Ftat as a witches t^t

[Bushman]

My little Cayman tried to disown me yesterday and sent me to Coventry. just because we went on holiday for two weeks to Tenerife and I didn't put the Porsche in my suitcase and take it with us. Bast**d Battery was so flat even the LED interior lights showed me no respect. I'm not really surprised, I have long suspected that either the after market tracker/ imobiliser that was already fitted by someone previous was a drain, or like most modern cars, some on the electronics never really fully switch off, and I had to fit a new battery last winter. 

No problem I thought, I'll just pull out the little red link in the fuse box and hook up a jump lead, release the front lid and charge the battery, no worries. Yeah right!! two hours later, 3 batteries and a large battery charger later, I am still locked out, Not happy, the link did not seem to be talking to the battery. I grovelled up under the front nearside wheelarch searching for the manual release cable that I saw was there when I had the headlamps out. ( I thought back then about how difficult it would be to find it and give it a tug and maybe I should extend it and put a ring pull on it. Nah, I'll never need it. Muppet, I should have.)  In the end, I cut the heavy duty cigarette lighter plug and lead from a ceramic heater./demister and wired it up to a battery charger and plugged it in. Nothing for nearly 10 minutes then the alarm went off and I was able to ping the lid. happy days.

Determined this will never catch me out again , I raided the shed cupboards and made up a jump led system using an Anderson plug connector.. larger versions of these are used on forklifts to connect the battery packs.. trial and error with some cardboard space claims and masking tape, I searched for the most protected and discreet mounting location with reasonable routeing back to the battery. as you can see from the photos, I ended up mounting one half of the connector to the plastic panel to the right of the battery cover, right at the back and angled up so that I can just plug in the other half with the front lid shut whilst it is still invisible unless you know where to look..

4 hours later with a fully charged battery, I thought I would start the car and go for a shakedown drive. PSM Failure warnings, Buggar. back on the forums, this could be very expensive or a simple brake pedal brake light switch.  I wiggled, sprayed, tapped and whilst I was down there, prayed. no one up there was listening, still had PSM failure. Sod it, I'll see if its still driveable as I need it for work on Monday. Less than half a mile later, the PSM failure went away, not sure why, maybe low brake pressure or something sticking., I switched the PSM on an off a few times but everything is back to normal. 

NOTE TO SELF; don't neglect the car in future, it wants a holiday too, with voltage.!!.

 

[barryb]

Hi

 

This is interesting, I carry an Audew starter battery in the car for just such an occasion. I am now concerned that the procedure outlined in the manual under some circumstance may not open the front lid. Is there anyone else that has not been able to access the battery with the normal procedure? I don't want to test it by disconnecting the battery in case of creating secondary problems.Didn't know that there was a manual way of opening the front lid.

Bushman you need to learn from this and show more love to Cayman

 

Barry

[s3 akr]

I think the PSM failure is an alert because of the flat battery. I've read that you can get the same when you disconnect a charged battery and put it back on again. A short drive let's the brain decide all is well in PSM land and cancels the alert.

 

My battery died yesterday and will be swapped tomorrow, so I guess I'll see similar errors.

[Beanoir™]

Yep, PSM warning does disappear if you take it for a spin for a few miles following a battery change.  

 

 

[Bushman]

note to BarryB. all Poxters and Caymans are evidently fitted with lock release cables as in some countries, USA included, by law, the emergency services must have a way of accessing the batteries and engines to switch them off or isolate them. My front lid cable terminates behind the front nearside wheel arch liner. on my mates Poxster its under the offside wheel arch liner. on Yankee spec cars its in the A pillar door shuts  beside the door hinge. The rear lid cable disappears off to the nearside round the tail light cluster and presumably terminates somewhere under the rear wheel arch liner. I might extend it with a proper ring pull if I can find it next time the rear wheels have to come off, ( just in case I feel the need to check the water level whilst the battery is dead flat) or more likely, I lock myself out.!

[barryb]

Hi

Thanks Bushman, I need to go and check to make sure I know where they are just in case.

 

Barry

[Aaron]

On 04/09/2017 at 13:00, Beanoir said:

Yep, PSM warning does disappear if you take it for a spin for a few miles following a battery change.  

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure that the PSM light is due to the fact that the steering angle sensor requires calibration after the battery is disconnected.  Going lock to lock whilst stationary, then moving forward, it should disappear after 20-30 metres.

 

The windows are also the same.  All the way up and all the way down so that the DME knows where those positions are.

[s3 akr]

It does - I changed my battery today for a new, shiny, expensive, over priced, genuine Porsche item (yep - still a Mol) and can confirm that all the errors were gone within a few yards of driving it.

 

On the plus side, the engine is running much smoother. The slightly uneven idle is now absolutely smooth. Perhaps the uneven idle was a symptom of an old battery starting to fail ?