2012 CS Rants
 

First, I'd like to say that I still would have purchased the CS for the wife and I really love it. But these annoying things keep it from being perfect. Over-engineer much?

1. Cruise control is a "hard button" Meaning it is always ON until you turn it off. An accidental push on the stalk if it is ON can make a Toyota situation.
2. Radio is always on and vehicle does not remember that I muted it when I leave. If I am in an underground parking structure, this means that I will be greeted with static upon starting the car.
3. The recirculate air button insists that it will default back to outside air every 5 mins... during driving nonetheless. So if you are following a polluting car on the highway, you will have to deal with the exhaust fumes entering the cabin or turn off the HVAC system completely.
4. The Light Comfort Package insists that the cool LED doorstrips are ON along with the footwell lights and the overhead Horseshoe light. Makes me feel like I am being given the 3rd degree in a police interrogation room. What's worse is that if I dim it to the lowest setting, if I accelerate it will cause the alternator to surge a lil bit of power, the Horseshoe glows brighter and dimmer according to the throttle pedal. Ridiculous!
5. The Nav system can provide up to 3 route options to choose from. However, if you are traveling say, more than 100 mls, the little map zooms out so much that Route 1 , Route 2 and Route 3 look exactly the same. They should offer a "route list" option so I can accurately choose the route I want.
6. Interior lights should either be all LED or all incandescents. The random mix makes it seem like LEDs were an afterthought or a project done halfway.
7. There should be consistency among those red indicators on the buttons. For example, Auto-Start Stop LED ON means that feature is OFF. Yet LCA LED ON means that LCA is ON. Parking distance LED ON means Parking Distance is OFF. Sport Button LED ON means it is ON. Pick one or the other and go with it, Porsche!
8. Although the Tach in Gray Background designates S or Turbo, it is hard to read at a glance in daylight since it is a Light Gray Background with White Numbers. I would prefer the V6's black background.

Just had to get it off my chest. Bimmers and Mercs have similar, but different annoyances. Just German quirks and such, I guess. Still love the CS and I still think it is the best choice by far of all available SUVs on the market. Just wish they would correct these little counter-intuitive and lameduck annoyances.

Feel free to add to this list.

Ah... The things that never surface during a 5 minute test drive.

I appreciate this information.

Don't get me started on the rear seat entertainment. Usually these systems justify their ridiculous prices with the close integration with the car but not these. Each one is an independent unit not connected to the car in anyway. You can even run them when the car is off. The only way to listen is through the headphones. I have two small children who will not wear the headphones and since there is no way to play the audio over the car's speakers, it's a useless $3000 option. There is also no way to control the units from the front so it's great that my wife has to lean back between the seats to operate them for the kids. I contacted Nav-TV and some of the best installers in the country and they say the units have no outputs and cannot be connected to the stereo. My wife's Cadillac, and pretty much every other car, allows you to control the video from the front, play the video in the front and listen to the audio over the car's speakers. I should have gone for an aftermarket unit that did al this for half the price.

Didn't know they are not integrated with PCM. In that case you could have gotten a Phillips dual screen DVD player for $150...

I just want the damn memory seat to work

Can't you just turn off the memory, adjust to your liking, and don't let anyone else drive your Cayenne?:)

3. The recirculate air button insists that it will default back to outside air every 5 mins... during driving nonetheless. So if you are following a polluting car on the highway, you will have to deal with the exhaust fumes entering the cabin or turn off the HVAC system completely.

What about deactivated Automatic air-recirculation mode in the Multi-Purpose Display?

1- The cruise control activation is a 2 step process. First you have to hit the button on the end of the stock to turn it on, then you have to push it forward to set the speed. Not exactly prone to accidental operation, and even if you do tapping the brakes disengages the system, so NO there will be no Toyota situation. If there is, then someone shouldn't be driving as they have no business in a car.

2-Radio, again if you are in a place that is going to cause static when you start the car, it was more than likely static when you stopped the car, so either turn your radio way down or turn it off(not mute) or turn on the CD and be done with it till you get back out into the open again.

3- The recirculating air, sorry plain and simple I don't have this issue. I can leave it on and it stays on. Maybe as some one pointed out your setting in the PCM are causing your system to revert to fresh air, I don't know as mine doesn't do it.

4/6- LED the footwell and Horseshoe are just part of the system, if it bugs don't use it.

I will agree about the hodgepodge of mixed lights though, even my Son's Q5 has all interior LED light, makes no sense that A "high end" Porsche doesn't.

5-Never dealt with so have no comments.

7- The auto stop button actually say Auto Stop Off so having the light on would indicate it is off. Sport isn't activated so having the light on does indicate it is active. The parking sensors are on by default so pushing the button would indicate off. I don't know I'm fine with it and it makes sense to me, and doesn't bother me at all.

8- I have no problems with the RPM gauge clearly visible to me, again maybe a personal thing.

