Not True. I have a diesel panamera with four zone climate control. but only one AC Compressor. but four blowers I'm told.

 

Open the doors or windows. Set the car on manual temperature and blower speed. Max the speed and drop the temp to minimum.

Measure the temperature coming out of the vents and the time it takes to get there. It should start dropping almost immediately, hitting a bottom temperature after just a few minutes.

This will give you a general idea of the "health" of the ac system.

It isn't perfect, lots of things could be wrong, but if the temperature differential between outside and in the car isn't significant, there is a problem. Could be a simple thing of a blockage of dirt/debris in front of the condenser coils, or it could be low freon or a number of things.

If the temperature difference is significant (the exact drop will depend on the panamera specifics, someone will need to find the details in the workshop manual) then the system is working properly.

One thing to keep in mind, this is a car with lots of material in it. Seats, leather, metal etc. The mass will hold in heat, so a lightweight car will change temperatures much faster than a heavy one, and hold that temperature. This can come across as not having a properly sized AC, but as long as it does get to temperatures you set (after 10-15 minutes) on a hot day, and can hold it there through a long hot drive, it is working well.

 

Also check your radiator fins if they don't have any debris. It can influence cooling.

 

I have a 2013 Panny S hybrid. My A/C is also anemic. I will have it checked when I bring it in for my 2 year service. From what I have read here, a fix is likely to be a lost cause.

 

I have a 2015 Panamera GTS with 4-zone climate control.

According to MY owners manual, Mono does not equalize all 4 zones, only syncs the front right and front left.

To control the rear 2 zones from the front seat, I'm to press and hold the front passenger-side Auto button until the right side display says Auto and then underneath it, the word Rear. Then you can change the temperature settings for the rear left and rear right.


Also, it says that when you press Max AC, the rear zones are disabled.

 

Hi everyone:

I'm glad I came across this thread. I had the same problem with the AC on my Panamera GTS. I never paid much attention to it, the fact that the car is fairly new (2014) and last summer was not nearly as hot as this year. In addition to anemic AC, I noticed more than a fair share of fogging during the winter. I went to my local dealer (I live in Switzerland), they've diagnosed the problem fairly quickly and it turned out to be a faulty control module underneath the dashboard. No questions asked, it was a warranty job, 15 hours of labor to take the dashboard out and replace the faulty module. Now everything is working as it should, air circulates as it should through all vents and AC blows cold air as it should, with no waiting time, regardless how long the car has been sitting on the sun. So, I'd recommend to all of you to make a case with Porsche service-I believe this issue should be addressed as part of a general service campaign, but Porsche has been rather mute about it. Never had any issues of this sort with my previous cars, they were all 911s.
Regards,
Andrej

 

the AC on our '15 GTS (4 zone) is the coldest we've experienced in any car we've been in. Especially if the "max ac" setting is selected -- believe that when max is selected on the 4 zone system, both zone systems are directed to the front simultaneously. Our GTS is dark green (brewster green) making us doubly-impressed. (fwiw)

 

Thanks for the tip, I will try this. I dont recall seing this in the manual, so this could be a new feature for 14-present Panameras.

 

Andrej, glad your dealer was able to locate this issue. I'm surprised Porsche designed AC in such a way that to replace the faulty module you need to brind down the entire dash board... Can you describe how bad was your AC? I think mine is not as bad, just not very cold, but cold, so it's hard for me to make a case with Porsche, because my dealer says air is blowing cold. I'm trying to locate someone locally with the same 13 model and 4 zone to compare.

My PDK has also been inconsistent in how it works. I'm noticing some gear shifts under the car upon coming to a complete stop, which is super annoying. This however happens only if in auto mode, if i'm in manual mode, PDK also downshift automatically but doesn't behave the same way. I've driven many Porsche cars with PDK and none of them ever did that, but yet my dealer tells me its "normal"....

 

I am with you guys on the Air conditioner temp. I also find that having the center vent selected in the a/c menu gives next to nothing from that vent.

 

I just noticed that the air temp. on the drivers side is about 10 degrees warmer that the passenger side under max settings. Anyone notice this?

 

Sorry for my late reply, I've been away on vacation. Regarding the AC, it wasn't cold on my side at all, passenger's side was a bit colder. Also, the major issue was that no cold air was coming out from above the dashboard vents, at first a thought it is the color of my dashboard (black leather) that is absorbing all the heat comng through the windshield. Now everything is as it should be. Regarding the PDK, I've noticed on occasion a gear shift when coming to a stop, probably similar to what you've described. I'm not sure it is a mechanical flaw, it feels like there is a lag time with downshifts, but only when coming to a stop. It could be a pure software driven thing, it is so subtle, that it doesn't really annoy me, but it is noticeable on occasion. I had the same thing with my 911 turbo S (997, year 2011), but it was a lot rougher, again it came about only when coming to a stop. I'm not an expert on PDK, but the way this thing is designed and given it's coming from a racing heritage, it appears this is not a sign of failing transmission. I still have more than 2 years of warranty on my car-enough time to think about the next Porsche. One thing I forgot to mention, I never switch into the manual mode by shifting the gear lever into a manual mode. I use only paddle shifters and when in high speed highway situations requiring a lot of overtaking, I use only paddle shifters to keep the revs in the optimal range. On twisty roads, I switch to SPORT and still use paddle shifters, when needed.

Regards,
Andrej

 

I haven't had an issue with the A/C. Today when it was 97F outside the A/C blowing out of the driver's vent measured 50F. It wasn't set at max, just at 60 and medium blower.

I've had this '13 GTS in Death Valley in 123F temps and the A/C still didn't need to be turned up all the way. It even cooled the car fairly quickly after sitting in the sun during lunch. The car does have the termal glass and I'm sure that helps with sitting in the sun..

 

Although A/C is probably the last thing on most of our minds right now, I realized that I never posted an update on this thread about my experience.

You can see my previous posts for specifics of the issues I was having. To summarize, I got a grinding/whining noise at or near idle that was clearly linked to the A/C being engaged, and happened only after I had been driving about 20 minutes and the A/C system was on light load. Also, the A/C system seemed not to be up to par with any other car I've driven. If you left it in the hot sun for an hour after driving (so engine bay was hot) it would absolutely not cool down until you started moving. I took it to the dealer and they ran a check on the system and said it was functioning properly. Since it was a hot day and it had been sitting in the sun, I started it up for them and after 10 minutes the system was still blowing warm air.

Thankfully, the service manager at my local dealership is actually quite good, so I did some more research to beef up my case, and eventually he arranged for me to ride with the Porsche service rep when he was next in town. He verified the noise and did some calling to other dealerships in the southwest. Eventually, they ended up replacing the A/C compressor, one of the A/C lines, the expansion value, and receiver driver (not sure what that is). Now I have no more grinding/whining noise and my A/C is much more effective. I still wouldn't call it fantastic, but it is plenty adequate for Northwest summers so I am quite happy now.

Here is what I learned from them and from my research. It seems that there have been some cooling issues affecting a minority of Panameras. Dealerships in hot climates should be familiar with them and good sources of info. From what I could gather, they mainly arise from design of parts rather than the design as a whole, and Porsche has been addressing them via design/supplier updates. What they ended up doing to my car was basically the standard repair done in hot climates. The A/C line they replaced had been known to collapse under extreme load. This was the theory behind why my A/C seemed to blow adequately cold during testing but was still anemic under high load conditions. The compressor clutches also sometimes have problems, leading to the noise and possibly reduced performance (I did not get a feeling for how common this was, but it has been seen before). The expansion value and receiver driver have been updated since mine was built (mid-2013) and were replaced opportunistically.

I hope this info is helpful to any others out there experiencing cooling issues. This forum has really been an invaluable resource, and thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.

 

I had intermittent A/C problems on my 2012 PTT. To make a very long and painful story shorter, the root cause was metal debris from a defective compressor flowing downstream to the desiccant/dryer and expansion valve. This caused gradual icing in the evaporator and gradually reduced airflow. At its worst, the A/C was completely blocked with zero airflow. The problem generally occurred after 30 minutes to 3 hours of driving with the A/C on.

It took 5 repair attempts and escalation to Porsche North America before this was corrected. The dealers could not duplicate the problem and were not very energetic about diagnosing it thoroughly, since they generally get reimbursed only for authorized warranty repairs based on verified symptoms. It working perfectly now, with consistently strong airflow.

I took a video of the symptoms, and escalated the problems, and finally got a proper resolution. I hope this information will help others solve their problems more easily than I was able to!