Off-road spec Porsche Cayenne S 957
Discussion
This purchase wasn't really planned. I'd got rid of my Audi Allroad as it needed money spending for the MOT (4x tyres, headlight, windscreen and other stuff). I'd not been using it much as I don't need a car that often now I walk to work. With that gone I'm using my Boxster whenever I need a car, it's been fine but it comes up short if I need to do a tip run or something, it also has tyres not suited to winter driving.
A PHer emailed me to see if I was interested in his 957 after I'd mentioned on the forum I'd bought a few ropey 955's previously. He'd taken it to a Porsche specialist that had looked over it and had quoted him just shy of 4k for work it needed, the main things being the starter motor, prop bearing, brakes all around and a blowing flexi on the downpipe. He offered it to me at a great price and I'm a sucker for buying a cheap car with problems.
The work needed doesn't sound like much but if you know Cayenne's, they aren't easy jobs. The front subframe needs to come out for the exhaust and to get at the starter motor requires removing the inlet manifold and all the water pipes. Both jobs involve plenty of swearing.
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The car is a Cayenne S with the n/a 4.8 V8. It's a 2008 with 136k on the clock, 2 previous owners, FSH done by specialists. It came with 2 keys and a folder full of receipts. It's been well maintained with plenty of spicy invoices to show for it. It's been a London car so it has a fair few battle scars. The pictures probably make the bodywork look a bit tidier than it is up close.
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The spec is interesting, some cool options but also missing things I'd consider basic. It was apparently a demo car, it's got the off-road package which consists of a thicker sump guard, underbody protection, sill guards and the party piece is an electrically locking rear diff. That option is very rare on a 957. It's also got a motorised electric folding tow bar, electric boot, Bose, extended leather, air suspension, cruise control, front and rear parking sensors. Some good options there.
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There are some options missing on this car that are so common it's harder to find a Cayenne without them than with them, auto switching headlights, multifunction steering wheel and Xenon headlights spring to mind. The worst though is it's got no heated seats, I didn't even know that was an optional extra, every Cayenne I've seen has them.
It's got 18" wheels and the tyres are Yokohama Geolander which are slightly oversized. Since it's got the right bits for actually going off road it would be sacrilege not to let it loose on the mountains near me. I've got a mate that takes his Defender off road and know a few other boys that also do it so I plan to tag along and see if it's decent. I'm looking forward to that.
The MOT runs out in a few days and I'll need to do the downpipe and maybe the brakes before I can get a fresh ticket on it, I'm busy at the moment so it probably won't be until January.
I'm quite excited about this car, it's lovely to drive on road (thought the tyres might ruin it) and should be fun off road. The only question left is how long will it be before filling it up with fuel takes the gloss off?!
So to sum up, I got rid of my Audi to save money and have ended up with a car that's got more issues to address for an MOT and that will cost me twice as much to run.
A PHer emailed me to see if I was interested in his 957 after I'd mentioned on the forum I'd bought a few ropey 955's previously. He'd taken it to a Porsche specialist that had looked over it and had quoted him just shy of 4k for work it needed, the main things being the starter motor, prop bearing, brakes all around and a blowing flexi on the downpipe. He offered it to me at a great price and I'm a sucker for buying a cheap car with problems.
The work needed doesn't sound like much but if you know Cayenne's, they aren't easy jobs. The front subframe needs to come out for the exhaust and to get at the starter motor requires removing the inlet manifold and all the water pipes. Both jobs involve plenty of swearing.
PC151021PC151022PC151019PC151020The car is a Cayenne S with the n/a 4.8 V8. It's a 2008 with 136k on the clock, 2 previous owners, FSH done by specialists. It came with 2 keys and a folder full of receipts. It's been well maintained with plenty of spicy invoices to show for it. It's been a London car so it has a fair few battle scars. The pictures probably make the bodywork look a bit tidier than it is up close.
