Parked next to a buddy of mine in his Corvette C6 on a saturday night, im sitting there in my 08 CS and out of nowhere i get a warning that says "Brake Proportioning" followed by an annoying, yet dreaded beep coming from the dashboard. The light pops on and off about 2 or 3 times and eventually comes on at the same time as my check engine light appears. Im thinking ok whatever let the car do its thing until i get home, where i can safely wait til monday to take it in to the dealership to get checked out... i figured my safest bet was to go home and leave the car until monday..so i left....

Jumping on I-88 the lights are still on however no alarming beeps are going off. Slightly concerned yet cautious i continue driving home.. 5 to 10 minutes after getting on the expressway going about 80 mph, the "brake proportioning" light comes on... in reaction to this i wait until the alert fades away and then lightly apply my brakes... at first when i pressed them, they were solid as stones... couldnt press the pedal down... releasing the brake pedal all together i get the warning "ABS Failure" followed by "Brake Failure" ...at 80mph down the expressway that is the LAST warning light u want to EVER SEE!!! i press the brake pedal once again, and it falls to the floor like its being held up by dental floss...drops like im wearing led filled boots.. it was at that point my heart dropped. Middle lane of the highway, 80 mph, no brakes, and in medium traffic... i thought i was toast. threw my signal on, jumped onto the shoulder of the road, threw my blinkers on, and downshifted as i rode the ridges in the pavement along the shoulder of the road in an attempt to slow me down...Thank god it did even though i killed the treads on the two right tires...better the tires than me..

a couple miles later, after following the bend of the highway along the shoulder i came to a stop and called the number on the back of my 24/7 roadside assistance service that i paid for when buying the car. If your ever contemplating buying this service, do yourself a favor and DONT!! I was connected with a lady that sounded like she was relaxing on the couch watching tv when i called her... I asked her to call for a tow and i was put on hold for 25 minutes (on the side of the expressway at 11:30pm) and was told that a truck would be out there in 45 minutes to an hour.

Luckily a buddy of my cousin's owned a dealership in the area and had owned a tow-truck as well. was there in 10 minutes, had the cayenne on in 5, and had us both dropped off in-front of my house in the same amount of time it would have took for the roadside service to freakin get there.

Typing this on a sunday night, i found myself SOL with regards to getting my car fixed until monday. Unfortunately, this was not the first time i had experienced issues with the cayenne, and to be honest, vouched never to get behind the wheel of that particular one ever again. I know its a bit extreme, but after it failed me like that..sorry charlie...its over.

Probably going for an 08 M5 or something like that..Not particularly sure that it would be the way to go if im in search of something a bit quicker yet still as practical....input on this would be highly appreciated

 

Sounds pretty scary! I'd be freaked out for sure!

But I've gotta admit - if I'm getting those warnings - I'm gonna bust my owners manual out to make sure it's safe to drive. Some warning I can easily ignore - but engine and brakes I take pretty seriously. With that said, even if I didn't check the manual I don't think doing 80MPH with a brake warning going crazy at you from the dash is, to say politely, a great idea.

Checking the owner's manual you may have found this information:

If one brake circuit has failed, the other will still operate.
However, you will notice an increased pedal
travel when you apply the brakes.Failure of one

brake circuit will cause the stopping distance to increase.

Push the brake pedal down firmly and hold it in
that position. A mechanical linkage activates
the second circuit, and you will be able to bring

the vehicle to a stop.

After bringing your vehicle to a complete stop,
avoid driving the vehicle and instead have it
towed to the nearest authorized Porsche dealer

for repair.

I'm sure as scary as the incident sounds - I wouldn't suggest writing off your Cayenne; just be a bit more cautious when the car is telling you there are brake issues going on.

Just my .02's..

 

Anytime a brake warning comes you need to stop. And not down the road, right then and there and figure out what the deal is. At the very minimum going very slowly, ie less than 80mph would be prudent depending on the situation

Don't forget about your e-brake! That's why they call it an emergency brake

Most on-call folks for tow services will be doing it from home. It would be crazy to pay to staff someone at an office all night for 4-5 calls. And a response time of 45-mins to an hour is pretty good for a tow. There are generally several companies they use and they're towing other cars too. Not to mention you have to factor in the drive from wherever they're at to your location. Remember, you're not the only one broken down out there. You're fortunate that you knew someone who was close by who help you out but the rest of us just sit and wait.

It sucks that this happened but it all sounds pretty reasonable. And it sounds like you could have done some things on your end to avoid the drama of brake failure in that situation. Live and learn.

I have an 08 Cayenne too. 27K miles now. No problems ( knock on wood). Maybe you got a lemon. Most newer model Cayenne owners seems pretty happy. There's always the occasional bad one though. I'm sure you can go to the BMW boards and find someone pulling their hair out over their new M5.

 

get a AAA card $50 a year for basic roadside service (up to 3 free calls a year) and if you upgrade its worth it.

 

Glad to hear you were able to get it stopped safely.

 

Okay, I had the same issue last year. One morning, I woke up and unlocked the car and when I opened the door, there was alarm sounds in there even without putting the key into ignition (i don't have entry & drive), and Brake Proportional was the error message on the dash. I started the car, but as a safety feature I believe, even though the engine was running, the car didn't let me move the gear selector. I had to call the roadside assistance go get my car towed, and when the towing car came, I had to put the shift into neutral by using the emergency lever (you need to disassemble the center console, to reach that red emergency lever that lets you switch to neutral). You should have your emergency switches checked I think...

 

i got $0.25 for your car

 

why was the roadside assistance a purchase, i thought it comes with the car!

 

it does come with the car, and all the guys there are a**holes...

 

not sure why you were doing 80 mph after getting that error in the first place?

 

good to hear that nothing happend to anybody in the end...

don`t know why everybody is flaming on him..
I mean,we`re all just human,and humans make mistakes or less reasonable things at times...

 

First off, id like to thanks all of you for all of your advice and concern, without doubt the 80 mph wasn't the smartest idea in the world, but hey everyone makes mistakes...at the end of the day I was happy I didn't hit anything/anyone and happy that they didn't hit me. btw NCMD a 911 GT2 is probably what im going to go with in about a year..either that or a ZR1 for a little less coin..but lets not get started on that debate just yet

I figured id keep the CS for then to use as my DD, but in about the next month or so im most likely going to go with 23" Rinspeeds, KW Coilovers, and Fabspeed's Performance package (-the Bypass pipes that i already have, and the Flash thatd give me warranty issues according to the stealership)

 

I'm confused. You're not happy with the truck but you're going to spend $10K in mods on it?

 

Well i figured id use it for what its worth for now...I payed too much of a pretty penny to lose my a$$ on a trade in/sale etc..