So found out my battery is bad and that it will not be covered under warranty since I do not drive more than 6000 miles a year. Cayenne has a 11/2014 build date and has 4500 miles. I drive every other day but work less than 2 miles away. If the car sits for more than a few days I have on a Porsche trickle.

Any options to get this under warranty? My current SA is new to Porsche and he can't do anything. Total cost for a new agm battery, labor and programming $998... I asked him if the battery goes bad again and I don't drive 6000 miles will they deny coverage again and he said yes. Also no other options on a different battery....

 

WTF??? One of the more ridiculous things Porsche has done, and with a $1000 battery

 

Go directly to Porsche with this. The contact info should be in your warranty book.

And as far as the $1,000 battery - it cost me about $200 to change mine with a battery identical to the original battery. There is no programming required or possible, despite what the "service salesman" (accurate term for "service adviser") says. Labor would be less then 1 hour.

"Service Adviser" - a salesman for the service department who is trained to advise you the fastest way to transfer the contents of your wallet to the Porsche dealer's wallet.

 

Actually called Porsche about it and the disclaimer is in the manual. Still don't understand how they can deny it since I'm 1200 miles away from 6000 miles but what can I do right? Going to try the service manager and another dealer but looks like this is coming from pcna.


Can you tell me what year cayenne you have? They said mine required a agm battery which has a chip in that needs to be programmed to the car. Not your typical battery... Total labor with programming is about $250.

 

Mine is a 2011.

I checked into programming the car - there is NO chip in the battery - that's BS. Many modern cars - like BMWs - tailor the charging curve to match the age of the battery. It looks like Porsche tried this on the Cayenne - but the operative word is "tried"..

I have both a Durametric and a ICarScan Porsche specific code readers/diagnostic tools.

The Durametric ignores the battery programming. The ICarScan has a function to do it (you enter battery type, size, date, etc. - the important factors are type, CCA and date) and tell it to program it - and it fails with a communications error. I asked Durametric about it - and they were thinking about it. I checked with an excellent local shop who has all the latest diagnostics stuff - their SnapOn diagnostics could read the settings, but also couldn't write new ones.

So I asked two different dealership service departments to program mine. They were like "What?" "We never do that.." "We just change the battery.." After the first one, I tried another and got exactly the same response.

Giving you an intelligent answer on what battery to use is difficult since there is no information on what model Cayenne you have.. but there are LOTS of aftermarket choices in AGM batteries around. In total - I paid $175 for my replacement one.

It might be worth your while to go to your user settings and add a bit of information about yourself and your Cayenne so people know who they're talking to, and about what. You've been here a LONG time.. I'm surprised you missed doing that.

BTW - you really should take the long way to work. A trip of 2 miles does very little to recharge the power you took out of the battery starting the engine up.. plus nothing on the car gets a chance to warm up, which is super hard on the engine.

 

Go to a Porsche Indy to get the car reset and buy any compatible AGM battery you want. Dealer is ripping you off on the replacement costs. Better still get yourself a set of triple square bits so you can remove the driver seat and replace the battery yourself.

As far as the warranty issue, I'm not surprised since you are basically abusing the battery (and the vehicle). Cranking the car puts a big load on the battery and 2 miles is not remotely enough for the charging system to recover. Your trickle charger may also not be adding enough additional power to keep up with the drains while the car is "off" and also charge it significantly.

Additionally those 2 mile commutes are silently killing your engine and emissions components. Basically the motor is not getting time to warm up which has a few nasty side effects:

1) You're burning more fuel as it never gets out of cold start mode.
2) Because it never gets out of cold start mode, your emissions suck which will burn out your cats quicker.
3) The oil isn't up to operating temp so the engine is not being properly lubricated.
4) The motor is not getting hot enough to burn the impurities (water and dirt) out of the oil which compounds the previous point.
5) Due to the lack of proper heat, it's also building up carbon in the cylinders which will reduce performance and cause other issues.

So the short answer is, get out and drive it more. At least once a week get it out for a good drive that gets it up to temp (oil should be 200+). Then put it in sport mode and flog it a bit so the RPMs stay up. Run it at operating temp for a good 30-60 minutes to make sure the battery has had plenty of time to charge back up and the motor can burn off the crap building up in it.

Don't be surprised if your oil level drops significantly the first time you do this if you haven't changed your oil recently. That will be the water getting burned off (which also means you didn't have as much oil as you thought). Just top it off as needed.

 

What diagnostics tool is the indy going to use to do this? So far I haven't found one that will, and from the response I got from two dealers I suspect the factory tool won't do it either.

 

If it's a good Porsche Indy they'll have the PIWIS just like the dealer, so anything the dealer can do they should be able to do as well.

I've heard mixed messages about if the 958 needs "reprogramming" like the BMWs do so I don't honestly know if it does or does not. As such I wasn't trying to speak to that part of the issue. Just to go somewhere else that isn't as obvious about trying to rip it's customers off

 

Given your driving profile you need to get a trickle charger.

 

Have one running to all my cars. Also got a quote at Indy for about $600 with programming. Guess the new battery needs to be programmed telling the car that a new one has been installed.

Also noticed my voltage shows 7 at startup and goes up to 14 once i get moving. Any idea what the voltage should be before startup and after?

 

A new AGM battery is about $200. It takes maybe 30 minutes to install. As far as I can find - the vehicle can't be programmed for a new battery with anything except a PIWIS - and perhaps not that (none of the dealers service departments I contacted would do it..) Most mechanics won't spend the $15,000 annual rent from Porsche for a PIWIS. Your mechanic is charging you $400/hour for his work. He must be awfully good. Or awfully crooked.

7V at startup means the battery has gone to battery heaven (but you knew that right?) 14V running is fine - shows the charging system still works.

 

Thanks for clarifying the voltage. Never even noticed that info until I had this issue.

The total for the exide battery was $530 installed. They said $330 for the battery and 2-2.5 for labor including the programming. I'll confirm what they are doing regarding programming tomorrow when I drop the car but it was either this or $980 for the dealer... Or I guess I could do it myself but rather not 😅

 

Ah - I'm not that rich. As long as you're willingly being ripped off..

 

The PIWIS is a straight purchase and only about $3000-$3500 the last I looked (still can't justify it for personal use...).

It's the PIWIS/TSI online service (e.g. workshop manuals) that can carry the $15k/year fee for the "all you can eat" option. They used to offer a "credit" option where you bought a block of credits and then burned that down as you opened docs, but they killed that at the beginning of this year which consequently pretty much kills DIY use

Still, $15k is nothing for a Porsche centric shop to have access to all of the Porsche documentation. Especially if they are working on any of the newer cars regularly (991, 981, 958, Panny, and Piglet). They do have some other cheaper price options (e.g. 10 day, 30 day, etc..) too.

Just to flesh that out, the battery should always report 12V when the alternator is not engaged.

 

$1k for a battery replacement? LOL! Are you a GT3RS owner? Lately Porsche dealer's have learned they can take advantage of those people...