Cayenne Completely Locked Up, Steering Fault, Need Advice

[cfiiman]

Hey all,

 

So very ironic day. Ironic in the fact that I just finished a 3000 mile journey with the old girl even towing a 6k lb payload for 1000 of that and she preformed flawlessly. Today I went out to get some landscape supplies and when I got back in the car the alert sounded and the car was completely locked up with "Steering Faulty" on the display. Couldn't even roll down the windows. Can't get the ignition on to even use Durametrics. I've read everything I can on it and it looks best case: battery, relay, cable, etc. or worst case: steering column. I had it towed to my house since it is a weekend and thought I would try to work on it myself as I do all my own maintenance on all my cars, but this thing is different. I've realized there are things I just can't do to this vehicle thanks to the way it was designed and I'm really bothered by it and that is all I will say about it as I went on a rant earlier today. Anyway, I guess I'm trying to weigh my options here and need some advice. The Cayenne is old (2004) and has pretty high miles (160K), I took a chance on it and it may come back to bite me big time on this. I did read some other threads on success having a PIWIS system unlock it or even that it has been a cable or a relay, but since it has totally locked me out of everything (thanks a million Porsche) I can't do jacksh%^W&t with it at the moment.  I disconnected the battery for an hour or so and no change. If I can't get it to unlock I will have it towed to a small independent shop with a 30 year Porsche Master tech I have become friends with (he is the one that walked me through the manual unlock of the tranny for the tow truck). I guess I'm not sure what to do if it is a real expensive fix, I love the SUV, but it isn't worth very much if it was running so to put a big pot of money into it seems silly, but not sure what else to do. Any advice would be appreciated, honestly I'm just trying to decide what the options are if I'm not going to fix it, part it out, sell it as a parts vehicle? It was running flawless today and then bam, game over in a split second, ugh. Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

EDIT:  Looks like I posted this in the wrong MY forum, can an admin please move?  Thanks.

Edited December 28, 2015 by cfiiman