Taycan Problems are overwhelming an otherwise great car

[LongLive959]

Sorry. I meant side wall

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[Vim Schrotnock]

Sorry. I meant side wall

No problem-understood. I had them check the alignment in the lowered setting, and it was not dramatically different, as you would hope for a car which automatically lowers at highway speed. Also, with my experience, and talking to a number of folks, who really know how alignment affects tire treadwear, they said if the car wheel is badly misaligned, especially the camber, you will see uneven treadwear. The treadwear across all four wear indicators was 4 to 5 mm, indicating a perfectly even treadwear across the width of the tire. This is really a bizarre problem, since it clearly is not an alignment issue.

 

[LongLive959]

Got it. Sorry I re-read your post and see that. Good to know (for me) that unlike my model S, Taycan treadwear is a bit more uniform (I hate throwing away half a perfectly good tire lol) but that really sucks for you. If it’s 4-5mm across the board, there’s definitely something uniquely wrong with your setup - more the reason for Porsche to look deeper

 

[Jupeman]

How many miles on the tires? If these are the original tires @ 30k miles, I think they lasted 2x as long as you should have expected. I do not own a Taycan (yet), so those with experience can weigh-in, but the Turbo S is a big heavy car with a lot of power. That's not a recipe for long lived tires. My Cayenne Turbo S, similar weight but less power (!) churns through tires every 15k miles or so.

 

[Edward]

Thank you and ciaranob so much for your informed and experienced opinions. I will take your advice. The actual range has deteriorated significantly. Just got a note from my SA and they are re-opening the case with Porsche.

Re: energy consumption, use the trip display in the instrument cluster as you drive. My Taycan 4S would typically use 36-40 kWh/100 mi. If your consumption is much higher, that may be the cause of your reduced estimated range.

 

[DES_MX]

As many have answered - don’t trust the guessometer. Just charge 100%, reset trip counter and see how much kWh you’ve used up / km driven until 0% (or close to). Or if you don’t have the time for this- just drive constant speed 60mph/100kmh on calm day (to avoid wind effect ) and see you average consumption. For a cross turismo for me it’s 19kwh/100km. Regular Taycan can do better even. Check yours and report back

 

[Vim Schrotnock]

As many have answered - don’t trust the guessometer. Just charge 100%, reset trip counter and see how much kWh you’ve used up / km driven until 0% (or close to). Or if you don’t have the time for this- just drive constant speed 60mph/100kmh on calm day (to avoid wind effect ) and see you average consumption. For a cross turismo for me it’s 19kwh/100km. Regular Taycan can do better even. Check yours and report back

Will do.

 

[Torv]

I have enjoyed driving my Taycan Turbo S for almost three years, and 30,000 miles. At this point, my car is in the dealership with an unexplained 30% drop in range. What really bothers me is that Porsche just doesn't seem to know and/or be willing to diagnose and determine the cause of a number of problems that I have had over the life of the car, and at this point I am incredibly frustrated.

The first problem I had was the dreaded 'red screen, stop the car in a safe place', and my car was completely down. Luckily I was at a stoplight, and I restarted the car and it was good enough to get to the dealer for an extensive 'software upgrade'. Then I started getting error messages from my Porsche charger, and it was shutting down during the summer months. (I have all the upgraded outlet receptacle, wiring etc.). I resolved that I will simply cut the charging current from 40A to 36A, and this seems to have solved the problem. How can Porsche sell a very expensive charger that doesn't meet its labeled specifications?? There is a class action that was started in March on this one. Then I've had the typical rattle, charging port stuck, and a few other minor issues - no big deal here.

What has become a big deal, is I've now had two very significant problems, and Porsche simply doesn't have an answer for me. Both of my rear tires wore down to the cords on the very inside shoulder with uniform treadwear (4-5mm on all treadwear markers across the tire, including the innermost marker.). The driver's side rear was worn so badly it deflated completely. My dealer tried to tell me this is an 'alignment issue'. The alignment on the tire that failed (complete separation of the tread/sidewall in the inside rear tire) was perfect. Again, for those of us who have seen a lot of tire wear, if you have a serious alignment issue that causes the tires to wear down to the cords, you will always see uneven treadwear when you look across the tire tread. Not the case here, and there are multiple examples of this reported, WITH DIFFERENT TIRES, so it is not a tire defect. No answer from Porsche other than 'we'll monitor the tires carefully'. Something is very wrong here. Again, alignment issue would present uneven treadwear across the tire - not the case for ANY of my tires, or the other tires that have experienced the same failure.

The second big problem is my battery seems to have lost about 30% of its range overnight after getting the car back from the dealer. I showed them a photo of my estimated range at 85% of 236 miles before I took the car in. After I got the car back, I got 170 miles at 85% under the same conditions - in my garage with the same charger, same weather. I also tried to fast charge the car (very rarely do this, but they left me a car with only 80 miles, and I needed more range. Plugging into a 150KW station, the car never requested more than 90KW. First time that's ever happened. The first input I got from my dealer was that it appeared to be a 'high voltage battery issue'. They only have 3 techs qualified to work on the HV battery, so after a few days, the tech got back to me and said all the battery cells are in perfect condition. He measured all 33 cell modules and all 198 cells and said they came out to 3.9Volts and 73% charge, so the cells are all balanced and have correct voltages. I'm not sure why they were only 73% charge.

