I'm having some problems with my PCM 3.0, which is regularly shutting down/rebooting as well as struggling to work well with my iPod (which is brand new and stays connected in the car). My C4S Cab is a CPO car (I picked it up 2 months ago), and I've already have to take it back to the P Dealer twice in the last 2 weeks to get this sorted out. They claim it is a software issue, so they first upgraded the firmware from version 1.0 to 1.44. After that, the problem actually got worse as it started affecting my iPhone (which was NOT a problem before). They then told me that they had a corrupted firmware upgrade disc the first time, so I had me bring it a second time. Unfortunately, The problem has not been fixed, and is going back to the Dealer on Monday for a third try at solving this.

I have to assume that if the 2 firmware fixes didn't get this right, them it must be a hardware problem with the PCM unit itself. And since I specifically bought a CPO car to guard against stuff like this, I assumed that they would be more than ready to now address this as a hardware replacement issue. But when I said this to the Dealer on Friday, he gave me the very strong impression that they will do everything to avoid replacing the unit. I'm not at all happy that a CPO car with a twice-failed problem is not getting an immediate hardware replacement solution.

So I guess my 2 questions are:

1. Has anyone else had these kind of PCM 3.0 problems of regular shut down/rebooting and iPod lock up?
2. Have others had this kind of reluctance by their P Dealer to immediately address recurring problems on a CPO car?

Sorry for the frustrated post, but I'm not very happy with the service and attention that I'm getting from my local Porsche dealer (who sold it to me) on this issue, particularly given that it's a CPO car which I had assumed would avoid this kind of stuff. Thanks for any advice and experience that you guys may have had on either of these topics.

 

Which dealer?
Insist that they replace the entire PCM unit, they'll have to get pcna approval.

 

Before you assume it's hardware, you should get on the latest firmware which is 2.23.

It comes with the 2012 map upgrade and probably the recently-released 2013 also.

 

I had the PCM turn itself off once in my 3 months of ownership after my iphone hung up while on a bluetooth call via the PCM... its rebooted but turned off again. It was back to normal after restarting the car... never happened since.

 

Thanks for all of the helpful input on this. I dropped off the car today with the P Dealer this morning and requested that they first install the latest firmware 2.23 as DJSArcade suggested to see if that sorts out the problem (and gets me a "free" map update from my current 2010 version!). Otherwise, as a CPO car I am expecting to have the entire PCM unit replaced.

Fingers crossed that the third time will be the charm on this, and I'll let everyone know how it all works out when I get the car back later this week. In the meantime, I'm busy beating up the 2013 Boxster S Cab that they gave me as a loaner for the week! Thanks again to everyone for the great input!

 

You really scored - that map upgrade cost me over $700 installed! (Cost of disk plus labor to install it, even though the "labor" consisted of swapping discs a few times and waiting)

 

Simple.
PCO = replace the head unit.
Demand it.

 

I just updated this in a separate thread as well ....

So after 5 trips back to the P Dealer, and after many hours of the Tech guy on the phone with the PCM specialist at Porsche NA, we have finally solved (at least for now) the problems I was having with my PCM (which was locking up and rebooting regularly).

They ended up completely wiping out all previous iPod and iPhone profiles off the PCM. We then slowly introduced each device to ensure that it didn't keep falling over. The iPod was successful, so after 3 days of no problems, I reconnected my iPhone 5 via BlueTooth. I noticed that my iPod was having some problems becoming available very slowly after I reinstalled my iPhone, so I had to assume that the iPhone was triggering the problems. I tried turning OFF the "Auto Update" feature on the phonebook, and that seems to have now stopped the problems. Since I have so many contacts, the phonebook was loading up every time time I started the car, which was locking up the iPod and sometimes making it crash. Now that I have loaded the phonebook onto the PCM once, it is now stored locally so I have turned the auto update feature off and I have apparently solved the problem!

This was an enormous pain, and quite frankly I can't understand how the P Dealer was unable to trouble-shoot this more effectively. Maybe you guys have had better luck with your Dealers being better informed of the PCM intricacies, but my experience was painful.... They did finally agree that if this set of solutions didn't finally resolve the issue then they would indeed replace the entire PCM unit, but I truly hope this is the last time I have to go back to the Dealer

 

In all fairness to the dealers, the radios are 3rd party manufacture.
I think yours is a Panasonic and most likely the Bluetooth part is Parrot.

Because of this, just like any home PC, you will have comparability issues as technology advances.

Panasonic, talking to Parrot talking to Porsche.
I know. I'm in the industry. Every time there's a new phone, there's a new firmware update. It'll never end.

 

Doesn't have to be that way... Thats why there is a bluetooth standard.. if manufacturers would stick to it and implement things generally rather than making assumptions.. or at least 'fail gracefully' when a problem occurs (such as a huge amount of address book entries).. then it wouldn't be so bad.

But thats just crazy talk,

 

Sorry to revive this thread, but this thing just won't go away!

So after 2 weeks with no PCM crashes, even with the iPhone phonebook no longer auto-updating in my PCM, my PCM started crashing again on Friday. So I dropped it off at the P Dealer for the 6th time yesterday and I just got a call from the service guy.

The P Dealer swears that the probelm is that I have too many contacts in my phonebook, and this is what is creating the crash in the PCM. They claim this has nothing to do with the PCM, and it is result of too many contacts being laoded into the PCM's phonebook. I actualy just loaded my Outlook contact list, and I have 2,435 contacts, so I have some trouble accepting that a 2010 car can't handle a phonebook of that size. So the final test will be to permanently delete my phonebook info from the PCM, then disable my iPhone from loading the phonebook into the PCM. If this eliminates the crashing, then this has isolated the problem and I have to live with not being able to access the phonebook form the PCM (which is not exaclty a major problem).

Has anyone else had this problem? I just have some trouble accepting that this really an issue of to many phonebook entries. If it is indeed true that too many contacts crashes the PCM, then I would expect that: 1) Lots of other people have also experienced this and compained about it, and 2) Porsche would know about it and provide a solution.

Am I the only person with these issues? Any help (or commiseration) would be hugely welcomed!

 

Did you end up getting resolution? My 997.2 Targa's PCM has basically been fine during my entire ownership (3.5 years). It has maybe reset itself two or three times, but nothing that was a problem. This morning it restarted itself literally every 2 minutes (might have been every 1.5 minutes).

I'm going to call my SA, but would be good to know if this is close to the problem you were having (doesn't quite sound like it). And nothing - literally nothing - was different than the last time I drove the car. Same iPhone, same iPod, etc.

 

It turned out that a huge phonebook does indeed crash the PCM 3.0. I had to have them install the latest version of the software, then they wiped the phone book from the PCM memory and deleted my iPhone from the known devices list. I then had to turn off the "synch contacts" function on my iPhone 5 before I paired my phone again.

So while everything now works perfectly well (no more crashes) I don't have access to my contacts on the PCM. It's kind of a pain for a high end car, but at least I have everything back and working fine.

 

Cool - that seems to have done the trick. Thank you for posting. I turned off the contacts sync on the iPhone just for that connection.

Just in case anybody else encounters the same problem - here was the procedure. Delete the connection from both the iPhone and the PCM (telephone, options). Reconnect and then immediately on the iPhone, go to the PCM connection in bluetooth settings (click on the i) and turn off "sync contacts", which will stop the synching process.

Seems to have done the trick.

 

Having this problem as well. I hope turning off the sync contacts on the iPhone does the trick. I already tried unchecking the sync phonebook as well as deleting all the other devices on the PCM. The problem doesn't occur with the bluetooth disabled on the phone however.