I happened to be in my independents shop this afternoon (BS'ing, the P!G is running fine..) and noticed a brochure - with a Cayenne cluster on the front cover (along with other instrument clusters..)

Brochure says they can fix Cayenne (and Tuareg) clusters..

http://www.bba-reman.com/catalogue/D...edProduct=1398

Dunno the cost - they apparently can do it on an exchange basis, so dunno how that works with the odometer.

Just a FWIW.. (no experience with them, I'm just passing on the info..)

 

My guess is they would program the new one before it leaves. All the info is saved in the cluster. ie miles options etc.

 

Interesting. Does Porsche also store the info somewhere else in the car?

BMW stores it in another place - (the Light-Control-Module) and if the two don't match - a tamper dot/light appears next to the odometer readout in the cluster.

On BMWs - if you replace either the cluster or the LCM - they have to be programmed to each other, and the higher mileage of the two is used (so if your cluster was removed, and you kept driving, when the cluster was restored to service - the mileage recorded by the LCM is set in the odometer readout.) It requires a dealers diagnostics computer to sync the two devices and avoid the tamper dot.

It would surprise me if Porsche didn't do the same sort of thing. BMW did it to keep lessee's honest (although a bit of searching will turn up equipment - most made in Russia and China - that claims to enable "correcting" erroneous BMW mileage readouts..)

 

I believe Porsche stores all the mileage info in the cluster only so the would be able to program it with the correct info before sending you a replacement.

 

I just went through the Cayenne service manual on "Instrument Cluster" - and nowhere in it do they talk about coding or programming it. Grrrrr... the repair instructions consist of a single line "Replace Cluster"..

 

If you were to install a new cluster into your cayenne, the mileage would be 0 which you know isn't right. Also with all of the diff options available for the cayennes like tpms, rear mounted spare, etc you have to let the replacement cluster know what that car has. If you installed a used or remain cluster it would have the options and mileage of the orig car programed into it. I know from experience when a few years ago when I tried to upgrade my s to a turbo cluster. The miles were not the same that was on my car. I found a guy in fl who would correct the mileage on my new " used" cluster if I wanted. I ended up not going through with it because I didn't want the hassle

 

Don is right there are other alternatives to replacing you instrument cluster such as a repair. The Cayenne cluster is almost identical to the Volkswagen Touareg and the Bentley Continental GT.
What we have found is that the Porsche Turbo’s, the Bentley Continental’s and the high end sport Touareg’s with the color LCD’s is that the backlights fail in either the color display and/or the cluster backlight. Basically the neon transformers blow out. The lower end version of these instrument clusters, with the amber/red LCD, have a typical issue where the LCD starts to fade out. Both clusters are fixable.

On the high end clusters when the transformer blows it can cause more damage and sometimes a complete circuit board replacement is necessary. So to answer smalone01 we can transfer the mileage and vehicle data over without having to recode. Therefore the cluster you get back is the same as what you took out.

More food for thought as we are seeing more of these instrument clusters break.