I decided against the entertainment system as well. Doesn't even integrate into the 6 changer CD if you get that which I didn't. I found some pretty nice iPAD2 mounts that mount on the front seat headrest posts. That give the back seaters all the entertainment they would want and is easily removed/installed and upgradable.

I have tried that and I believe that it is only for allowing the system to determine the quality of outside air and turn ON recirculate when it feels the need to. However, coming back from vegas, I was forced to follow a Semi downhill, where his brakes were so hot, it was smoking. The auto recirc did not sense the "bad air" and stayed on "outside air".

I suggest you deactivate the function in PCM. The Air-recir light will still on but only recirculating inside air.

I'm not sure about other cars, but for all the cars I have, I'd never allow the computer to determine the air-recirculation for me. It never seems to work..

1. It is a 2 step process. However, having the cruise control always ready to act (hard ON) is a feature I do not recall in any other premium brand. When you shut down the car, it should default to off, like the sport button that activates partial PSM (Sport button). I think if the car is shut off, cruise can default to OFF.

2. Problem is, even if it is muted (which I really don't listen to radio all that much anyway) or having the radio turned all the way down, you will still encounter static upon re-entering the vehicle, even if it is faint. So you are incorrect to assume that I entered the parking structure listing to "static;" I wasn't listening to anything. And to turn off the entire PCM like a home audio system when I exit, or having to put a CD track just to avoid this is borderline ludricrous. How about the radio just stay on mute like every other car in the world? Any other workaround is a band-aid fix.

3. Please take notice next time you are on the highway. Hit the recirculate button so it lights up. Give it about five minutes and tell me if it reverts back to LED OFF during your drive. I understand that if you shut down and restart it defaults to OFF (outside air) to air out condensation which causes that mildew smell, but overiding my wishes as a drver every 5 minutes is downright annoying. Imagine having to follow a polluting car on a stuffy day on a 2 lane road. You have a choice of turning HVAC off and dealing with the stuffiness or hitting that recirc button every 5 minutes as you are driving. As I stated before, that PCM option you speak of is letting the system evaluate outside air quality and turning on Recirc when it feels the need to. Didn't work as it suppose to when I was forced to follow a semi with smoking brakes. If your's do stay LIT (LED ON) during your highway stint, I will add it to my list to tell my service advisor next time she is in the shop. Thanks.

4. I paid only a little bit for this Light Comfort Package ($250 to be exact). I like having the mood lighting (LED strips) ala new Mercs and late model BMWs. Porsche allows control of every single light more than any other brand. I can control front and rear dome from the overhead separately, I can dim the map lights on all four outboard seats, I can dim ambient light, dash light, multi function display and PCM display separately. Why not allow the driver to adjust the Comfort Lighting separately? The door strip lights are truly considered ambient lighting, yet forces you to turn on Horseshoe Dome Light along with it!

On top of that, try dimming it (Horseshoe, Footwell and Strips) to a minimum and drive it on a dark highway. When you rev up the engine, the Horseshoe grows brighter and dimmer as the alternator kicks more juice to the system. To me, that is a design flaw. And yes, I can (and have) turned it off, but like I stated before, not using it or finding a work around is a band-aid fix to an engineering oversight.

7. I can (and will) eventually get used to some LEDs off means on and ON means OFF. And I do acknowledge that they are labeled as such. However, from an ergonimic standpoint, ON should mean ON and OFF should mean OFF. I should not have to think about it when I glance over it.

For example

The car defaults SPORT to OFF. When you start the car the Sport LED is also off OFF.
The LCA defaults to last setting, which for the wife and me, it is ON. So when the car starts, LCA LED is ON.
Child window lock button is default to OFF for my settings. So when car starts, LED is OFF..... so far this makes sense.

But car defaults to AutoSS OFF. Upon starting the LED is ON (even though it is labeled OFF). Why? Why have a button that must be lit to tell you it is OFF. Wouldn't it make more sense to have it the conventional way than through some loopy logic (when the LED is ON, it means the feature is OFF. when the LED is OFF, it means the feature is ON)?

Parking Sensors default to ON all the time. An OFF'd LED means Parking Distance is actually ON. And vice versa. See loopy logic for AutoSS.

8. I agree with you here. It is personal preference. My preference for the Tach is high contrast numbers and background. For me, at least, the contrast is minimal with Light Gray and white.

Please do let me know if you find out about the recirc button. If it is a bug, I'd like my dealer to fix it.

I've tried it the PCM both ways. It still turns off the Recirc back to outside air. The button is to allow it to activate Recirc if it needs to (which never works right), but regardless of the setting, default (even when I'm driving) is to turn off recirc and give me outside air every 5 minutes if I hit the button, or forever if I don't fiddle with it.

Passenger Airbag Off Warning is constantly on even with no passenger. Cannot recall this happening in any other vehicle. Only when something of weight or a person is in the seat without buckling up should I need to heed this warning. On city streets, no biggie. On a dark highway with no passenger, this yellow warning light can be annoying.

This issue was referenced in another thread (couldn't find it). I believe the solution involved a precisely cut piece of black electrical tape.