mod72346
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Mod
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2021
- Threads
- 11
- Messages
- 70
- Reaction score
- 84
- Location
- California, USA
- Vehicles
- Taycan 4S 2021
- Thread starter
- #1
I've owned a Taycan 4S since mid-July 2021 and put on 10K miles. Here is my experience.
The great/good:
- *Dealerships*. Since I bought at a remote dealership, I went to a closer dealership for service, and both have been professional and easy to interact with.
- *Driving*. Car handles beautifully, the ride is very smooth and quiet, despite sitting so low. The power delivery is amazing. Range of ~230 miles is fine by me, even for longer trips with intermediate stops.
- *Instrument cluster*. The curved instrument cluster is functional and easy to read and configure. I've been enjoying the simplified map view (dark background with blue path, white arrows) - so easy to know where to go.
- *Assist features*. The ACC with lane keeping work surprisingly well (in some conditions). In stop and go traffic, cruise control manages speed better than I probably would. However, when merging or splitting, it's not so good at sensing the car infront/off-center - without close supervision, it may lead to an accident.
- *Auto-Regen*. It's brilliant, I love it. However, it doesn't "stick", so I have to long-press the button every time I drive off. Annoying. This has been discussed so much, that Porsche should have just fixed it by now.
- *Aesthetics*. Overall, the car is unique and sharp looking. This was probably my biggest reason for buying.
- *Interior*. The materials and comfort are top-notch, and the execution is impeccable. Zero issues with creaking or fit and finish. This feels like the best place to be in the world.
- *Climate control*. Again, extremely comfortable and easy/fast to adjust. I set the diffuse mode once, and forgot about it. It just works.
The bad/ugly:
- *Servicing*. Getting a service appointment it tough. They need a special technician to work on Taycans, and times are limited. If you need service, prepare to wait and wait. The scope of problems they can fix is also limited - they can reset systems or replace parts, and hopefully raise issues to the "motherland" without ability to provide a fix to you.
- *PCM*. For the first couple months, I would hit a new glitch with PCM almost every day. It's death by a thousand cuts. The PCM is slow and buggy even with basic features. All interactions are incredibly slow - it can take a couple seconds for screen to react to a touch. Scrolling is painfully sluggish as well. A $100 phone has better performance than this. It's really a shame. I routinely see words in German, e.g. "Ziel suchen". There are random messages about system failures - I had those about ACL, SOS, Park Assist, Emergency Stop, Lights, etc. Some may be real, but mostly they seem bogus. It's hard to tell.
- *SiriusXM*. I see pop-up messages about "subscription changed" and "check your antenna" every time car is started. That's just annoying. Dealer said it's a known problem, but un-fixable at this time. Satellite radio worked flawlessly on every other car I've come across.
- *Media/Music*. It routinely takes 3-5 minutes for music to start playing, while it's showing the "loading data..." spinner. Maybe it's a general PCM problem being poorly architected/implemented, but it's unacceptable in a car at this price point.
- *Security*. I had the PIN initially, but it was failing too often and it was slow to take, so I disabled it. As a result, I can drive off faster, but any valet can load my profile and see navigation history, with addresses, as well as adjust settings and such.
- *Multi-driver*. I started with a separate profile for my wife, but just gave up on it -- it's too slow to load a new driver profile. It's also impossible to associate keys with drivers. Sometimes it would fail to load a profile, and make the PCM unusable. So I deleted wife's profile, and we just manually adjust seat from its memory.
- *Charging*. It's been a struggle from day one. At first, Plug&Charge made charging impossible at many EA stations, so I had to turn it off, and used the app to initiate charging. A couple months back I re-enabled P&C and it works in most locations, but not others - so I have to still use the app sometimes. It's been frustrating, but seems to be getting better. EA stations run on Windows XP - I've seen the signage during a reboot. Wow.
- *Navigation*. The navigation is generally good, and it's the first car where I actually use the built-in nav instead of phone. It doesn't "know" about traffic jams very well, which causes sub-optimal routes and inaccurate ETAs. There are also clear bugs, e.g. when instrument cluster map and center screen don't agree on which lane you need to be in. On some intersections, the "next turn" hint is complete bonkers, e.g. "sharp right turn" instead of "left U-turn". Searching for addresses is barely usable, in terms of performance and relevancy. Frequently, when I look up charging stations, the list comes back empty, probably because of some error or connectivity issue.
- *Mobile app*. The Connect app is rated 3 stars and is total garbage - just read user feedback. Porsche seemingly is not even updating it anymore (last update was 3 months ago), I heard they will replace it with something else, and until that happens, I use it as little as possible.
- *Lock by touch*. Sometimes I have to touch the door handle notch 3+ times. It's just not responsive. Dealer acknowledged the problem, and tried to fix it by new battery in the remote key. It's still very flakey.
- *Rear camera*. The distortions are so extreme that it's scary to look at the camera when backing up. At night, the rear view is too dark, barely visible. I also had a white/blank/blinking 360-degree camera view after car was parked under sun (at least I think that's what's causing the issue).
- *Private mode*. I don't understand what it's for. This seems to be the opposite of what's glaringly missing - the Valet mode, which I should be able to turn on remotely. Until last service appointment (when they reset something) the Private mode used to turn on by itself, which meant I wasn't able to use Connect app, or some features like Google search.
- *Alarm*. One day in October, the alarm started going off immediately after locking the car. I found some info in these forums, again, a known issue. Disabling internal monitoring seemed to help.
