entire ownership a date has been given that hasn't been pushed back.
The plus side of all this not having my car is it's given me plenty of time to get used to using someone else's. Obviously the current situation has curtailed any trips of significance, but I think the usefulness of doing boring trips with a car shouldn't be underestimated. Runs to nursery in the morning, or to the shop for some random item have imbued a familiarity about the width of the car, getting slick at parking it, the different the ride height makes to the comfort¹ and all while not worrying quite so much about getting it dirty inside or the random thrashing of a child's muddy shoes.
¹ There is raised, normal, lowered and low. Lowered rides significantly better than low, and still looks pretty good!
Speaking of using the car for routine trips, here is a shot of it during a nursery pick up - having picked it up in December it feels like now is the first time I'm seeing the colour in the sun, and the paint really does pop:
The time waiting the car hasn't been idle for me either, partly for lack of anything else to do I pulled the trigger on a project I've been scoping for a while - putting proper power (and network) into my garage so I could install a proper charger.
Prior to now, the garage is electrified via a spur off the kitchen ring main (not my work) and network arrives via a single non outdoor rated CAT5e cable zip tied to the garden trellis inside a bush (this one is me). I'd been wanting to fix the network thing for ages, so some pre-terminated single mode fibre was ordered - that'll go in a duct with a new cable capable of supplying 63a to the garage.
This is the route:
WARNING: lots of pictures of holes, and very few of cars ahead.
Due to the positioning of, well, everything is was a choice of taking an easy path from the house to garage along the boundary, but having to route a high capacity cable through the loft and a shed to get there, or taking a more difficult path down the side of the house shown above, negotiating the giant bush and digging across the middle of the drive. The Google map shows the winner.
A happy combination of ignorance about what was in the ground, and the relative difficulty of removing it therefrom, and a brother who works on gas mains all day meant work commenced in mid February. Perhaps by some divine intervention, fate decided I didn't have to find out what it was like to be in a hole during typically seasonal weather and mere days before we were due to start the sun reappeared. I think it might be Spring!
I clearly got carried away and didn't take a good before, but here is the route with some shingle removed:
Ah, spray markings, you can see we're dealing with a professional here. You can also see that by the time I'd taken a second photo he'd already dug out 6 feet.
I started at the non garage end, first transplanting a rose bush (which is back and still alive as I write this), then digging down to undermining a wall which marked the boundary between garden and drive.
Early afternoon we had this, you'll note my end is not as deep (he's depressingly good at this). I'd like you to also note that my end had tons more rubble in it, honest!
Ducting goes in:
And interfaces with a bit of drain pipe which was left in as an access by the thoughtful original builders:
Terribly exciting inside view, the black string is the draw string, super important and also proof we made it! On right of shot you can view evidence of 2 of the previous attempts to get power into the building. Both of which, I found to my surprise were live when I tried to disconnect them...
This is where we left it for the day, I think you'd struggle to know we'd been there!
Fast forward one week and we just put in the final section.
You can see how far we got with the ducting from the previous effort here. Again, forgot to get a picture of before (this is with the gravel cleared) and also apparently, to prepare sufficiently at all. Under here is concrete:
Luckily by brother's approach to a problem is 'dig more' and with the help of a tool which is essentially a huge solid metal pole with a spiky end, the concrete was dispatched:
Again, my progress was pretty pathetic compared to my brother, but I took on the job of getting under the footpath while he dug the trench. This photo does serve as proof though that I did at least swing a spade - take note future generations!
Light at the end of the tunnel - I managed to get between the bottom of the concrete path and above the main waste pipe for the house. Astoundingly the drain is still also intact:
The receiving side of the path, pretty tight getting down here:
We discovered where all my services run along the way:
Rest of the ducting in! The conduit there is what the previous owner installed down to the office he built in the garden, it's got a CAT5e and some phone lines, works great, and is also full of silicone so no worries about getting anything else in there!