The dealer is trying to tell me that everything is fine, and that they charged the car to 100% and got 222 miles in Range Mode, which is evidently within the acceptable specs. I just checked via Porsche Connect, and my car is showing 190 mile range at 96% which equates to 198 mile range at 100% charge. I have never had less than 200+ mile range at 85% charge in my three years and 30K miles. There is clearly something wrong, and I am getting quite frustrated that Porsche does not seem to be capable of diagnosing either my tire or battery issues. I will say that the dealer is doing their best, and I have a very good relationship with them. This series of problems has really soured me on the car though - it's a shame.

Email Kjell Gruner, the President of Porsche North America, with your story and concerns. That's worked for me. His email address is:

[email protected]

EDIT:

In light of Dave’s news that Kjell has migrated to Rivian, reach out to Simon Kuhnimhof at Porsche NA Customer Relations. Knell would have most likely tossed the ball to him anyway.

[email protected]

 

[daveo4EV]

Email Kjell Gruner, the President of Porsche North America, with your story and concerns. That's worked for me. His email address is:

[email protected]

isn't Kjell at Rivian now?

https://www.thedrive.com/news/former-porsche-us-ceo-could-be-joining-rivian-report

 

[RAHRCR]

I bought the Taycan with the understanding that I was participating in a high stakes experiment. Given that this is the first EV from Porsche, there is bound to be ”adverse learning” along the way. The car is objectively exceptional at many things but by no means perfect. Everyone buying a 1st or 2nd gen EV should accept this….despite the history and claims from the various manufacturers. 3rd gen EVs are probably the sweet spot for the masses….2030+.

I still believe that this is an experiment gone right and that the future of EVs is bright. I do feel for those that get let down by the various aches and pains along the way though.

 

[Torv]

isn't Kjell at Rivian now?

https://www.thedrive.com/news/former-porsche-us-ceo-could-be-joining-rivian-report

Wow! That's news to me.

 

[daveo4EV]

Porsche is overall excellent as so is the Taycan - but they have always been a stubborn company, and never telegraph their plans to "fix" known issues - they quietly release the new product with 'fixes' and they never seem to call attention to the fact that it should have never been broken in the first place…

the key indicator for me will be the Macan roll out - any "lessons learned" should be present in that platform and will be a window into any future improvements in the Taycan - but for now we have a well established set of a short comings for the Taycan - I do not expect them to be "fixed" anytime soon - but some may be mitigated with a Taycan refresh - with any serious attempts to improve the Taycan being pushed to a full refresh post any facelifted Taycan - I would estimate 2028/2030 for a full generational improvement in Taycan…

but that's just my $0.02 - but it is frustrating to not see any demonstrated interested in the issues we know all know and take for granted.

 

[Fish Fingers]

Got it. Sorry I re-read your post and see that. Good to know (for me) that unlike my model S, Taycan treadwear is a bit more uniform (I hate throwing away half a perfectly good tire lol) but that really sucks for you. If it’s 4-5mm across the board, there’s definitely something uniquely wrong with your setup - more the reason for Porsche to look deeper

There was a separate recent thread on this.
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/taycan-problem-potential-catastrophic-tire-failure.16788/

Quite a few people with the strange inner shoulder tyre wear across different Taycan models and tyre brands.

Mine was one. RWD and I drive quite sensibly.

I'm not too bothered, as I got 16k miles which is acceptable for a RWD car (Michelin PS4) - but the wear was very strange and only got flagged as it went in for service.

 

[whitex]

also displayed mileage is a crock - and easily mislead - actual range may be unaffected - recent consumption figures can easily skew the displayed range…

+1 for legacy automobilie manufactures being clueless with EV's and not having sufficient tech's on hand - this is not a new problem - and one of the reasons I tolerated Tesla for as long as I did - they at least are fully EV and all their tech's in the service shop are certified to work on EV's - I ran into this problem with my Ford Focus EV in 2011 - they kept having the 1 guys "gone" most of the days of the week - it took then 4 weeks to diagnose a simplte issue - by then I had sufficient cause for Lemon law…

the existing guys are not "committed" to the EV thing and still really really want it to be just a bad fever dream - they really really prefer their ICE business and it shows.

Early this year I was in Bellevue Porsche, which claims to be the largest Porsche dealer in the state. How many tech certified to work on EV's? One. At least that is what I was told.

 

[whitex]

No problem-understood. I had them check the alignment in the lowered setting, and it was not dramatically different, as you would hope for a car which automatically lowers at highway speed. Also, with my experience, and talking to a number of folks, who really know how alignment affects tire treadwear, they said if the car wheel is badly misaligned, especially the camber, you will see uneven treadwear. The treadwear across all four wear indicators was 4 to 5 mm, indicating a perfectly even treadwear across the width of the tire. This is really a bizarre problem, since it clearly is not an alignment issue.

For what it's worth, 20 years ago I picked up a custom order 911C4, managed to wear a tire all the way to blowout, with zero track use, in about 6 months. I had the alignment checked, not problem, turns out it was my driving style and Porsche appetite for tires. Both rears were pretty much down to wires, one of them blew on me at ~90mph on a highway - not as horrible of an experience as you'd think, got towed off the highway, put on the donut spare, got all 4 new tires (fronts were less word than backs, but still very much ready for a swap). Now I check Porsche tires more often than every 6 months, an interval I use for all other family cars.

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