What did you do today?

[SiC]

Went to see the Boxster this afternoon. Didn't think it would be this long before I was back. Looking at the dates of the last post, it seems to be nearly three months. Went to both check on the car and pull the battery out to put it on charge.


However the battery is completely flat now. Unlocked the door and a forceful pull got it open. As no power, the windows can't drop themselves out of the window seal.

Battery lives in the bonnet. Never mind now the door is open, at least the bonnet release is a mechanical unit unlike the electrical ones in the later cars. ...Except it turns out that locking the door also locks the bonnet and trunk. Balls

Google finds that on later cars there is a metal terminal in the fusebox that you can connect to, so you can power the release catch. Not on older ones though.

Porsche at the time came up with two ways of opening the bonnet. First is to take the front wheel off, wheel arch liner and then pull the emergency release cord. Secondly is following this bulletin.


Going to go back over to the storage tomorrow with a bit of wire and a power supply. Hopefully that will allow me to coax it open.

I've requested a CTEK battery maintainer as a Christmas present! Hopefully it won't have fubarred the battery too badly allowing it to get so flat. I don't believe Peter replaced it that long ago either.

[panhard65]

I used to have this problem with my S if it was left for 3 weeks or longer. Mine had the pull out terminal in the fuse box though so was easy enough

[fried onions]

Can't you dis the battery or will that cock something up.

[SiC]

You can but the farmer locks the main gate at 7:30pm. By the time I got the Laguna out and Boxster in, I was running out of time that evening. I intended to go back sooner to discover, but three months managed to pass before I got a chance. Also was hoping to have got a battery maintainer on it before then, so I don't have to re-enter the radio code and not loose all the ECU learning information. Means it'll run a bit rough for a bit until it figures everything out again. Being quite older technology, it doesn't quite have the same amount of non volatile storage that modern ECUs have.

Could be worse, it shouldn't have screwed up anything electronic. On Aston Martin DB9 and Vantages if you let the battery go flat it will corrupt the immobiliser data. This leads you to an expensive trip to the dealers. Their solution is to provide you out of the factory with a battery maintainer to hook up when you're not using the car.

[CLINT]

Sod owning all that wizardry. I'll stick to points/ condensors and simple old diesels!

[fried onions]

Aye. Still achieves the same end.

[LynehamHerc]

This reminds me reading an article about mcclarens old F1 cars.
They have to have some 80s laptops with the software to start the engines etc. on them.
The efficiency might have improved but the practicality has receded at the speed of light.

[bub2006]

Fag lighter chargers have helped before on cars with no battery and electric boot catch. The ones with two fag lighter ends on. May be worth a try

[SiC]

Fuse box


Plugged in my magic cable I made from Renault wiring offcuts


Plugged in a bench supply


Switched on


Alarm goes off. Pushed button on key fob to turn off.

Popped bonnet


Siren goes off now! Key fob didn't seem to want to turn it off, so I just disconnected the power supply and let it whimper itself out.

Anyway bonnet is now unlocked and opened.


The prize.

[DodgeRover]

I've done similar on a merc where the battery is in the boot and the boot lock has siezed with lack of use, I just went through the fuse box applying power and hitting the release button till I found one that worked,