Help with my Cayenne Hybrid

[philvatho]

I've just become the proud owner of a 2016 Cayenne Hybrid with 38k on it- Can't get over the quality of it, I didn't know cars could be this well made!

I generally use the car for lots of pottering about locally on short journeys, so hope the PHEV bit will work out for me.

I bought at auction, and have a number of questions that the manuals are silent about, so wondering if anyone can offer help/advice on these:

1. I'm surprised the PCM is very basic - just a radio and Bluetooth phone device - no satnav, no DAB, and no display of car information, and no USB sockets in the car either. Is that upgradable, and is there a second hand market for used PCM units?

2. There's a "departure timer" associated with the charging. You set a target time and it starts charging so it'll just be ready when you want to leave. I works fine, though not really sure what great value this is because I assume fully charging it 10 hours before you plan to leave it shouldn't lose charge to any great extent. But the manual does refer to a nice feature associated with this called "pre-conditioning" which essentially heats (or cools) the car in anticipation of the departure time - now that would be useful. But there is no menu option on the car where the manual describes it would be. So is it an option (cannot see why it would be) or is it a feature that that has to be disabled in the UK for regulatory reasons?

3. I see lots of frightening stories about transfer box failures on Cayennes and Macans - is that something that only applies to the non-hybrids, or do I need to gird my loins for the expense of a cog box?

4. I'm fairly tech savvy - can anyone offer recommendations for the cheapest way of accessing the onboard diagnostics? I see mention of PIWIS, but devices seem very expensive.

Thanks in anticipation

[Cheib]

Can’t help with all of that but no SatNav seems odd. What I can tell you is that cars from late 2016 came with an updated PCM “PCM3” which included Apple Car Play. No DAB is a disaster spec wise, cost option still on Porsche’s, you can get round SatNav with a phone mount but DAB is a pain. My early 2017 Cayenne has USB in the central arm rest cubby hole and two in the rear in the bottom of that unit. Without that USB under the Arm Rest you couldn’t use Car Play as the Porsche version requires phone to be connected with cable.

Mine is an S Diesel so can’t help on Hybrid issues. They’re fantastic cars, new Cayenne doesn’t have the same quality for me.

Transfer box is something that you will feel at low speeds when pulling away from junctions etc. Mine is just starting to show signs on 45k miles.

[David W.]

I would get in touch with my nearest Porsche centre and make appointment with someone at service desk there.
Topics of conversation would be service schedule requirements, extended warranty and get the car on their system. I’m sure they would also look over the car spec and give you any advice you need, I know the one I use would.