My cayenne has the tell tale signs of drive shaft failure. took it to the dealer, and they agreed. quoted me 2000ish to fix it. f that.

So i see there are 2 options:
1) re manufactured shaft from vertex, or what ever the company is, or
2) buy a new bearing and give it to and indy shop to do/DIY

how hard of a job is either option for a DIY'er? I know the exhaust needs to come out. Are there any special tools required?

How much could I expect a shop to charge me to fit a new bearing?

i KNOW i have seen a DIY on the forum somewhere, but I am having a very hard time finding it.

 

I would think it would pretty easy DIY'er job. There's a company who makes a slip on carrier bearing and take 1 hour to install...the video is on youtube. $2000 is alot, wow.

 

cool, ill check out the youtube when i get home from work. thanks for heads up.

yeah i think they wanted 1200 for the part + 700 labor

 

I crawled under the car to take a look at my drive shaft bearing. Does this look like the culprit?

When I took it to the dealer, he just poked his head under and said 'yup that's it!'. I really had to look hard to find the bearing, I'm doubting he even looked lol.

 

yea that looks like it

 

Thanks for the help. I think I am going to order the new vertex bearing that installs without having to drop the shaft.

It's 500$ though, compared to the 80$ bearing that requires you dropping the shaft

Hmmm decisions

 

yup, that's it

 

I can't recall if it was this forum, or one of the other Cayenne forums - but one person who did install the Vertex bearing ended up removing it and replacing the shaft. It transferred a lot of vibration to the chassis of the car.

A few thoughts on the Vertex idea..

1 - It won't work IF the bearing actually has failed, and IMHO, I'd bet a lot of failures of the rubber carrier are caused by the bearing starting to bind and putting rotational force on the carrier, tearing it. The $500 quicky cure does nothing at all for the bearing, it uses your existing bearing. IMHO - a bad idea.

2 - It costs more then a rebuilt driveshaft from the same place. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

3 - It's not that hard to replace the driveshaft. There are a lot of threads around where people replaced it without removing the exhaust - just loosening it enough to wiggle the shaft in and out. It has been claimed that it is a 30 minute job, and looking at it under my P!G, if you have access to a lift - I can't see it taking more then 1 hour (apparently getting the rear off the center diff MAY be a bit of a task, but there are threads showing how to do it - somewhere.)

IMHO - I didn't see any signs of a torn carrier in the photo you provided. I do see some rust from the bearing area which might indicate it's been submerged more then once (which depending on how well sealed it is - may be a precursor to failure.)

What classic symptoms are you experiencing?

 

I've been experiencing a lot of clunking at low speeds


I posted the picture bc it didn't look torn to me either. FYI. The car is in new England, I drive it year round, and it's not garaged. That would help explain the rust. Car has 101k miles on it

 

Given the number of shafts, bearings and universals/CV-joints on a Cayenne.. there are lots of other potential causes of clunking. Is it a rhythmic clunk that varies with road speed?

 

Hey DEilenberger: Aren't you the guy who used to carry an extra cardan shaft in the car 'just in case'? (My in car parts store is only carrying extra bulbs) Hope the shaft gives me some warning, I've got 58K on my S, and went underneath and checked for play in the bearing, found none, and the shaft looks newly painted! Btw love reading your posts.

 

it does not really seem rhythmic. it seems to correspond with giving it a little gas at slow speeds.

Since posting, it has seemed to go away lol.

 

Thanks! And I only carry the bearing assembly around with me (especially when I took it cross-country and back.. there are some states with no Porsche dealers..)

 

Ah.. I get a tiny bit of shudder under those conditions, sometimes, not always.. I suspect it's a fueling problem (possibly a slow MAF sensor, or perhaps the electronic throttle needs syncing..) It's going to the good dealer I found in NJ (Princeton Porsche) on Weds for that and a few other tiny things that need attention.. Let'cha know if they can figure anything out.

 

I just replaced mine at about 90k.

Start out as a low grumble in parking lots, eventually destroyed the whole rubber piece.

I have rebuilt a ton of driveshafts in my life so I ordered the $110 bearing. Tore my shaft apart to find that my cv itself was pretty bound up. Pressed on the new bearing and could never get the shaft to rotate cleanly like it should.

So then I resorted to buying a rebuilt shaft locally for about $550. Just drop the front of the exhaust down, 8 easy bolts. Then you have access to unbolt and install the new shaft.

I have had to rebuild or replace driveshafts on nearly every high performance or custom car I have ever had. Don't really think the shaft failures on the Cayenne are that big of a deal.