How to Pass Cables to the Back of a 991 Porsche

Chris L

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Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/

Today (28th August 2019) I wanted to take my car out, but could not get into it by using the unlock button of the key. I presumed the battery was flat. After a frustrating day I managed to get it open and going again with the help of the AA.

 I hope that by publishing this, other 992 owners who might find themselves in a similar situation will have a speedier resolution to the problem that I did. BTW, this info. comes with no warranty or fitness for purpose, blah de blah; if you choose to follow any of the advice, it's at YOUR OWN risk, not mine!

Checking back, I see that I last drove the car on 22nd July when I took it to Porsche Leicester to have a new cup-holder (or summat) and a software update installed. Total drive time then, just over an hour.

 Since then it's been in my garage as I had a serious cycling accident which has made be unable to, and not wanting to, drive it.

 So today, after fiddling with the key, phoning Porsche Leicester, Googling for help then phoning the AA, here's what was needed to do to get it going again:

1. Take the 'emergency key' out of your main 'driver's key' as per page 95 of the Driver's Manual.
2. Pull the handle of the driver's door up and insert that key. Note that the key only goes in properly one way up and not the other. For this process, refer to page 69 of the Driver's Manual, BUT note that the instructions in point 4 on page 70 might be incorrect as it may be that you need to turn the key clockwise (assuming your car's a right-hand drive one like mine is!). Now, here's where I tried a number of times and failed, but the AA guy managed to get it to work. Apparently you need to turn it and then back to vertical again, but I think that the AA guy released the door handle before pulling it again (and possibly some other shenanigans). It might have been that it was that second pull that actually opened the door. That said, he may have managed to turn the key further than I did, in so doing, forcing the door to manually open. Anyhow, it was not straightforward for me, but the clever chap got it open :-)

Once the door was open, we tried starting the car. It's dead. The alarm had not gone off. There's nothing showing on any of the displays. What we needed to do next was as follows:

1. Referring to page 148 of the Drivers Manual, reach across into the passenger foot-well and open the fuse box. Pull out the positive terminal (red) from the fuse box and connect a positive jump lead to it. Then connect the negative jump lead to the hinge of the driver's door (apparently 'the door arrester'). Once that's done, the bonnet should open with the button that's on the door sill next to the driver's seat. If it doesn't, check all jump lead connections, wiggle them and try again.
2. Assuming you get the bonnet open and you want to try jump starting the car, take the jump leads off and then connect the positive jump lead on to the battery. Next, connect the negative lead to 'ground point' (NOT the battery!!) as shown on page 128 of the Driver's Manual for lithium batteries - BUT BEFORE YOU DO THAT, read my other post of 29 August!

At this point, with any luck, the displays in the car should come on and you should be able to start the car as normal.

 I guess that where we got stuck and what made this a very prolonged process was:

1. The emergency key didn't open the door for me.
2. It took us ages to find the four separate pages (five if you want to re-charge the battery with a charger!) we needed in the Driver's Manual.
3. The pictures and descriptions in the Driver's Manual are not as clear as they could be.
4. Is it the 'bonnet' / 'hood' / 'luggage compartment' that I'm trying to open? As I didn't know what to look for using Google, any Googling for answers didn't give the results I needed!

I'll be properly back in the car tomorrow, I hope, but it will take another couple of weeks before I'm back on my bike I think.

 All the best to all the best!

31/08/2019 Update: Clarified a couple of points in the above. I should also point out that if you are going to try re-charging the battery with a charger, you should read my other post below of 29 August.

20/07/2020 Update: Flat battery again and that's just 12 days since I last went out in it :-/ Two things I struggled with this time, both to do with getting the bonnet open. First is to do with the terminal in the passenger foot well that you connect the positive jump lead to. I'd pulled this out and connected the jump lead to it but after many, many attempts, it nothing was happening. After a frustrating half an hour, I decided to look at it again and this time I pulled the terminal out as far as I could. In doing that it clicked slightly and appeared to have locked in place. I presume it was this that actually made it make a proper connection. The next issue I had was that the bonnet opening button on the drivers door sill does not appear to open the bonnet. It might be because the theft devices have disabled it, or maybe it just doesn't work in this scenario at all. Anyhow, I had to use the unlock button on the key to open the bonnet. Finally, it's open and we're charging the battery up. Interestingly, I could not jump start the car, even from my Porsche Macan. Even that battery does not seem to have enough juice to start the 992. That said, it might have been that I had to daisy-chain two sets of jump leads together to reach from the Macan to the 911 and one set of jump leads were a bit flimsy and might have not been able to deliver the high power needed to start the engine.

