997 won't start, all seems ok but no turnover, battery ok.
Discussion
My car, 2007 997 c2s, has always seemed noticably sluggish to turnover although it always started until once, about 6 month's ago, I had to jump start it. All was fine then for a while until about 2 month's ago when the wife was out in it and it woulod not start again.
The RAC came out and managed to get it going, I took it to Porsche Kendal who checked it over and declared everything in order and the battery holding charge fine. I bought a CTEK Porsche charger while I was there and have kept this plugged into the cigarette light when the car is not being used. I have noticed for the last few weeks that this never seems to get beyond the middle orange light so seemingly is not achieving full charge.
This morning, the car opened fine, all ignition lights came on as usual but the turnover was completely dead, made no attempt to turn over at all. I took the battery to my local garage and he has checked it and says its seems fine, is fully charged and holding charge so it looks like it is not the battery.
The mystery is 2 fold - why does the trickle charger never seem to get beyond orange when the battery checks out fine? Is the charger duff perhaps?
Secondly and perhaps more pressingly(!) why has the car always been sluggish to start, why now is the starter completely dead although all other electrics seem fine?
Any thoughts please
The RAC came out and managed to get it going, I took it to Porsche Kendal who checked it over and declared everything in order and the battery holding charge fine. I bought a CTEK Porsche charger while I was there and have kept this plugged into the cigarette light when the car is not being used. I have noticed for the last few weeks that this never seems to get beyond the middle orange light so seemingly is not achieving full charge.
This morning, the car opened fine, all ignition lights came on as usual but the turnover was completely dead, made no attempt to turn over at all. I took the battery to my local garage and he has checked it and says its seems fine, is fully charged and holding charge so it looks like it is not the battery.
The mystery is 2 fold - why does the trickle charger never seem to get beyond orange when the battery checks out fine? Is the charger duff perhaps?
Secondly and perhaps more pressingly(!) why has the car always been sluggish to start, why now is the starter completely dead although all other electrics seem fine?
Any thoughts please
Do you know how old the battery is ? If it's the original one, then it's kind of dead now, whatever people have told you.
If you don't have a warranty then you can pick up a replacement at your local factors for £50 and it takes 5 minutes to change I had a cheapo Numax one and never let me down if maintained regularly in case you don't use the car much in winter. Although I guess you could buy a Bosch for under £100.
If you don't have a warranty then you can pick up a replacement at your local factors for £50 and it takes 5 minutes to change I had a cheapo Numax one and never let me down if maintained regularly in case you don't use the car much in winter. Although I guess you could buy a Bosch for under £100.
Magic919 said:
Have you tried jumping it today?
Not tried jumping it today. I really wanted to get the battery checked out first, with it having been sat there for a few days doing nothing to see if it was faulty. It seems to be all ok, so could be the starter motor....?The trickle charger stopping on orange points to a battery fault but maybe the charger is faulty? (seems an unlikely coincidence but who knows...)
nickfrog said:
Do you know how old the battery is ? If it's the original one, then it's kind of dead now, whatever people have told you.
If you don't have a warranty then you can pick up a replacement at your local factors for £50 and it takes 5 minutes to change I had a cheapo Numax one and never let me down if maintained regularly in case you don't use the car much in winter. Although I guess you could buy a Bosch for under £100.
Checked with Porsche Kendal and apparantly it is £175 inc VAT for the official Porsche battery! I do have the warranty so will probably need to go this route if I need a new battery.If you don't have a warranty then you can pick up a replacement at your local factors for £50 and it takes 5 minutes to change I had a cheapo Numax one and never let me down if maintained regularly in case you don't use the car much in winter. Although I guess you could buy a Bosch for under £100.
Found the bit on corroded clips on the starter motor:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=974...
The trickle chargers were also rubbished+ recently:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=110...
If the charger is knackered then it's more likely (and cheaper?) to 'just' be the battery.
+ which is normal PH behaviour tho
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=974...
The trickle chargers were also rubbished+ recently:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=110...
If the charger is knackered then it's more likely (and cheaper?) to 'just' be the battery.
+ which is normal PH behaviour tho
Hi The symptoms you describe are very similar to the ones I had on my 997.1 GT3 - It's used very little Garaged/Covered and on Trickle charge - showing Full Charge.
I had full battery charge but when depressing the clutch pedal to engage start proceedure then nothing (only the usual "click" normally associated with a dead battery)however sometimes it would start no problems then the failure to start outweighed the non start until
non start must of the time!
