Active Ride failure

[Boss Hogg]

Classic Porsche service, still think it is largely due to them getting to grips with repairs on this new system. My new struts took a few weeks for parts too, the courtesy car takes even longer to get anyway!

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[ze_shark]

Service advisor just informed me that Porsche AG will only release the part (rear servo PAD 511881) in w49. Six weeks from now. Seven since ordering. It's bad.

So to everyone's surprise, the parts have arrived today (w46.2), much earlier than originally advised. Assembly Wednesday, delivery Thursday. And hopefully i can return my Oak Green Macan 4, because it has made me miss my Taycan a lot.

 

[anonymouse]

J1.2 December 2024. Done 13k miles, only once it failed immediately upon hitting a pothole. I made it to the destination 0.5 miles further on without stopping (was worried about being stranded). Very bizarre bumpy ride for that stretch even on a smooth road. Upon restarting car, warning was gone, and has not come back after a few thousand miles. Still drives like a dream.

Pleased I had seen this post, because the same happened to me. Hit a bump with one wheel, got a yellow Chassis error message. At that point it was clear that Active Ride was disengaged because the ride was very bumpy. Drove to the next stopping point, power off, power on, all ok again.

 

[tigerbalm]

And hopefully i can return my Oak Green Macan 4, because it has made me miss my Taycan a lot.

The best thing about a loaner can be it making you re-appreciate your own car. I was recently in a loaner RWD Taycan for a few hours (waiting on dashcam install) and its lack of (relative) oomph made me appreciate both the Taycan Turbo S and 911 Targa GTS that I've become used to.

 

[prj]

Updates?

 

[ze_shark]

Apologies for the belated follow-up. I got my car back as scheduled, but I had limited opportunities to drive it before i had to embark on whirlwind business trip in China. So this is an intermediate update.

Here is the servo replacement part:

The warranty allowance for this operation is 5 hours according to the service mgr.

The swap involves refilling the hydraulic circuit with hydraulic fluid which is unique to Active Ride and happens to be black.

So how is it ?

First of all, immensely better than the Macan. The difference is so striking. Driving position, damping, acceleration and throttle response. It really isn't a 10% thing. The Macan treated me to 6 weeks of what felt like riding a rubber rodeo horse, mushy and bouncy. Also speed bumps. The small nasty ones to stop cars to a crawl at gates or in alley ways, which rock the whole body when taken at an angle. Wiped out. The uncanny wonder of a sway-bar-on-demand.

And is it better than before in terms of my rear axle wiggles ? Yep, quite so. I would have wanted to put more mileage on before rendering that verdict, but it is quite clear that it is far better. The roads that used to induce pendular lateral oscillations are now a lot more quiet.

I am still a little reserved, because i do not find Normal mode perfect, for instance when passing crests in curves, but overall, i can do my entire commute without being reminded to switch to Sport mode, and this is massive progress.

So my verdict thus far is that the replacement of that rear servo makes PAR on a Cross Turismo a whole lot more convincing than it was. Which in turn raises the question of the US press cars that were written about in C&D and Motor1, and a condition that would then be ... epidemic ?

The only oddity which correlates with this intervention is that playing music in Android Auto suddenly became very patchy, whether through Wifi or USB, but i had no time to debug it, and my S23 Ultra underwent at least two updates while i was on my Macan diet. I did not find the time to trigger a PCM reboot, my hasty two finger attempts were unsuccessful.

 

[babylou66]

Can we get a 10 day update?

 

[ze_shark]

The 10 day update is less enthusiastic, unfortunately.

As the Macan relief wore off and the miles accumulate, i am still confronted with the same wiggles at 80-90kph in long shallow and somewhat bumpy curves, and excessive edginess of the rear axle at turn in in fast sweepers. All of the above in Normal mode. So i am still stuck with my initial gripe.

The pendulum i feel distinctly in my upper body only bother's me to the extent that it should not be there. The excessive eagerness of the rear end is more unsettling because it dents confidence a bit.

I am also surprised, but to a lesser degree, by how vertical primary damping seems at times to run out of travel. It rubs off a sequence of compressions very effectively and then hits the next one much harder. In the absolute, it is mosty very good, but not infallable.