PC151023The spec is interesting, some cool options but also missing things I'd consider basic. It was apparently a demo car, it's got the off-road package which consists of a thicker sump guard, underbody protection, sill guards and the party piece is an electrically locking rear diff. That option is very rare on a 957. It's also got a motorised electric folding tow bar, electric boot, Bose, extended leather, air suspension, cruise control, front and rear parking sensors. Some good options there.
PC151030PC151029There are some options missing on this car that are so common it's harder to find a Cayenne without them than with them, auto switching headlights, multifunction steering wheel and Xenon headlights spring to mind. The worst though is it's got no heated seats, I didn't even know that was an optional extra, every Cayenne I've seen has them.
It's got 18" wheels and the tyres are Yokohama Geolander which are slightly oversized. Since it's got the right bits for actually going off road it would be sacrilege not to let it loose on the mountains near me. I've got a mate that takes his Defender off road and know a few other boys that also do it so I plan to tag along and see if it's decent. I'm looking forward to that.
The MOT runs out in a few days and I'll need to do the downpipe and maybe the brakes before I can get a fresh ticket on it, I'm busy at the moment so it probably won't be until January.
I'm quite excited about this car, it's lovely to drive on road (thought the tyres might ruin it) and should be fun off road. The only question left is how long will it be before filling it up with fuel takes the gloss off?!
So to sum up, I got rid of my Audi to save money and have ended up with a car that's got more issues to address for an MOT and that will cost me twice as much to run. Edited by Escy on Wednesday 15th December 14:51
Edited by Escy on Wednesday 15th December 14:54
Yeah, fancy my chances of running it cheaply, other than the MPG and road tax, got to suck those up. I forgot to mention the price in the first post. It was 3k which is very cheap for 957. I took it for an MOT a week after I bought it, it passed to my surprise and I've just been driving it since as I didn't have any spare time to get stuck into it. This video is basically a walk around from when I bought it so the initial post as a video.
Last week was the first chance I had to work on it. Had been looking forward to seeing some of the off-road package differences under this. These are the sill protectors (usually plastic).
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I've not seen these plastic covers on the suspension arms before, I assume these are also part of the off-road package. There's also a steel sump guard and the locking rear diff which is the main thing
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That's the 4.8 litre heart. It's not fast but it's not slow either, it's 390bhp but it feels like it comes on cam half way through the rev range. I didn't expect that the first time I put my foot down.
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Jobs needing doing were replace the starter motor, replace the thermostat, maybe prop bearing and exhaust if I had time. I took the inlet manifold off, to get access to the starter. This really wasn't that hard and didn't take too long. You can see the starter is buried under all the direct injection pipes.
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Evidence of the coolant leak that's been killing the starter motor.
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Build up of antifreeze scum, this has been leaking coolant a long time. There is a knock sensor somewhere under there.
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That's under the starter motor, breaking it up to vacuum it out.
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Replacement starter motor. Pattern part, £125 which is cheap. Wasn't brave enough to even try Porsche for a price.
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Water pump off, the thermostat is behind it, it sits in a plastic tube, bit of a crap design I think.
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This is the thermostat housing, you can see it's clearly where my coolant leak was.
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I bought a few bits from Porsche, they've got an updated part number for the thermostat housing, they also have a special lubricant for the seals.
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That's the engine back together. Wasn't that difficult of a job to do.
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I decided to sort out the downpipe and prop bearing while it was in the garage and I was waiting for parts to do the engine. There's a few ways to sort out the prop, one is to cut out the existing rubber and cable tie hose all around it. It's a bit of nasty fix, didn't want to do that. The next easiest is a different style bearing that you can fit without removing the prop (like they did on Wheeler Dealers). These are about £300. Other option is an aftermarket prop shaft, these are about £225. You can get an aftermarket replacement bearing for £40 but it's a ball ache to fit it. Cheap and ball ache is the way I went.
