tomnash

I am about to change to a set of snow/ATR tires (P255/55R-18 Pirelli Scorpion ATR XL) on my 2011 Cayenne S before heading into snow and red rock off-road country for a few weeks. The rears are worn a bit more than the fronts. So I am inclined to to rotate the rears to the fronts keeping them on the same sides. Is there any obvious reason not to do this? (These tires have been great on previous long trips.)

Can the seat belts fire without the airbags going off?

There really isn't room for a real spare and, as noted, a donut is useless in remote areas. Even a spare front tire won't fit in the trunk, maybe behind the passenger seat, or instead of the passenger... It is a fundamental design impossibility with large tires and a small car. Or you could have a service car follow you with a full set of spares ...

Even if it fits, you will have the problem that you cannot safely drive more than 50 miles on the donut. So I find that precludes use in remote areas since it won't in most cases get you to where you would want to replace a tire. Best to use Porsche or AAA trucks to carry you to a Porsche dealer or some place TireRack can drop ship. I carry a sat phone largely for this purpose, since the cell service is likely to be thin. Also, even a donut will eat up much of your cargo capacity.

Many of us in the US use Tirerack.com, which has essentially all options in stock at prices far lower than Porsche dealers. For Mexican customers they suggest Llantas: http://www.llantastires.com/ You can check to see whether Llantas will deliver to Honduras. Looks like they have a full choice. At least they could ship to someplace in far south Mexico or the Yucatan which is closer to you? I have been very happy with a set of P255/55R-18 Pirelli Scorpion ATR XL, which I use as an alternate set for rough off road situations that you might be encountering. I think the only reason they are not on Porsche's recommended list is that the top speed rating is "only" 130 MPH. Probably that is not an issue for you.

Loren, where can we find those tips? If this was to be a link, it is missing. I tried a search...

There is usually a second sticker that indicates a lower PSI is acceptable (desirable?) for half loaded conditions (as defined in the manual). I suspect this improves handling marginally, as suggested in PAULSPEED's post where PSIs are reduced on the track.

Thinking about this some more, I believe it is correct that if you really corner hard consistently and frequently, as on a track, your tire wear will be more even than for normal street driving. The whole point of the negative camber, if I understand correctly, is to get more rubber flat onto the pavement during hard cornering. The camber compensates for the roll of the car. On the street dominated by straight ahead driving the negative camber puts more force on the insides, wearing them faster. If used for continuous cornering on a track, the tires may wear quicker but the wear will be more even. Correct me if I have this wrong.

Not in California!!! I sold a Honda (not a Porsche) via Craig's List with very good experience. I talked with the buyer over the phone for long enough to see what kind of person he was. We went down to a branch of his bank and got a certified check. Everyone was happy (and the cash helped out on a new Cayenne S).

Given the gazillion useless warnings in the Porsche (and other car) manuals, one very useful warning that Porsche should give to new owners is exactly about this issue. The camber is set up negative for good handling, but this results in much more rapid wear on the inside. This is not intuitively obvious to a new owner! So, an innocent owner who conscientiously checks the tread on the outside and center where it is easily visible, can have severe wear on the inside and a surprise blow out. Exactly this happened to me at a particularly remote (cellphone dead) location in central California, a 3 hour tow to Bakersfield, on my first set of tires 4 years ago. Check the wear on the inside of the rears!

No issue detected on a 2011 Cayenne S. Lift the break and smoothly press the accelerator. I don't think I would try to drag race someone with the engine off...

An ordinary spade plug works just fine. I never found a ground in the fuse box, but there are plenty of screws on grounded metal in the vicinity which you can use to stick a connector or wire under.

I had a chance to look at a 2011 manual. It does not explicitly address the "crawling" issue but it discusses off-road for several pages, including discussions of situations where very low speed crossing of obstacles is required. It would seem that pretty much anything I might want to do is possible. (No, I am not planning on taking a Cayenne on the Rubicon trail). But there is no explicit statement and I still am curious how the new Cayennes compare to previous models with a low range transfer case. On a related topic, rather interesting in the manual was the first bullet under "Rules for off-road driving": "Ensure vehicle is equipped with approved all-terrain tires." This would be hard to do since Porsche has not made available nor approved any all-terrain tires. In the US all-season tires come standard -- that's not the same as all-terrain. As has been discussed on earlier threads, it is virtually impossible to find all-terrain tires for Cayennes. The issue on the rather rocky roads one might find out here in the western US is punctures. I guess the solution is to carry a second real spare in addition to the inflatable. Also interesting, if I am reading the German Cayenne brochure correctly, in Germany the standard tire is a summer performance tire and an all season tire is available as a no cost option. Just the reverse of the US. Priority goes to over 150 mph autobahn driving... The flip side of these cars being so broadly excellent, from high performance track to rather extreme over-road, is that the manufacturer seems to be a bit schizophrenic about marketing them and about how to instruct its customers.

I am not holding out much hope if the Canadian dealers are as well informed (ahem!) as in the US. I doubt the lowering of the ratio of the lowest gear is more than 20% or so and that can't compensate directly for not having a 1:2 transfer case. On the other hand the new Tiptronics seems to be addressing low speed with a special pump to make sure the fluid pressure is high enough at low RPMs. One might hope that the viscous coupling could allow a very low speed crawl with enough torque to get over rocks or whatever. So, i guess my real question is what does the new 2011 manual have to say about this. BTW, it is really a shame that these very off-road capable machines are mostly used to shuffle around the suburbs.

Considering a 2011 Cayenne purchase. I am trying to understand how the new lower gear (Tip 8 speed) in the 2011 Cayenne (and S) compensates for the elimination of a low range transfer case. Are the low gear ratios (and transfer ratios) available anywhere for the 2010 and 2011 models so I can compare. A related question: when might the 2011 Cayenne user manual become available here? We are not planning on using the Cayenne like a Wrangler --- on the other hand we do go out in the desert and there are times when being able to crawl can really help (and not beat up tires, etc.) So I am trying to understand what the changes imply. Thanks for any info.