Access hatch in, should make it easier to pull the new services:
Current state of the end of the ducts, the box on the wall is the meter box for the house, so should be fairly easy to get a feed off of that:
Today (as I write this) I ran new parachord draw strings down all the ducts ready for the cable pulls, along with some finishing touches (and avoiding moving all the gravel back to cover it):
The observant among you will have noticed that we ran two ducts - the meter box backs onto my utility room which means there is water the other side of the wall. As a future project I'm hoping to get mains water up to the garage via the second duct, to avoid having to run a hose each time I want to wash the cars. - one thing at a time though.
That's it for now, hope you enjoyed this instalment of me moaning interspersed with pictures of holes and the occasional sentence about cars. We'll be back with more... the next time something happens!
Edited by puttything on Sunday 28th February 23:45
Edited by puttything on Sunday 28th February 23:48
Edited by puttything on Monday 1st March 00:17
bolidemichael said:
Good stuff and great work. The water to the garage will be a real bonus, I'd like the same too.
RicksAlfas said:
I think if I had water in the garage, I'd never go in the house.
Great work OP!
Ha, my scheme has been busted! Great work OP!
jjwilde said:
You might want to remove those photos as none of that meets building regs, it's actually a danger to anyone who buys your house.
It's buried deeper than the existing 100A mains feed to the house, additionally armoured in the duct, and the cable itself is armoured. I think it'll be OK?Pulled the new SWA and fibre for the new circuit and better 'net connection today with the electrician, then he installed a new box in the garage to terminate the new circuit and provide support for adding a proper charger.
The old unit (bonus points for spotting the additional, redundant yet still live cable):
Pulling the cables, the armoured was a bugger to get going, but once we were round the first corner it was good:
New unit with 63A feed
I've not really posted anything about the car in a little while as I've not been using it much, however when I have used it, it's been really good! Seems like there might even be a chance to do some longer trips if the virus follows the schedule, would be great to do a run to the 'ring or LeMans.
The most significant update is that now the car has a TPMS fault and the pressure monitors won't reset, so it'll need to go back to the dealer. However there is also a massive software update that all the cars are getting called in for so at least I can get a 2 for the price of 1 there.
The discussion with Porsche over a suitable gesture for the inconvenience of this saga continues...
And lastly, because I do feel guilty about posting no actual car content, here is a nice unplanned video my brother shot of the car pulling out of the garage (we were shuffling cars on the drive so the M5 could go back into the garage) ((and maybe even get fixed..)):
The old unit (bonus points for spotting the additional, redundant yet still live cable):
Pulling the cables, the armoured was a bugger to get going, but once we were round the first corner it was good:
New unit with 63A feed
I've not really posted anything about the car in a little while as I've not been using it much, however when I have used it, it's been really good! Seems like there might even be a chance to do some longer trips if the virus follows the schedule, would be great to do a run to the 'ring or LeMans.
The most significant update is that now the car has a TPMS fault and the pressure monitors won't reset, so it'll need to go back to the dealer. However there is also a massive software update that all the cars are getting called in for so at least I can get a 2 for the price of 1 there.
The discussion with Porsche over a suitable gesture for the inconvenience of this saga continues...
And lastly, because I do feel guilty about posting no actual car content, here is a nice unplanned video my brother shot of the car pulling out of the garage (we were shuffling cars on the drive so the M5 could go back into the garage) ((and maybe even get fixed..)):
Edited by puttything on Saturday 6th March 22:42
Medic-one said:
Very much enjoyed reading everything so far, and some great pictures, I love the colour!
Thanks, I knew it wasn't the safe choice but I'm glad I went bold. MarkJS said:
Please do keep us updated - I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread despite the woes you have had to endure with Porsche. Must be a fab car when all is good though.