The most disappointing thing over the 6 months is how little of improvements I've seen. There have been OTA updates for Calendar, News, Legal Info, etc. But the important stuff is seemingly ignored. The PCM is still glitchy, slow and I guess, I have to learn to live with that. Feels like I'm with an abusive relationship with the automaker. Sad.
The great/good:
- *Dealerships*. Since I bought at a remote dealership, I went to a closer dealership for service, and both have been professional and easy to interact with.
- *Driving*. Car handles beautifully, the ride is very smooth and quiet, despite sitting so low. The power delivery is amazing. Range of ~230 miles is fine by me, even for longer trips with intermediate stops.
- *Instrument cluster*. The curved instrument cluster is functional and easy to read and configure. I've been enjoying the simplified map view (dark background with blue path, white arrows) - so easy to know where to go.
- *Assist features*. The ACC with lane keeping work surprisingly well (in some conditions). In stop and go traffic, cruise control manages speed better than I probably would. However, when merging or splitting, it's not so good at sensing the car infront/off-center - without close supervision, it may lead to an accident.
- *Auto-Regen*. It's brilliant, I love it. However, it doesn't "stick", so I have to long-press the button every time I drive off. Annoying. This has been discussed so much, that Porsche should have just fixed it by now.
- *Aesthetics*. Overall, the car is unique and sharp looking. This was probably my biggest reason for buying.
- *Interior*. The materials and comfort are top-notch, and the execution is impeccable. Zero issues with creaking or fit and finish. This feels like the best place to be in the world.
- *Climate control*. Again, extremely comfortable and easy/fast to adjust. I set the diffuse mode once, and forgot about it. It just works.
The bad/ugly:
- *Servicing*. Getting a service appointment it tough. They need a special technician to work on Taycans, and times are limited. If you need service, prepare to wait and wait. The scope of problems they can fix is also limited - they can reset systems or replace parts, and hopefully raise issues to the "motherland" without ability to provide a fix to you.
- *PCM*. For the first couple months, I would hit a new glitch with PCM almost every day. It's death by a thousand cuts. The PCM is slow and buggy even with basic features. All interactions are incredibly slow - it can take a couple seconds for screen to react to a touch. Scrolling is painfully sluggish as well. A $100 phone has better performance than this. It's really a shame. I routinely see words in German, e.g. "Ziel suchen". There are random messages about system failures - I had those about ACL, SOS, Park Assist, Emergency Stop, Lights, etc. Some may be real, but mostly they seem bogus. It's hard to tell.
- *SiriusXM*. I see pop-up messages about "subscription changed" and "check your antenna" every time car is started. That's just annoying. Dealer said it's a known problem, but un-fixable at this time. Satellite radio worked flawlessly on every other car I've come across.
- *Media/Music*. It routinely takes 3-5 minutes for music to start playing, while it's showing the "loading data..." spinner. Maybe it's a general PCM problem being poorly architected/implemented, but it's unacceptable in a car at this price point.
- *Security*. I had the PIN initially, but it was failing too often and it was slow to take, so I disabled it. As a result, I can drive off faster, but any valet can load my profile and see navigation history, with addresses, as well as adjust settings and such.
- *Multi-driver*. I started with a separate profile for my wife, but just gave up on it -- it's too slow to load a new driver profile. It's also impossible to associate keys with drivers. Sometimes it would fail to load a profile, and make the PCM unusable. So I deleted wife's profile, and we just manually adjust seat from its memory.
- *Charging*. It's been a struggle from day one. At first, Plug&Charge made charging impossible at many EA stations, so I had to turn it off, and used the app to initiate charging. A couple months back I re-enabled P&C and it works in most locations, but not others - so I have to still use the app sometimes. It's been frustrating, but seems to be getting better. EA stations run on Windows XP - I've seen the signage during a reboot. Wow.
- *Navigation*. The navigation is generally good, and it's the first car where I actually use the built-in nav instead of phone. It doesn't "know" about traffic jams very well, which causes sub-optimal routes and inaccurate ETAs. There are also clear bugs, e.g. when instrument cluster map and center screen don't agree on which lane you need to be in. On some intersections, the "next turn" hint is complete bonkers, e.g. "sharp right turn" instead of "left U-turn". Searching for addresses is barely usable, in terms of performance and relevancy. Frequently, when I look up charging stations, the list comes back empty, probably because of some error or connectivity issue.
- *Mobile app*. The Connect app is rated 3 stars and is total garbage - just read user feedback. Porsche seemingly is not even updating it anymore (last update was 3 months ago), I heard they will replace it with something else, and until that happens, I use it as little as possible.
- *Lock by touch*. Sometimes I have to touch the door handle notch 3+ times. It's just not responsive. Dealer acknowledged the problem, and tried to fix it by new battery in the remote key. It's still very flakey.
- *Rear camera*. The distortions are so extreme that it's scary to look at the camera when backing up. At night, the rear view is too dark, barely visible. I also had a white/blank/blinking 360-degree camera view after car was parked under sun (at least I think that's what's causing the issue).
- *Private mode*. I don't understand what it's for. This seems to be the opposite of what's glaringly missing - the Valet mode, which I should be able to turn on remotely. Until last service appointment (when they reset something) the Private mode used to turn on by itself, which meant I wasn't able to use Connect app, or some features like Google search.
- *Alarm*. One day in October, the alarm started going off immediately after locking the car. I found some info in these forums, again, a known issue. Disabling internal monitoring seemed to help.
The most disappointing thing over the 6 months is how little of improvements I've seen. There have been OTA updates for Calendar, News, Legal Info, etc. But the important stuff is seemingly ignored. The PCM is still glitchy, slow and I guess, I have to learn to live with that. Feels like I'm with an abusive relationship with the automaker. Sad.
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