Cayenne Driveshaft

Porsche introduced the Cayenne SUV in 2003, which later became it’s #1 selling vehicle. The model shares the same platform as the VW Touareg, and thus shares a lot of the same issues. One of those issues in the 03 and early 04 models was a driveshaft carrier bearing that would fail and cause a knocking, thumping, or as many describe it, a “wummering” sound. It can happen under hard acceleration, light acceleration, when there is an old lady crossing the street in front of you…..SQUIRREL! Ie…..it just seems random as to when the symptoms may happen or what relieves them. It can still happen in the later year Cayennes (and Touaregs), but less frequent.

This Cayenne had a deep thub thub thub sound coming from the rear under moderate acceleration, so I was pretty sure of what I would find with the driveshaft. Up in the air it goes.

Stuck up there is the multi-piece driveshaft or Cardan Shaft.

After dropping the center plate, you can see the carrier bearing that supports the center of the driveshaft is well….now a multi-piece unit. Out she comes.

Lowering the exhaust down to slide the shaft out.

And here you can see the bad bearing. When the bearing goes bad, the center of the driveshaft can wobble, causing the noise/vibration.

The fedex guys were laughing at my package…….I just don’t understand why……they must be easily amused.

The new driveshaft next to the old one. Porsche updated to a better part in the later years to help alleviate this issue, so our new shaft is “new and improved”.

Shoving it back in place. There is a special tool to center the driveshaft that is pretty critical, so make sure to use that when going back together.

Cardan ShaftCayenneDrive ShaftPorscheWummering