Seat settings not working

[Bill in Bama]

I've had a love/hate relationship with my comfort setting on my 2017 Cayenne. I've saved my preferences using the key symbol on the door , I get the beep indicating they are saved, and sometimes get in and the seat moves to my preferred setting. Other times it doesn't, but I can hold the key icon and it will move to the correct setting. Am I doing something wrong or is it defective?

[blueline]

This is a lengthy reply and it may not address your issue but I'll give it a shot!

I had a similar conundrum early on with our 2019 Cayenne Turbo (which is really my wife's car). I didn't drive it very often and noticed that the seat would only adjust partially when I got in and touched the seat memory button. (And yes, I had stored my settings the same way you are doing and was also using my key fob, not my wife's.)

Before getting into this further, I should note that there are two kinds of individual memory-type settings for drivers - Comfort and Ergonomic.

Ergonomic settings affect seat, door mirror and steering wheel settings and are what the door memory buttons 1, 2 & 3 retrieve.

Comfort settings affect the aforementioned Ergonomic as noted above PLUS air conditioning, light, vision, assistance system, instrument cluster and infotainment settings, only accessible via PCM.

There are two things that can/should accomplish what you want. (Hopefully!) The first is for Ergonomic settings only that will always work but is not very elegant, while the second is more permanent and does all settings.

What I quickly discovered at first was that I needed to hold the relevant memory button down (mine is "2") until the seat moved into the correct position. Just pressing and releasing the memory button wouldn't complete the process. The seat would stop moving as soon as I released the memory button. I needed to hold it down completely until the seat adjust cycle completed, which was just a few seconds.

The second and more permanent and proper solution was to correctly set up my personal settings in the PCM using the "Managing Driver Profile" setup. (We bought the Cayenne new but initially it was not set up for me, just for my wife.) Without individual setups, the vehicle doesn't really know who is driving; it had no idea who I was.

For our Cayenne, that personalized setup is under "Set" > "Driver" > that will then show the following options (as copied from my owner's manual):

– Edit driver
– Delete driver (via the Edit driver menu item)
– Activate driver
– Activate personalization
– Deactivate automatic saving

From there, you can enter into the appropriate sub-menu and delete, setup, save, etc. as necessary.

However, note that our Cayenne's software and PCM may be different from yours since they are different generations. If my information is correct, yours is a 2nd Gen Cayenne 958.2 (2015 - 2018) while ours is a 3rd Gen 940 (2019 to present).

One shortfall for beloved newer Porsche vehicles is the sometimes bewildering user interface software. It can be bizarre. (It's a German thing. For even more fun, see what the Italians do with software such as AiM data acquisition products - excellent quality but confusing software and instruction manuals.)

To make it worse, there's little consistency from Porsche model to model, much less between generations of the same model. The confusing presentation goes for owner's manuals too which is why I always want pdf versions to give me a halfway decent chance of finding what I'm looking for. Even that is all too often a challenge. I do feel that Porsche is making good headway with their driver interface software, but they still have more to do. Everything we need is mostly there - it's just sometimes hard to find and difficult to figure out. (That aspect is challenging for a lot of auto manufacturers and their customers right now.)

Maybe this will help you sort it all out.

[Bill in Bama]

Thanks for the suggestions, mine is the ergonomic version, seat, mirrors, wheel, radio and hvac settings are all affected. I know I need to dig my manual out and go over everything, but if it works one time but not the next I'm baffled. Report to follow.

[blueline]

Thanks for the suggestions, mine is the ergonomic version, seat, mirrors, wheel, radio and hvac settings are all affected. I know I need to dig my manual out and go over everything, but if it works one time but not the next I'm baffled. Report to follow.

The random nature is baffling. I couldn't address that so I just went with what I had experienced on my end.

It's possible that the fob is defective. They are transmitters after all and subject to interference or malfunction. I know you already know this, but a weak fob battery might cause the issue too. Hopefully it's not a body ctrl module (or whatever Porsche calls their version of those devices).

Maybe others here will have some ideas. I am curious what you find out once you get it sorted.

[blueline]

One other thought is to get a Porsche tech to run some diagnostics and maybe do some sort of partial or full PCM reset if called for. We have had a couple of very minor but perplexing PCM glitches that the dealership was able to correct in that manor. Porsche techs also have access with their digital tools to buried commands and hidden menus not available to us.

[Bill in Bama]

I could get the dealer to try this, but the vehicle is out of warranty and I really don't want to pay them several hundred bucks just to get my seat setting to remember itself. Its annoying but not critical, and I possibly could reset it all by just disconnecting the battery for a few minutes, although that is a pain in itself since its under the driver's seat and hard to access. I replaced the battery on my 2013 Cayenne and while not brain surgery it was almost as involved as replacing the air filters on my 718. At least the battery on that one is under the hood. I'll get around to trying something one of these days, but I rarely think about it until I get in the car and the seat doesn't move to my desired position.

[blueline]

Is it just the seat memory that's not adjusting correctly or are there recall problems with the other retained memory settings (ie: the "comfort" settings)? Does holding down the appropriate door panel memory button eventually move the seat and other ergonomic settings to the correct spots?

I'm no expert, but I don't think disconnecting the battery will solve the memory issue. Having said that, I don't see how trying it would hurt.

Assuming the control module or other electronics are not defective, resetting the Driver Profile might do the trick. Are there extra profiles stored that are not used or needed? If others drove the vehicle and stored partial profiles, maybe that could cause memory problems. Profiles can also become corrupted. Deleting all stored profiles and then re-setting just yours might do the trick. If not, it would at least eliminate that as the problem.

Assuming you're comfortable doing this, I'd delete every stored profile, turn off and lock the Cayenne, remove the fob from the vicinity, wait a bit and then come back and sign in as "guest" before proceeding with setting up your new profile. Please note that I'd not do any of the above until you know for sure how it's done per your Owner's Manual or by someone who knows 2nd Gen Cayenne's well. Also, I'm not sure if you'd need a pairing code or some other kind of PIN. I don't think so but I don't know for sure.

I'm just throwing out wild ideas here, so it would be much better if someone could substantiate what I've suggested. Or even better, maybe someone else at Carpokes or elsewhere will have first-hand knowledge of this issue and be able to provide better answers.