The prop is difficult to remove from the rear diff flange, they get rusted in place and there isn't a good place to give them a clout to help them out. Rather than break the prop I decided I'd try and change the bearing with it hanging down under the car. First thing is to remove the cover for the CV joint.
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Then there is a brass circlip that holds the front section of the prop into the CV joint, you need to open that and knock it out, easy job if you have 3 hands but frustrating with 2, took me a while. I marked the splines so it would be in the right position when I put it back together as they are balanced. Changing the bearing was difficult, my hydraulic puller wasn't up to it, ended up having to cut it off. All in all took me a few hours to do, if you were paying a garage to do it would probably be cheaper going for the easy £300 option.
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The downpipe initially looked easy to sort out, bolts had rusted away and it was blowing at the flange. As I took the exhaust off, the weight of the cat ripped the flexi in 2 places. I ended up with this left.
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It's the difficult bank, you can't see half the bolts for the downpipe, to get it off means dropping the subframe, I didn't fancy that much, would be loads of work. I had a look through my box of random exhaust bits and found this lot, a V-band flange and a flexi.
P3041232 by Thomas Prosser, on Flickr
The hardest part was welding the flange to the downpipe, I had to weld it on the inside as there is no space around the outside. It looks worse than it is, the flange was slightly larger than the pipe so the weld isn't intruding into the diameter of the pipe that much like it looks in the photo.
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I decided to cut the flange off the main cat pipe and weld the flexi straight onto it. I got mega lucky and tacked up where I thought it should all be (no measuring) and offered it up and it was perfect first go, right angle, right length, that never happens.
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I'm happy with the end result, considering the nightmare I thought it was going to be when the flexi fell apart. I think Porsche should have done it like this from the factory. The original flanges are annoying as you can't get to one of the bolts easily, it's not a good design and using crap fixings that rust away doesn't help things.
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Nine excellence quoted 4k to fix the issues, I've done all of them except an A/C re-gas (it seems alright) and changing the discs and pads all around (parts can be had for £250 but they aren't needed yet). The obviously quote using genuine parts but I spent £80 at Porsche for bits, £30 for a thermostat, £125 for a starter motor, £15 for a replacement locking wheel nut key, £40 for the prop bearing, £40 for a fresh MOT. It's all sorted, not issues left I'm aware of now. It owes me £3330 all in and took a couple of days to fix it all. Better than I dared hope when I went to collect it. I'm really pleased with it.
As I don't have loads of money in it and it's already got plenty of wounds on it I'm not going to be precious with it, I plan to have a proper crack at taking it off-road so that will be the next update. It's rare to see a Cayenne actually off-road. I've never done off-roading before, I wonder if I'll get into it?
This update as a video.
P2271197I've not seen these plastic covers on the suspension arms before, I assume these are also part of the off-road package. There's also a steel sump guard and the locking rear diff which is the main thing
P2271198That's the 4.8 litre heart. It's not fast but it's not slow either, it's 390bhp but it feels like it comes on cam half way through the rev range. I didn't expect that the first time I put my foot down.
P2271199Jobs needing doing were replace the starter motor, replace the thermostat, maybe prop bearing and exhaust if I had time. I took the inlet manifold off, to get access to the starter. This really wasn't that hard and didn't take too long. You can see the starter is buried under all the direct injection pipes.
P2271200Evidence of the coolant leak that's been killing the starter motor.
P2271201Build up of antifreeze scum, this has been leaking coolant a long time. There is a knock sensor somewhere under there.
P2271202That's under the starter motor, breaking it up to vacuum it out.
P2271205Replacement starter motor. Pattern part, £125 which is cheap. Wasn't brave enough to even try Porsche for a price.
P2281212Water pump off, the thermostat is behind it, it sits in a plastic tube, bit of a crap design I think.
P2271209This is the thermostat housing, you can see it's clearly where my coolant leak was.