It's been really nice just using it for random small trips, and taking advantage of the accidentally-left-on-the-spec foldable box accessory. Worth every one of the £36:
^ The boot liner was somewhat more expensive, but I'm a sucker for a boot liner that actually fits right. Some people on other forums have complained about the quality of this one, but I think it's a fairly decent rubberised plastic, fits properly, and features a handy picture of the car in case you forget what it looks like before walking round to the front.
Other car modifications are better mats. I feel bad getting winter muck over nice summer mats, but also won't like heavy rubber ones. These Nicoman mats are a really good compromise for me, they capture dirt really well, but are still soft under foot and don't look out of place (to me) - I've got them in everything (picture from my previous F10 comp):
ChocolateFrog said:
A good read, thanks for sharing.
I'd love to have a poke around underneath and see how many fasteners and fixings they didn't bother to refit after changing the battery twice.
I've yet to meet a mechanic that replaces every hidden bolt.
Hah, I did have a look, but only got a really bad pic - it's really flat under there: I'd love to have a poke around underneath and see how many fasteners and fixings they didn't bother to refit after changing the battery twice.
I've yet to meet a mechanic that replaces every hidden bolt.
And lastly, random picture of the day (but also closing out the accessory theme, note official Porsche public charging cable
) - drove to work at the weekend to combine some daily exercise for the child, picking up some equipment, and seeing if the new charger that's been installed on the outside of the building works. All three were successful, albeit the exercise was mainly for me spending most of the walk carrying the child:
Current car status: battery still works, TPMS does not.
Edited by puttything on Saturday 13th March 19:37
Missed-the-1500-mile update!
Some things have happened following the digging a while back, the fibre connection into the garage was commissioned and terminated into this neat wall box:
(has a cover too).
Marginally better was when I gave the car a wash, stopping to note the incredibly huge door jams and rubber seals - they're vast!
Came out OK:
In EV happenings, a charger was also installed. It's an Andersen A2, which looks nice, and the installation was very slick and tidy. It does have the rather unfortunately effect of making the doors and windows of the garage look extremely neglected. I guess I'll have to get out the sander...
Far more exciting than this lot though, was that Dave from Sportscar Protection (https://www.sportscarprotection.com) came to do a new car paint protection (ceramic coating) on the car. I've never paid anyone to make a car look shiny in my entire life up until this point, and the choice was heavily influenced by reviews on this very forum. I wasn't disappointed, they did an amazing job.
In progress pictures, Dave kept me appraised via WhatsApp which led to much distraction from doing work that day:
Most impressive I think, is the comparison - when I washed it prior to the coating:
and after
Another one for luck:
Some things have happened following the digging a while back, the fibre connection into the garage was commissioned and terminated into this neat wall box:
(has a cover too).
Marginally better was when I gave the car a wash, stopping to note the incredibly huge door jams and rubber seals - they're vast!
Came out OK:
In EV happenings, a charger was also installed. It's an Andersen A2, which looks nice, and the installation was very slick and tidy. It does have the rather unfortunately effect of making the doors and windows of the garage look extremely neglected. I guess I'll have to get out the sander...
Far more exciting than this lot though, was that Dave from Sportscar Protection (https://www.sportscarprotection.com) came to do a new car paint protection (ceramic coating) on the car. I've never paid anyone to make a car look shiny in my entire life up until this point, and the choice was heavily influenced by reviews on this very forum. I wasn't disappointed, they did an amazing job.
In progress pictures, Dave kept me appraised via WhatsApp which led to much distraction from doing work that day:
Most impressive I think, is the comparison - when I washed it prior to the coating:
and after
Another one for luck:
Edited by puttything on Tuesday 1st June 08:24
Yum yum, very nice! Well if you're going to get a nice paint colour, you may as well make the most of it.
I wonder if the extra-fat rubber door seal is because, absent any engine intake/exhaust noise, in an EV once tends to notice the other sources of noise more, hence the wind noise would get annoying without these extra efforts to suppress it? Especially at autobahn speeds, perhaps.