It is still an uncanny experience to see the other vehicles go up and down over bumps you mostly don't feel, but it has its limitations, inevitably.

I am understanding of this "vertical stuff", but i continue to find the "lateral stuff" a lot less forgivable.

Driving a J1.2 with RWS but no PAR would be very instructive, but these cars do not abound in these parts.

 

[Mr.Smith]

The 10 day update is less enthusiastic, unfortunately.

As the Macan relief wore off and the miles accumulate, i am still confronted with the same wiggles at 80-90kph in long shallow and somewhat bumpy curves, and excessive edginess of the rear axle at turn in in fast sweepers. All of the above in Normal mode. So i am still stuck with my initial gripe.

The pendulum i feel distinctly in my upper body only bother's me to the extent that it should not be there. The excessive eagerness of the rear end is more unsettling because it dents confidence a bit.

I am also surprised, but to a lesser degree, by how vertical primary damping seems at times to run out of travel. It rubs off a sequence of compressions very effectively and then hits the next one much harder. In the absolute, it is mosty very good, but not infallable.

It is still an uncanny experience to see the other vehicles go up and down over bumps you mostly don't feel, but it has its limitations, inevitably.

I am understanding of this "vertical stuff", but i continue to find the "lateral stuff" a lot less forgivable.

Driving a J1.2 with RWS but no PAR would be very instructive, but these cars do not abound in these parts.

I'm curious how much of what you are experiencing is related to the softer ride of the CT compared to the sedan?

 

[prj]

If I have the same on my car I'll add datalogging of all modules simultaneously to MapEV Diag and get some logs of the behaviour...
Should be visible if there is a RWS oscillation of some kind.

 

[ze_shark]

I'm curious how much of what you are experiencing is related to the softer ride of the CT compared to the sedan?

I am yet to read any similar comment, press or otherwise, outside of Cross Turismos. It is not the ride height because i am in low setting all the time, my default for Normal mode.

 

[tophamn]

The 10 day update is less enthusiastic, unfortunately.

As the Macan relief wore off and the miles accumulate, i am still confronted with the same wiggles at 80-90kph in long shallow and somewhat bumpy curves, and excessive edginess of the rear axle at turn in in fast sweepers. All of the above in Normal mode. So i am still stuck with my initial gripe.

The pendulum i feel distinctly in my upper body only bother's me to the extent that it should not be there. The excessive eagerness of the rear end is more unsettling because it dents confidence a bit.

I am also surprised, but to a lesser degree, by how vertical primary damping seems at times to run out of travel. It rubs off a sequence of compressions very effectively and then hits the next one much harder. In the absolute, it is mosty very good, but not infallable.

It is still an uncanny experience to see the other vehicles go up and down over bumps you mostly don't feel, but it has its limitations, inevitably.

I am understanding of this "vertical stuff", but i continue to find the "lateral stuff" a lot less forgivable.

Driving a J1.2 with RWS but no PAR would be very instructive, but these cars do not abound in these parts.

What you describe sounds to me far more likely to be the effects of rear axle steering than active ride.

 

[Boss Hogg]

What you describe sounds to me far more likely to be the effects of rear axle steering than active ride.

I thought exactly the same, RWS on my J1.1 and J1.2 can be a bit too eager at high speed sweepers in my experience, still catches me out from time to time.

 

[babylou66]

The only time this issue has reared it's head is when PAR is in place with RWS. Many RWS equipped vehicles sans PAR exist and no reports of the oscillation. Thus there's a correlation that PAR + RWS is the culprit.

 

[babylou66]

If I have the same on my car I'll add datalogging of all modules simultaneously to MapEV Diag and get some logs of the behaviour...
Should be visible if there is a RWS oscillation of some kind.

Hi prj! Have you received your purple monster yet? I'm interested in the results regarding the PAR + RWS. FYI, I've got a build for an Amethyst purple CT4 (chipped by you of course!) with Blackberry/Chalk interior waiting to pull the trigger if the mood strikes me. Giving me pause are relibility concerns and the should I go with PAR.

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