P2271210I bought a few bits from Porsche, they've got an updated part number for the thermostat housing, they also have a special lubricant for the seals.
P3021220That's the engine back together. Wasn't that difficult of a job to do.
P3021222I decided to sort out the downpipe and prop bearing while it was in the garage and I was waiting for parts to do the engine. There's a few ways to sort out the prop, one is to cut out the existing rubber and cable tie hose all around it. It's a bit of nasty fix, didn't want to do that. The next easiest is a different style bearing that you can fit without removing the prop (like they did on Wheeler Dealers). These are about £300. Other option is an aftermarket prop shaft, these are about £225. You can get an aftermarket replacement bearing for £40 but it's a ball ache to fit it. Cheap and ball ache is the way I went.
The prop is difficult to remove from the rear diff flange, they get rusted in place and there isn't a good place to give them a clout to help them out. Rather than break the prop I decided I'd try and change the bearing with it hanging down under the car. First thing is to remove the cover for the CV joint.
P3021224Then there is a brass circlip that holds the front section of the prop into the CV joint, you need to open that and knock it out, easy job if you have 3 hands but frustrating with 2, took me a while. I marked the splines so it would be in the right position when I put it back together as they are balanced. Changing the bearing was difficult, my hydraulic puller wasn't up to it, ended up having to cut it off. All in all took me a few hours to do, if you were paying a garage to do it would probably be cheaper going for the easy £300 option.
P3021226The downpipe initially looked easy to sort out, bolts had rusted away and it was blowing at the flange. As I took the exhaust off, the weight of the cat ripped the flexi in 2 places. I ended up with this left.
P3041231It's the difficult bank, you can't see half the bolts for the downpipe, to get it off means dropping the subframe, I didn't fancy that much, would be loads of work. I had a look through my box of random exhaust bits and found this lot, a V-band flange and a flexi.
P3041232 by Thomas Prosser, on FlickrThe hardest part was welding the flange to the downpipe, I had to weld it on the inside as there is no space around the outside. It looks worse than it is, the flange was slightly larger than the pipe so the weld isn't intruding into the diameter of the pipe that much like it looks in the photo.
P3051233I decided to cut the flange off the main cat pipe and weld the flexi straight onto it. I got mega lucky and tacked up where I thought it should all be (no measuring) and offered it up and it was perfect first go, right angle, right length, that never happens.
P3051236I'm happy with the end result, considering the nightmare I thought it was going to be when the flexi fell apart. I think Porsche should have done it like this from the factory. The original flanges are annoying as you can't get to one of the bolts easily, it's not a good design and using crap fixings that rust away doesn't help things.
P3051239Nine excellence quoted 4k to fix the issues, I've done all of them except an A/C re-gas (it seems alright) and changing the discs and pads all around (parts can be had for £250 but they aren't needed yet). The obviously quote using genuine parts but I spent £80 at Porsche for bits, £30 for a thermostat, £125 for a starter motor, £15 for a replacement locking wheel nut key, £40 for the prop bearing, £40 for a fresh MOT. It's all sorted, not issues left I'm aware of now. It owes me £3330 all in and took a couple of days to fix it all. Better than I dared hope when I went to collect it. I'm really pleased with it.
As I don't have loads of money in it and it's already got plenty of wounds on it I'm not going to be precious with it, I plan to have a proper crack at taking it off-road so that will be the next update. It's rare to see a Cayenne actually off-road. I've never done off-roading before, I wonder if I'll get into it?
This update as a video.
Thanks. They do drive better on the road with larger wheels, I think 20" is probably the sweet spot for the road but not for off-road. Talking of wheels, I probably need to pick up a spare alloy with the same diameter tyre before I think of going off-road. Don't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a tyre gel to rescue me.
Just seeing this thread for the first time after looking idly at Cayennes to do a similar job at a country house we're planning to buy. Your point about the bizarre specs resonates. I can't get my head around some folks' priorities when they were buying these things new. Super-expensive air suspension, but no cruise or heated seats. Multifunction wheel, but no front parking sensors. Ad nauseum.
