Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert, producer of the Pawlik Automotive podcast. We're here with Mr. Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive, in Vancouver. 20 time winners of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver, as voted by their customers. 38 years of servicing, repairing, maintaining cars in Vancouver, BC, Canada and of course today we're talking cars. How are you doing today, Bernie?
Bernie: Doing well. Always awesome.
Mark: We're talking about a Porsche just to piss everybody off, or Porsche if you want to be German, Porsche Cayenne drive shift problem. What was going on with this SUV?
Bernie: The owner brought the vehicle to us for some maintenance service and probably his largest concern was a vibration when accelerating. It was pretty apparent from a road test it seemed like something that was probably a drive shaft or axle shaft related issue.
Mark: What did you find?
Bernie: Of course, we had taken a road test to verify the client's concern and get a feel for what was going on. Then, we did a hoist inspection and what we found was a worn out drive shaft centre bearing. There's a large rubber piece that mounts the drive shaft bearing basically to the frame of the vehicle, and then that rubber piece was broken. We'll just get right into pictures because that's the best way to show you what was going on. There's our Cayenne '08 base model. You can see this rubber piece here broken and flopping around. I'll just play it again.
Mark: Is that a bushing or something different than a bushing?
Bernie: I guess you could call it a bushing. A bushing is just basically a rubber piece that connects two parts, so yeah you could call it a bushing. It's just basically torn apart. They put that in to kind of isolate the vibration of the drive shaft from the vehicle. You could mount a metal bearing to a metal ... This is the bracket that holds it in place. You could mount it metal to metal, but there would be a lot of vibrations and noise it would transmit. The rubber helps keep that nice and smooth. I'll just do it one more time because it's just cool looking at broken parts.
Mark: Yeah.
Bernie: I love my work. That's the piece.
Mark: How difficult of a job is this to replace?
Bernie: Well, it's not too bad. It's fiddly. The drive shaft on this, there's a rubber donut on each end of the drive shaft. A lot of cars traditionally would use a universal joint, which is a metal piece with ball bearings. A lot of European cars have used this. It's a rubber donut, so it's kind of a flexible coupler with generally three or four bolts that hold one end to the transmission and another three or four bolts that hold the donut to the drive shaft, and then that allows a little bit of flexibility and movement. They're a bit of a pain to disconnect, but we removed that and then once a few brackets and shields are removed, then the joint can be taken off. There's also a CV joint in behind here, which is a flexible joint. That has to be taken apart. It's fiddly, but certainly not as much work as taking a transmission or anything else out. Easier than an axle shaft.
Mark: Is this a common failure item on the Cayenne?
Bernie: Yeah, we've done a number of them. This definitely wears out. It's a pretty frequent failure part on this vehicle.
Mark: What kind of timeframe does it take to fail? Or mileage?
Bernie: Well, this was an '08. I can't remember the mileage on this vehicle, but we're in 2019 so it's about over 10 years. It seems like a lot of the other ones we've done are probably on the 10, 10 plus year range. So, that's not a bad run.
Mark: You mentioned this is a base model. What type of engine is in this model?
Bernie: This is a base model with a 3.6 litre engine, which is a VR6 style VW engine. The Cayenne is a combined progeny between Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen. The Volkswagen ... I was going to say Tiguan. It's not a Tiguan. Touareg.
Mark: Touareg, yeah.
Bernie: Touareg, Audi Q7, and a Cayenne are similar. The drivetrains are the similar drivetrain. The insides of the vehicles of course are all different, depending on the manufacturer, Porsche obviously being at the highest end and going for the sportier, racier models. You can't buy a Touareg that's the turbo charged model like you can with the Cayenne. I mean, the rest of the inside of the vehicle is fantastic. I mean, it's hard to tell the outside, but the base model has a simpler, lower horse power engine and simpler.
Mark: How reliable are Porsche Cayennes?
Bernie: They're not bad. I mean, there's a few issues. I would say that this 3.6 litre 6 cylinder model, if you want a reliable car this would be the better one to go for. Less tends to go wrong with this engine than the V8's, especially around these years and a little earlier. Doesn't have a lot of problems with cooling systems and actual engine failure, so they're not, in my opinion, the earlier generation. '08's kind of getting out of that earlier generation. They're not so reliable with the V8's. Of course, they're more powerful, but they're kind of finicky and a lot of stuff goes wrong. The V8 models, they're also very noisy and growly. Often, when we first started servicing them, you listen to them and go what's wrong with this engine, and it's actually normal. They're just noisy. It's a nice SUV for sure. Being a Porsche, you'll just spend more money than you will on an other model. Of course, the fancier you get, the brakes and other items can be more expensive to fix.
Mark: You tend to have a little bit heavier foot if you have more horsepower.
Bernie: Yeah, but I mean it's a fun SUV. I mean, it goes fast and looks nice and handles well. It's a cool vehicle for sure.
Mark: There you go. If you're looking for service for your Porsche in Vancouver, the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112 to book your appointment. You have to call and book ahead. They are busy. Or, check out the website, pawlikautomotive.com. There's hundreds of blog posts and videos on there as well as on our YouTube channel, Pawlik Auto Repair. Of course, thank you so much for listening to the podcast, watching the podcast. We appreciate it. Thank you, Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark and thank you for watching.
