where are the Porsche cayenne expo builds?

Cole

Expedition Leader
My bro is looking at an older cayenne turbo s to replace his expedition EL. Being an older rig, and paying a lot of money for it, are these turbo rigs money pits if something goes wrong?


Lots of reading on the internet on this. Lots of Turbos out there running over 200-300K miles. Most of the ones in the 100K mile range have been pretty reliable. There are a few common known issues, most of those are normal maintenance type things the others are usually "one and done" updates.

I've had my 04 Turbo for 7 years. It has 133K on it and I've put roughly $2500 into it, and that includes the tune and some upgrade parts.
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
Ok, are parts etc more expensive than other models?

I suppose that depends on the part and what other model you are comparing it to.


I looked up Toyota Land Cruiser control arms awhile back and they cost just slightly more than the Cayenne.
 

smithh

New member
So does anyone reliably know how to lift a cayenne on air suspension, and / or do an override switch for the extra terrain level that drops once a low speed is reached?
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
So does anyone reliably know how to lift a cayenne on air suspension, and / or do an override switch for the extra terrain level that drops once a low speed is reached?


You just want it to lift back up to the highest setting when you slow down? Mall crawling?
 

smithh

New member
Sorry should be more clear. The cayenne has an extra height setting that drops back to terrain level once a threshold speed is reached (this is quite low like 20kph or something), this means that between obstacles a short burst of speed will cause the suspension to drop again. As a result, I am constantly flicking the switch to get it back into highest setting. I figure you could set a switch to cut the speed feed into the controller, that would prevent this whilst off road,

Alternatively, if I could lift the whole car a bit, that might help as well. There dont seem to be many Cayennes used off road, which makes it hard to get info. I've got tons of Cayenne questions, but this if the first.

I've also asked if the factory rock rails support jacking (I'm guessing not!), but would like to know.
 

kojackJKU

Autism Family Travellers!
Since the Porsche is a VW based car, would the vag com work on it? I know that there was a group of settings you could change on the touareg that would bypass the speed limit. The thing is, the cayenne was never intended to be an off road rig. More of a awww **** theres 4 inches of snow on the way to the cigar shop type vehicle. Yes it can do it since its touareg underneath, but 99.9 percent of cayenne drivers don't want to get their loafers dirty.
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
If the air hose is plugged into the seat base the car won't adjust its height. Some guys use a "plug" to trick it into staying at losing level.




Since the Porsche is a VW based car, would the vag com work on it? I know that there was a group of settings you could change on the touareg that would bypass the speed limit. The thing is, the cayenne was never intended to be an off road rig. More of a awww **** theres 4 inches of snow on the way to the cigar shop type vehicle. Yes it can do it since its touareg underneath, but 99.9 percent of cayenne drivers don't want to get their loafers dirty.


First, it's the other way around. The platform was co-developed, but Porsche was the primary design house. The Touareg was the byproduct.

Secondly, they share some parts but there is far more that's different than the same. The entire electrical system is different, it's not VAG-COM compatible. You need the Porsche system to access it.

The engines are completely different. The transmission is mechanicaly the same, the torque split in the transfer case is different, gear ratios different, suspension springs, businings, tuning, rates, sway bars, tuning, all different.

The Cayenne was actually designed to be an off road and a tow vehicle. Moab was even one of the factories test locations.

The Caeyene was available with lockers, rock rails, steel skid plates, auto disconnecting anti-sway bar, rear tire carrier, dual batteries, on board air, hill hold, built in roof rails, air suspension, 2:73:1 low range gear box, and a deep low first gear and fits 32s stock. This is littlerally more off road and back country options than you can get on a Jeep from the factory.

After dominating the Transsyberia Ralley multiple years in a stock Cayenne S (safety and recovery equipment were allowed changes)

Then you could even buy Transsyberia editions that could include light bars and other additional options not available before.
 
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smithh

New member
Hi,

The plug trick is a good idea, I might try that. I assume I can get a spare from Porsche directly.

Cole - you seem to know your way around a fair bit. Do you have one? I've got some other questions that I would like to ask......

As to the people that think that we shouldn't use a cayenne offroad - I get it, it may not be sensible, clever or rational. But thats not always why we do this. I mainly do trails and a bit of sand dunes. The rest of the time the car does the school run. It needs to carry the family safely and in comfort, which it does very well. The challenge is keeping it still reasonably standard, but give it a little edge for some safe overlanding. Plus the V8 of the GTS sounds brilliant in the desert! :)

I've got a little dune run plan this weekend, will try out the plug using the hose to see if it works.

Keen to find out what other people with these cars has done.

Regards

Hugh
 

kojackJKU

Autism Family Travellers!
Wow, did not know you could factory order a cayenne with all the off road stuff. that's pretty awesome.....learn sumptin new!
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
Hi,

The plug trick is a good idea, I might try that. I assume I can get a spare from Porsche directly.

Cole - you seem to know your way around a fair bit. Do you have one? I've got some other questions that I would like to ask......

As to the people that think that we shouldn't use a cayenne offroad - I get it, it may not be sensible, clever or rational. But thats not always why we do this. I mainly do trails and a bit of sand dunes. The rest of the time the car does the school run. It needs to carry the family safely and in comfort, which it does very well. The challenge is keeping it still reasonably standard, but give it a little edge for some safe overlanding. Plus the V8 of the GTS sounds brilliant in the desert! :)

I've got a little dune run plan this weekend, will try out the plug using the hose to see if it works.

Keen to find out what other people with these cars has done.

Regards

Hugh

There was some sort of air hose plug available years ago on eBay. Not a factory Porsche trick. They don't do ghetto like that. :sombrero:

I have had my 04 Turbo since 2009. Prior to that I had a dozen crawler Jeeps and wrote for Rockcrawler.com back when it was a web mag.I also taught performance driving and therefore had interactions with Porsche and the Porsche club dating back to the 70s.

I had to laugh when I first bought my CTT that it had factory features I spent so much time and effort to add to my Jeeps. Here is a cool one for you. When you have the dual batteries and keyless entry and drive. One battery ONLY starts the car and the other supplies all the accessories. If you ever find yourself in a situation when the car won't start, just pull out the dummy key for the keyless entry and insert the real key and it starts the car from the other battery. So it has a built in self recovery jump start........how handy would that be after a long winching session?!!
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
.....You guys want some fun. Go crawl under your favorite similar sized 4x4, Wrangler/Tacoma/etc. Look at the size of the transmission and transfer case and the thickness of the boxed frame rails. Then go look at the same parts under the Cayenne. :wings:










......and of course the size of the brakes, the control arms, the engine, etc.
 

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