My Panamera was one fo the first Turbos in the UK; it's a 59-plate. It's been faultless up to now, with Porsche dealer SH up until 3 years ago, then specialist (over-) servicing since then. It stays under cover almost all the time and has done just 55000 miles without fault.
Until a few weeks ago, that is.....
I was due to deliver a relative plus lots of baggage about an hour up the motorway; the car had been sat for about a week. To my astonishment, it turned over fine, but was just cranking for ages. I locked it, unlocked it and away it went. Picked up the relative 5 miles away no problems and it started fine, so thought it must just be a one-off. 1 mile later, she just suddenly died completely on me. No restart this time for about 10 minutes. I was heading for home, when it went in to limp mode and then seconds later the engine died for good. Ended up recovered to my specialist, but a clear-oil leak had been noted under the front left.
The leak was from the transmission oil-cooler. The lower tube has corroded/pitted and was leaking, even though I put extra grilles on the front. As far as I know there is no monitoring of transmission oil levels, so it's quite possible that I dodged a bhuge gearbox-replacement bullet with the other failure happening at the same time. If your cooler is badly pitted, it could be about to go and might take the PDK with it
The codes suggested the fuel control unit was failing, so we replaced that and the look over the fuel tank, as this module has been updated. We thought that would do the job, but no; very annoying. Wiring continuity checks had always said the wiring was fine, but after the fix didn't work, a "logic probe" was used and one wire was going haywire.
Tracing the loom back, you could just see under the windscreen-wiper mechanism (plastic covers off) that there was a pool of water on the engine bay floor! The drain plug was blocked and shorting out some of the wiring. Bear in mind the car is almost garaged and I do check the drains annually, this must be a sod to find and the water must be condensation?
Anyway, thought someone might benefit from our fault-finding.
Until a few weeks ago, that is.....
I was due to deliver a relative plus lots of baggage about an hour up the motorway; the car had been sat for about a week. To my astonishment, it turned over fine, but was just cranking for ages. I locked it, unlocked it and away it went. Picked up the relative 5 miles away no problems and it started fine, so thought it must just be a one-off. 1 mile later, she just suddenly died completely on me. No restart this time for about 10 minutes. I was heading for home, when it went in to limp mode and then seconds later the engine died for good. Ended up recovered to my specialist, but a clear-oil leak had been noted under the front left.
The leak was from the transmission oil-cooler. The lower tube has corroded/pitted and was leaking, even though I put extra grilles on the front. As far as I know there is no monitoring of transmission oil levels, so it's quite possible that I dodged a bhuge gearbox-replacement bullet with the other failure happening at the same time. If your cooler is badly pitted, it could be about to go and might take the PDK with it
The codes suggested the fuel control unit was failing, so we replaced that and the look over the fuel tank, as this module has been updated. We thought that would do the job, but no; very annoying. Wiring continuity checks had always said the wiring was fine, but after the fix didn't work, a "logic probe" was used and one wire was going haywire.
Tracing the loom back, you could just see under the windscreen-wiper mechanism (plastic covers off) that there was a pool of water on the engine bay floor! The drain plug was blocked and shorting out some of the wiring. Bear in mind the car is almost garaged and I do check the drains annually, this must be a sod to find and the water must be condensation?
Anyway, thought someone might benefit from our fault-finding.