Back in April child #2 arrived, giving an excellent chance to test out the family credentials of what is clearly an extremely practical 4 door car.
Naturally the newborn will never appreciate it, but I will 100% remind him that he did get a lift back from hospital in a Porsche.
The pano roof does attract interesting colours and patterns in the morning:
Managed to find a suitably quiet spot of the hospital car park:
In summary, I can confirm that the 2021 model year Taycan can successfully transport a new born child, and, possibly more importantly, the incredible amount ofcrap equipment that goes with. I forgot about all this stuff.
For practical Internet reference points, that's a travel system by Silver Cross with the base part and the pram. You do however have to take the wheels off the base AND stack them incredibly carefully to get the boot to close.
When I say carefully, I mean it took approximately 10 attempts. This being 2021, and as we are apparently living in the future, the boot does naturally close itself. In closing it is, however, rather cautious in approach where the slightest impediment will cause it to beep loudly and retreat from the task. The boot entrance is quite shallow and steeply angled which makes this hard to judge. In averse weather it becomes very exciting indeed guessing if the boot will actually close.
Other things, slightly larger children fit in the back easily with the help of a Recaro Monza seat (matches the look too IMO), and the seats are kept protected from said children detritus by these nifty Fixcape neoprene seat covers* which I found on Amazon:
(* strategic holes were cut for ISOFIX attachment points to slide through)
In summary of the child friendliness: no children have fallen out onto the road yet, 5 out of 5 stars.
Naturally the newborn will never appreciate it, but I will 100% remind him that he did get a lift back from hospital in a Porsche.
The pano roof does attract interesting colours and patterns in the morning:
Managed to find a suitably quiet spot of the hospital car park
:In summary, I can confirm that the 2021 model year Taycan can successfully transport a new born child, and, possibly more importantly, the incredible amount of
For practical Internet reference points, that's a travel system by Silver Cross with the base part and the pram. You do however have to take the wheels off the base AND stack them incredibly carefully to get the boot to close.
When I say carefully, I mean it took approximately 10 attempts. This being 2021, and as we are apparently living in the future, the boot does naturally close itself. In closing it is, however, rather cautious in approach where the slightest impediment will cause it to beep loudly and retreat from the task. The boot entrance is quite shallow and steeply angled which makes this hard to judge. In averse weather it becomes very exciting indeed guessing if the boot will actually close.
Other things, slightly larger children fit in the back easily with the help of a Recaro Monza seat (matches the look too IMO), and the seats are kept protected from said children detritus by these nifty Fixcape neoprene seat covers* which I found on Amazon:
(* strategic holes were cut for ISOFIX attachment points to slide through)
In summary of the child friendliness: no children have fallen out onto the road yet, 5 out of 5 stars.
Edited by puttything on Tuesday 1st June 00:03
Edited by puttything on Tuesday 1st June 00:14
samoht said:
Yum yum, very nice! Well if you're going to get a nice paint colour, you may as well make the most of it.
I wonder if the extra-fat rubber door seal is because, absent any engine intake/exhaust noise, in an EV once tends to notice the other sources of noise more, hence the wind noise would get annoying without these extra efforts to suppress it? Especially at autobahn speeds, perhaps.
Thanks! It is definitely very, very quiet inside, I did also spec the acoustically insulated glass which I seem to remember cutting down on the wind noise I got in the demo car without it. Obviously not a back to back comparison, YMMV. I wonder if the extra-fat rubber door seal is because, absent any engine intake/exhaust noise, in an EV once tends to notice the other sources of noise more, hence the wind noise would get annoying without these extra efforts to suppress it? Especially at autobahn speeds, perhaps.
OEMster said:
Stunning, colour OP. I think the Taycan Cross in this colour would be brilliant.