I know Porsche loves to charge for an option, but some of these trade-offs are simply bizarre.
I know Porsche loves to charge for an option, but some of these trade-offs are simply bizarre.
C70R said:
Just seeing this thread for the first time after looking idly at Cayennes to do a similar job at a country house we're planning to buy. Your point about the bizarre specs resonates. I can't get my head around some folks' priorities when they were buying these things new. Super-expensive air suspension, but no cruise or heated seats. Multifunction wheel, but no front parking sensors. Ad nauseum.
I know Porsche loves to charge for an option, but some of these trade-offs are simply bizarre.
How are these for retrofits? Doable or a programming nightmare? I know Porsche loves to charge for an option, but some of these trade-offs are simply bizarre.
Carlososos said:
The smaller wheels suit it way more that than the stupid huge wheels normally seen on them.
Stupid huge tyres are far more in keeping with the Cayennes abilities than stupid huge wheels..... 
Nice car OP! The OE rock sliders are a must if it has air suspension as the compressor etc. is a in a vulnerable position without them. Well worth fitting a gearbox and transfer box guard if you are planning on seriously off roading as the standard sump guard only extends as far back as the first crossmember. 3MM steel guards are available off the shelf but are super heavy:
The plastic rear bone guards on yours are part of the off road kit but generally get left behind on the first rock they find, Eurowise do a steel version which is a far better bet. Also worth looking at a rear diff guard. The standard Porsche tank protectors (which yours should have ) are plastic but work very well.
There's quite a few overland type Cayennes these days, many based on the tyre sizes, ride heights etc. used on the Transsyberia cars which are well proven. Eurowise in the US have done a lot of the development on underbody protection etc. and with a few upgrades they are pretty hardy things.
braddo said:
Great job 
How did the intake ports and valves look?
Some Cayennes did OK on a couple of offroad races
The valves looked way better than I was expecting, some build up of carbon but not large big chunks. I assume it's been cleaned previously as it's done 135k miles. I have walnut blast media in the garage to clean then up but didn't think it was worth doing.How did the intake ports and valves look?
Some Cayennes did OK on a couple of offroad races
Poppopbangbang, your Cayenne looks great. Is it on air or steel springs? Standard height or lifted? If I get the off-roading bug I'll start getting some of the off roading goodies, have seen there is a decent aftermarket options for the Touareg/Cayenne in the US. Do you take a full size spare wheel when you go offroad?
Escy said:
Poppopbangbang, your Cayenne looks great. Is it on air or steel springs? Standard height or lifted? If I get the off-roading bug I'll start getting some of the off roading goodies, have seen there is a decent aftermarket options for the Touareg/Cayenne in the US. Do you take a full size spare wheel when you go offroad?
Steel springs with a 2" lift and another 1" odd from the tyre. No full size spare, just 3 ply side wall K02s and a tyre string kit. As it doesn't do any rock crawling side wall damage isn't really a thing to worry about...... especially as it spends most of its time towing stuff out of a muddy field at the moment 
The Braid wheels on mine have beadlock too so you can run low pressures without the risk of rolling one off the wheel and knackering the bead, it has on board air too for uping them back to road pressure too.Eurowise are the go to guys in the US for off road stuff and it's very good quality kit!
Edited by poppopbangbang on Wednesday 9th March 01:11
whytheory said:
Looks really smart for what I assume isn't a huge amount of money, the facelift cars have aged so much better for a few detail changes.
Even for a Porsche I can't believe what wasn't standard fit on one of these!
They are still the same these days, my mate is ordering a Taycan and electric folding mirrors are an optional extra. Even for a Porsche I can't believe what wasn't standard fit on one of these!
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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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.
P3271251P3271250To 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.
P3271249Where 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.
P3271252Then 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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