Put car in 2nd gear and "Rocked" it to see if the Starter Motor was sticking - No joy.
I tried a replacement Battery (Even though it was showing full charge and the C/Locking etc worked fine) - Same problem ! Push started the car and it started no problem!!
Solution - New Starter Motor - No problems (so far - not used much since)
Methinks a new Starter Motor will have the problem sorted !?
Good luck!
MF
I had full battery charge but when depressing the clutch pedal to engage start proceedure then nothing (only the usual "click" normally associated with a dead battery)however sometimes it would start no problems then the failure to start outweighed the non start until
non start must of the time!
Put car in 2nd gear and "Rocked" it to see if the Starter Motor was sticking - No joy.
I tried a replacement Battery (Even though it was showing full charge and the C/Locking etc worked fine) - Same problem ! Push started the car and it started no problem!!
Solution - New Starter Motor - No problems (so far - not used much since)
Methinks a new Starter Motor will have the problem sorted !?
Good luck!
MF
I see your car is a tiptronic, I have not had a tip but I assume they have the same safety features as a full auto car.
I got caught out once because the gear selection lever was about 2mm short of being where it needed to be in order for the car to start. If you have not already done so I suggest playing around with the gear lever and praying that's all it is.
as I say, I have not had a tip so please disregard this if it is silly advice.
I got caught out once because the gear selection lever was about 2mm short of being where it needed to be in order for the car to start. If you have not already done so I suggest playing around with the gear lever and praying that's all it is.
as I say, I have not had a tip so please disregard this if it is silly advice.
philcray said:
Checked with Porsche Kendal and apparantly it is £175 inc VAT for the official Porsche battery! I do have the warranty so will probably need to go this route if I need a new battery.
Not quite. If you push them they should confirm that it's not a requirement of the warranty. What they may say is that should a subsequent fault occur that is attributed/linked to a non-standard battery than that portion of any claim will be void. That's wot mine sed!I left the battery at the garage and, although it was showing good charge and everything ok, we put it on the charger and left it there about 4 hours. It took a few hours before the green light came on which was quite a bit longer than expected - I took it home, popped it back on the car and voila it started up first time! It actually seemed to start more strongly than usual and, after a good run, I plugged the trickle charger. This showed orange but went to green after a short while and has stayed there.
The battery had passed all the tests and seemed ok so, as I don't do a lot of miles, presumably it was just never getting back up to a full charge and perhaps the cold weather just tipped it over the edge.
I know nothing about car batteries but the mechanic commented that he was quite surprised that the cold cranking amps rating on the standard 911 battery was 380 (from memory so I might be a bit wrong) which is apparently quite low, most standard batteries would generate up to twice that and some cars of course have 2 batteries. I spoke to Porsche Kendal and they agreed, it obviously works but might give less guts for turning things over if the car is not used a lot and then often for short journeys.
The battery had passed all the tests and seemed ok so, as I don't do a lot of miles, presumably it was just never getting back up to a full charge and perhaps the cold weather just tipped it over the edge.
I know nothing about car batteries but the mechanic commented that he was quite surprised that the cold cranking amps rating on the standard 911 battery was 380 (from memory so I might be a bit wrong) which is apparently quite low, most standard batteries would generate up to twice that and some cars of course have 2 batteries. I spoke to Porsche Kendal and they agreed, it obviously works but might give less guts for turning things over if the car is not used a lot and then often for short journeys.
Thanks for the update.
Be careful with what people tell you about batteries, there is a lot of s
te spoken about them out there.
Personally I do not know what is ste and what isn't, but I do know that for what one expert tells you another expert will tell you the opposite, so at least one of the two is full of ste.
Glad you are back on the road OP, it's a nice feeling when you realise the fault is something and nothing and you can now pull your trousers up and stand up straight again.
Be careful with what people tell you about batteries, there is a lot of s
te spoken about them out there.Personally I do not know what is s
te and what isn't, but I do know that for what one expert tells you another expert will tell you the opposite, so at least one of the two is full of ste.Glad you are back on the road OP, it's a nice feeling when you realise the fault is something and nothing and you can now pull your trousers up and stand up straight again.
I had the battery replaced on my 997 after very similar problems. It would charge but then not hold that charge for long. I was only doing a few miles in it - some weeks none, other weeks maybe 20-30. Its not covered under the new warranty either, but it started much better after and would hold its charge for 2-3 weeks rather than 2-3 days!
Check Pope's response in this thread - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a... He's OPC.
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