post edited by Chris L - 2020/07/29 09:03:01

Regards, Chris
Current: 992 Carrera S, Macan S Diesel
Previous: Boxster 981 24V, Boxster 987 24V

cymro

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/08/29 11:35:38 (permalink)

Thanks Chris for your information, I wouldn't have thought the battery should have gone flat during this period. The power sockets would have shut down after a period of time. So if you did have something plugged in it would have shut down

R14 South Wales Organiser.
2021 992S coupe
2023 992S on order (hopefully 992.2)
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2019 992S, 2017 991.2GTS, 2015 991 4GTS,991S, 997.2S, 997.1S,996....

Lancerlot

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/08/29 11:47:49 (permalink) ☄ Helpful by Chris L 2019/08/29 14:29:22

An interesting post and thanks for sharing.

 In fact, with all the electronics that need to be kept alive in a modern sports car system, my experience is that the battery can often flatten after just 2 or 3 weeks if the vehicle is unused.

 Many of us invest in a Ctek (or similar)smart battery charger/conditioner. Ctek is the industry standard and can be connected up and left indefinitely without harming the battery. Some models also have a re-conditioner programme and it is recommended this is run on an annual basis.

 You can read all about the Ctek range here https://www.porscheclubgb.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=810548&high=LOWDOWN+CTEK+Porsche+Forum
Regards,

Clive

The older I get - the faster I was!
Past - 924T, '911 SC, 911 C, 911 C2, 964, 996, 996TT, 997TT, 997GT2, 430 Scuderia, 997TT, 997TTS, 991.2TTS. Macan SD. Current - Macan .2 GTS, 992 TTS

Gazoak

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/08/29 14:03:51 (permalink) ☄ Helpful by Chris L 2019/08/29 14:29:24

As Clive says and if you don't plan to drive the car on a daily basis, the Ctek battery conditioner is a perfect companion and will prolong the battery life for many years.

2016 Cayman 981S PDK
2018 BMW M3 Competition Pack
2019 VW Up GTI

Chris L

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/08/29 14:28:03 (permalink) ☄ Helpful by Andrew_CS 2019/08/29 18:41:25

Thanks for the replies Cymro & Lancerlot. I've had more 'fun' with this today. I left the battery charging for about eight hours yesterday, after which the charger reported a charge level of 0%. I couldn't understand why it hadn't charged.

 Today I decided to call the Porsche Helpline again (the AA). Early afternoon another AA guy turns up who, it turns out, knows quite a lot of additional information about resolving this.

 He checks the battery and confirms it's completely flat. We jump start the car with his kit and he does some more checks. He reckons that the battery will fully recover, but that it needs a really good charge. He suggests that the charger I already have should do the job. We set it to use it's 'Recovery' mode and also set the battery type to 'Start/Stop', which I now know is for cars that cut the engines in stationary traffic.

 Now here is the BIG REVELATION of this whole experience. The previous AA man and I had followed the instructions on page 55 of the Driver's Manual (mine's a lithium, not a lead battery btw) and plugged the negative charger onto what we assumed to be the negative ground point, as per 'Fig 23: Lithium battery terminals'. Here I would suggest that Porsche is completely at fault as Fig 23 is for a left-hand drive car. There is no negative ground point on the right-hand side of the car, it's on the left-hand side!! Why on earth couldn't the team that prepared the UK version of this Driver's Manual hand the Fig 23 image to show the negative ground point in the correct place?! It is clear that this sort of mis-information is prevalent in many other parts of the manual, so if you're referring to the Driver's Manual, BEWARE!

 I'll be keeping an eye on the charger status for the next couple of days and will probably make another posting here once I know more...

31/08/2019 Update: An overnight charge when connected to the correct negative ground point worked a treat. The charger shows the battery to be charged at 100%. The car started fine. When driving, the battery level indicator on the driver's display shows it as between 12v and 14v. So, fingers crossed, that's all good now.

post edited by Chris L - 2019/08/31 10:42:56

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Regards, Chris
Current: 992 Carrera S, Macan S Diesel
Previous: Boxster 981 24V, Boxster 987 24V

LRR_uk

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/09/03 08:39:11 (permalink)

Great post Chris!

 Hope you recover from your accident soon to get back in the car.

 Regards,

 Lee.