Thanks, definitely good now the sun has finally come out - I've seen a few Cross Tourismos in this colour around the Interwebs, and I agree, I think it's a great looking thing. I noticed the other day the car had a theft alert active - this happens quite frequently due to the tracker, and looking out to where the car was parked, it was definitely still there. The alerts themselves aren't a huge problem but it disables the remote access to the car via the app, which is annoying.
Given the car had once again not been stolen I phoned the tracker service to request a reset. The operators at Vodafone who run the service are actually really good, and didn't take much time to reveal the reason for the alert - the battery was flat!
I'm certain most people following this have already read about battery issues in EVs, suffice to say, despite having a massive high voltage battery which can and does charge the 12V auxiliary battery, they seem to go flat alarmingly frequently. When the 12V battery gets to low the car will isolate the high voltage battery for safety purposes, the recovery process is basically getting the big battery to reconnect to the rest of the car.
Luckily because it's a frequent problem there are loads of guides on how to fix it (including in the owners manual), and I had prepared for this situation.. Time to go grab jump pack!
The process is:
Release the emergency key from the back of the fob and use it to open the drivers door
Open the fuse panel and connect your jump pack to the specifically placed positive connection in there, and connect the other end to ground. Here my booster pack showed a reverse polarity warning and wouldn't fire up. I had to put it in overload (forced on) mode before connecting it, which despite having jumped many, many cars in the past, made me think twice with this one:
One that's connected the front luggage compartment can be opened from the remote allowing the next stage of the recovery.
Remove a few panels and there is a positive jump post which gets connected along with a conveniently placed shock nut:
A little spark later and the car fired right up. Apparently this second stage powers up a relay which allows the high voltage battery to kick in, which in turn charges the 12V battery.
Given the car had once again not been stolen I phoned the tracker service to request a reset. The operators at Vodafone who run the service are actually really good, and didn't take much time to reveal the reason for the alert - the battery was flat!
I'm certain most people following this have already read about battery issues in EVs, suffice to say, despite having a massive high voltage battery which can and does charge the 12V auxiliary battery, they seem to go flat alarmingly frequently. When the 12V battery gets to low the car will isolate the high voltage battery for safety purposes, the recovery process is basically getting the big battery to reconnect to the rest of the car.
Luckily because it's a frequent problem there are loads of guides on how to fix it (including in the owners manual), and I had prepared for this situation.. Time to go grab jump pack!
The process is:
Release the emergency key from the back of the fob and use it to open the drivers door
Open the fuse panel and connect your jump pack to the specifically placed positive connection in there, and connect the other end to ground. Here my booster pack showed a reverse polarity warning and wouldn't fire up. I had to put it in overload (forced on) mode before connecting it, which despite having jumped many, many cars in the past, made me think twice with this one:
One that's connected the front luggage compartment can be opened from the remote allowing the next stage of the recovery.
Remove a few panels and there is a positive jump post which gets connected along with a conveniently placed shock nut:
A little spark later and the car fired right up. Apparently this second stage powers up a relay which allows the high voltage battery to kick in, which in turn charges the 12V battery.
Well that's very interesting, I never knew that stuff.
Seems crazy to me that a battery electric car ends up needing you to use a jump starter! I have a feeling in five years or so, EVs will have moved beyond this and will be able to either power everything straight off the main battery, or at least keep the aux battery topped up from it reliably. The fun of being an early adopter!
Yep, same with ipace, you only need step 2 from your process though, still a pita mind.
Pretty crazy on an EV imo, one thing i thought we’d get away from with EVs, long holidays and returning to flat battery, wtf!
I’m guessing cars to come will delete this problem.. is it the same for teslas?
Pretty crazy on an EV imo, one thing i thought we’d get away from with EVs, long holidays and returning to flat battery, wtf!
I’m guessing cars to come will delete this problem.. is it the same for teslas?
LeroyLoser said:
is it the same for teslas?
As James May recently found out, yes.https://youtu.be/NsKwMryKqRE
Seems crazy to me that something so obvious has been missed by multiple EV manufacturers.
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff