Sadly, this is a not uncommon. I recently went through a 2 month ordeal caused by the terminal PASM failure on the damptronics. Similar story, my car started throwing PASM failure codes, dealer had a hard time diagnosing so they were sent off to Bilstein in California. Long story short the defect lies in the design of the front dampers, where the wire exits the base of the damper body. This is in contrast to the OEM PASM damper with wires on top- out of harms way. There is a plastic cap at the base, this cap can impinge upon the wires as they enter the damper body and into the solenoid. This will cause the terminal failure, terminal because not simply the wire but the whole shock body must be replaced.
Bilstein was helpful when I got in contact with them- which can be hard to do. Unfortunately, the warranty didn't cover all and I had to pay some out of pocket. Bilstein has seen this problem several times. The day mine shipped out they received another set off a 997TT with the same problem. This appears to be a design flaw, their QA department is looking into it. The damptronics are a great coilover, but I need something more reliable and less fragile.

 

Reading these stories make me think if and when my Bilstein Damptronic fails, I am going to replace the Damptronic version with the Bilstein B16 version.

Same shock absorber, without the gimmicky (but admittedly "handy," at times) PASM. Not only there is then no risk of electronics failure -- no doubt a horror story in the making anytime, but arguably the "better" coilover since the 10 manual settings allow true personalized setting of dampening force.

 

The number of Bilstein failures reported on this forum is pretty staggering considering the probable small number of actual Damptronic owners represented here.

Fortunately, aside from that one horror story posted a few months ago, none of the failures have been 'catastrophic'. But when the wiring goes to crap and PASM defaults to the 'firm' setting, the car is unbearable to drive.

Can, hopefully, yours will hold out. But I would look into your other options now

(as a side note, I seem to have terrible luck with suspensions. I did switch over to KW's after I threw the Bilsteins in the trash. About 6 months later with my car at EVOMS for the power upgrade, they noticed the rear drivers shock was blown - oil everywhere. No idea what happened. Justin@Rennsport-1 has been great in getting this warrantied and will hopefully have a replacement on very soon.)

 

Hi Ed, wow you do have some bad luck with moddings!

KW is a great alternative, but I think I will stay with Bilstein. One reason is that I like to use the same company that develops the OEM Turbo suspension. The other is that Lucent Motors has tuned this suspension to be the epitome of a daily driver, at least for me. I live in a mountainous area and I just LOVE how this baby hugs the twisty roads and how firm the steering is, GT3 like in both aspects. (Yes I am in love. )

The Bilstein B16 is essentially the same type of coilover as all the rest: purely mechanical, without electronics components to fail. I think I should add a line in my Bilstein thread for others to consider this over the Damptronic from now on.

 

My problem is that the connector wire extended more than the limit and the plug was damaged.
I had to leave the car at the dealer

 

I would like to think that if all of this is due to a crimped wire as Doug describes above, that Bilstein could come up with some type of protective retrofit or wiring alternative that would keep it from happening in the future. But then again, I'm not an engineer........

 

Obviously the Porsche OEM specs are much more stringent, or else crapstein would have done those the same way....but didn't. I suspect it's much cheaper to do it the way they do in the damn-tronics, and I'm sure the've run the stats/#s and determined most owners either don't keep the car long enough, don't drive it enough (DD), wouldn't know, or don't care. So their aftermarket crap should be just fine with 90% of customers!
I will say this; of all the mods I've ever done on any porsche, this was the worst by a wide margin, glad I switched them out.....but some folks seem to love them.

 

It's amazing to me that they would not simply have a screw on metal endcap on such an expensive item. Why in the world did they place the wire at the bottom of the damper?? This is the achilles heel of the damptronic. There is good reason the factory part has the wire thru the top of the damper. The OEM PASM damper is actually quite robust compared to the aftermarket damptronic, it can be tossed around the garage in a box and still work as good as new.
Right now I'm back to stock. The regular "old school" PSS10/B16 is a good thought. But I'm going with some Ruf springs and Gt3 control arms or a set of Motons next.

 

I had the Blisten Damptronic installed on my Cayman S before. After a few months the PASM failed and the check light came on several times. I am quite disappointed at this. Then the suspension went bad afterwards. I think it was due to the plugs being wet in the rain or something.