Model S Plaid to Taycan

[Hirschaj]

On the bright side as soon as you lock your Taycan you know you have 45 miliseconds to run away from the car so it does not unlock and open the mirrors again, which trains you well for a time bomb situation for the future. I am convinced that was the thinking in Porsche SW engineers’ mind when refusing to add that 1 simple additional line of code that would just say “if the driver just touched the door handle and locked the car, his presence in cars proximity within the next 2 seconds probably is not because he changed his mind and want to go back in the car again, and maybe because most normal drivers are not trying to break a 100m record right after locking their car?”

My car does not behave this way. I lock it and leisurely walk away from it all the time without it deciding to unlock itself due to my proximity. The Taycan is far from perfect but problems with your car do not mean they all behave that way. And I agree, there are loads of software improvements that could be made.

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[whitex]

On the bright side as soon as you lock your Taycan you know you have 45 miliseconds to run away from the car so it does not unlock and open the mirrors again, which trains you well for a time bomb situation for the future. I am convinced that was the thinking in Porsche SW engineers’ mind when refusing to add that 1 simple additional line of code that would just say “if the driver just touched the door handle and locked the car, his presence in cars proximity within the next 2 seconds probably is not because he changed his mind and want to go back in the car again, and maybe because most normal drivers are not trying to break a 100m record right after locking their car?”

It doesn't happen on my car at all. I lock it and walk away. I even walk by it with the keys on numerous occasions as it it parked in the garage which is my preferred way of coming and going. because of that I have disabled the options to automatically present the handles, i.e. I have to touch the handle for it to unlock.

That said, when the car was new, I did run into the problem of the car automatically unlocking as soon as I lock it (despite the auto-present-handles options being disabled). Unfortunately it was not a behavior which was easily reproducible, so it took Porsche service couple of hours or more of locking/unlocking the car to reproduce. Once reproduced, Porsche replaced all 4 of my door handles. Then it happened to be again, so they replaced the driver's door handle. Then it happened once or twice more (I even had one time recorded on my security camera), but when they wanted to change the handle again, I declined - definition of insanity, right? It happens very rarely, however more often (still not reliable repro) the car will not lock when I touch the divot (so I go touch the rear door instead, or try a few times on front door until it takes), same with presenting the handles on touch of the bottom part of the handle. I suspect there is an issue in the wiring or further down the ECU path somewhere which causes the communications to the driver's door handle to be garbled up - I just haven't had the determination (or time) to go chasing it. Having Porsche keep on replacing the door handles just seemed pointless. So, I just live with it, always check that the car in-fact locks and doesn't immediately unlock, and if touching the driver's side door handle doesn't work, I just use the rear door handle which always does.

PS> not using any handles right as my car is waiting to go in for a repair of cabin heating - can't drive it when it's cold and rainy as the defogging doesn't work without heat.

 

[Zcd1]

...Different cars with different amenities for people with very different wallets.

- arrogant much?

 

[prj]

It doesn't happen on my car at all. I lock it and walk away. I even walk by it with the keys on numerous occasions as it it parked in the garage which is my preferred way of coming and going. because of that I have disabled the options to automatically present the handles, i.e. I have to touch the handle for it to unlock.

That said, when the car was new, I did run into the problem of the car automatically unlocking as soon as I lock it (despite the auto-present-handles options being disabled). Unfortunately it was not a behavior which was easily reproducible, so it took Porsche service couple of hours or more of locking/unlocking the car to reproduce. Once reproduced, Porsche replaced all 4 of my door handles. Then it happened to be again, so they replaced the driver's door handle. Then it happened once or twice more (I even had one time recorded on my security camera), but when they wanted to change the handle again, I declined - definition of insanity, right? It happens very rarely, however more often (still not reliable repro) the car will not lock when I touch the divot (so I go touch the rear door instead, or try a few times on front door until it takes), same with presenting the handles on touch of the bottom part of the handle. I suspect there is an issue in the wiring or further down the ECU path somewhere which causes the communications to the driver's door handle to be garbled up - I just haven't had the determination (or time) to go chasing it. Having Porsche keep on replacing the door handles just seemed pointless. So, I just live with it, always check that the car in-fact locks and doesn't immediately unlock, and if touching the driver's side door handle doesn't work, I just use the rear door handle which always does.

PS> not using any handles right as my car is waiting to go in for a repair of cabin heating - can't drive it when it's cold and rainy as the defogging doesn't work without heat.

It's not due to the wiring but most likely humidity is at fault and capacitive sensors.

On all the cars of different makes I've had with keyless entry all of them had some intermittent issues in the rain or high humidity, don't get me started on snow.

That said, the Taycan was quite good about it and I think I only had the issue once or twice where the capacitive sensor did not react, but that was easily worked around by using the rear door instead.

 

[whitex]

That said, the Taycan was quite good about it and I think I only had the issue once or twice where the capacitive sensor did not react, but that was easily worked around by using the rear door instead.

My front door handle glitches out regularly, especially as it gets colder. Surprisingly, the rear door always work. When the car was brand new (so before 2 handle replacements), I actually got into a situation where I was unable to lock the car, using the handle or using the key fob. I encountered that in the middle of a snow storm, I check into a hotel, couldn't lock the car (it kept unlocking itself) despite trying many, many times. After a couple of minutes of trying. I just left the Taycan unlocked, then locked it via the app from the hotel few minutes later.

 

[prj]

My front door handle glitches out regularly, especially as it gets colder. Surprisingly, the rear door always work. When the car was brand new (so before 2 handle replacements), I actually got into a situation where I was unable to lock the car, using the handle or using the key fob. I encountered that in the middle of a snow storm, I check into a hotel, couldn't lock the car (it kept unlocking itself) despite trying many, many times. After a couple of minutes of trying. I just left the Taycan unlocked, then locked it via the app from the hotel few minutes later.

Sounds like a bad door handle to me. On my car the handles were never replaced and I never had such issues. Worked fine even in snow.

 

[whitex]

Sounds like a bad door handle to me. On my car the handles were never replaced and I never had such issues. Worked fine even in snow.

That's what I thought, but current on a 3rd handle, same issues, so figured chances are very low it's a bad handle.

 

[Jonathan S.]

The unlocking occurs maybe around 10% of the time for me. Would probably be higher though if I hadn’t improved with my time bomb escape training.

 

[prj]

That's what I thought, but current on a 3rd handle, same issues, so figured chances are very low it's a bad handle.

When did you last replace the key battery? Do you see any connection there?

I wonder if it loses signal for a moment so it thinks you're out of range, then picks the signal back up and thinks you're back or something.

 

[whitex]

When did you last replace the key battery? Do you see any connection there?

I wonder if it loses signal for a moment so it thinks you're out of range, then picks the signal back up and thinks you're back or something.

Good point, but I thought of that too and there is no apparent correlation. There another behavior which is related to low battery - when I hit “close and lock” trunk button, the trunk starts closing, but if the car doesn’t “find” by fob, the trunk lid stops mid-way. When that starts happening, I know it’s time to change fob battery.

 

[Rusty Griswald]

I prefer my previous DD Plaid over my Turbo
Significantly faster from every driving metric and superior software. I will return to purchase another plaid when I move to next DD.

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