Current ride;
992 Carrera S (Aventurine green)
Previous rides;
992 Carrera S (Guards red)
718 S (Agate grey)
Macan Turbo (Jet black)
987 S (Basalt black)
986 S (Lapis blue)

Davewdent

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/10/29 10:40:33 (permalink)

Hi
I was looking at getting a charger for my 922 and contacted CTek for advice.
See their reply below-

 You are asking which CTEK battery charger to choose for your vehicle.
Sometimes, special vehicles require special equipment for best care, and therefore we recommend you to check with the vehicle brand representative if there is a tailored charger for your vehicle.
The differences between branded and original charger vary, as the branded chargers are tailored to suit the special vehicle it is branded to.
Differences can for instance be in the charging algorithm or in the connecting accessories.

If you choose an original CTEK charger Lithium (LiFePO4) batte3ry , I can recommend  our CTEK Lithium XS  which is for 12V batteries size 5-60Ah.

 Interesting about the charging algorithm!

 Dave

Lancerlot

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/10/29 11:10:18 (permalink)

Assuming you mean you have a 992 model, you will probably have an AGM battery, consistent with the vehicle's stop/start protocol. Lithium batteries are normally only an option on GT track-focused cars.

  I did an article on Ctek chargers for 997 Register sometime ago, but I believe most of the information is still current. You can find it by clicking here.

   I must say I was unaware that manufacturer branded models were any different to the stock items, but having used both types, these differences seemed imperceptible to me!
Regards,

Clive

The older I get - the faster I was!
Past - 924T, '911 SC, 911 C, 911 C2, 964, 996, 996TT, 997TT, 997GT2, 430 Scuderia, 997TT, 997TTS, 991.2TTS. Macan SD. Current - Macan .2 GTS, 992 TTS

Davewdent

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/10/29 18:53:39 (permalink)

Lancerlot
Assuming you mean you have a 992 model, you will probably have an AGM battery, consistent with the vehicle's stop/start protocol. Lithium batteries are normally only an option on GT track-focused cars.

  I did an article on Ctek chargers for 997 Register sometime ago, but I believe most of the information is still current. You can find it by clicking here.

   I must say I was unaware that manufacturer branded models were any different to the stock items, but having used both types, these differences seemed imperceptible to me!
Regards,

Clive

Hi Clive,

It's definately a Lithium battery.

 I was surprised by the response from Ctek as well, I supposed the porsche chargers were just rebranded Ctek items but their reply concerning charging algoritims puts that into doubt.

 Dave

Davewdent

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/11/03 09:36:41 (permalink)

Hi Chris,

 I have a 992 with lithium battery, as I posted on the Woes of ownership thread the car car was completely dead yesterday.
The car has covered 700+ miles in 4 weeks and was last driven 50 miles 5 days prior to the battery dying.
I tried to open the car with the emergency key but without success. The key is hard to insert.
The AA guy had the same problem with the key becoming stuck in the lock . 15 minutes later he eventually got the door open, saying that was the most difficult to open emergency process he had come across.
I would suggest you have a go with yours to see if yours works, mine was in a dry garage not in the rain at night!
The car is now back at the dealership.

 A guy in the gym told me he has the same problem (dead battery) with a 1 day old new Macan.

 Is there an issue with these lithium batteries?

 BTW Chris is quite correct about the inaccuracies in the manual.

 Dave

post edited by Davewdent - 2019/11/03 09:38:58

Davewdent

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2019/11/11 20:25:46 (permalink)

Just an update on the flat battery.
It turns out it was the tracker antenna discharging the battery. This is the PVTS system.
Dave.

checkers

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2020/12/04 16:48:32 (permalink)

Just came across this thread having spent a frustrating hour this afternoon trying to get into my 992S (without success)
I have only driven the car  a short distance back from the OPC after buying it two weeks ago. However the central locking
is dead and whilst the manual key will turn as per the instruction manual it will not un lock.  I think more force could break off the key.
 My inclination is to have the car recovered to the OPC for them to sort out rather have the AA try and open it and jump start?
 Surely there is an issue if a newish 9/2019 car can't hold sufficient battery charge. I have left BMW's at airports for two months
without any problem

LRR_uk

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2020/12/04 16:58:48 (permalink)

Hi Checkers,

 My replacement 2020 992 has the same issue during lockdown with the battery going dead where it's not used enough (I think all the technology runs constantly in the background (maybe wrong))...  Had to by a second CTEK charger since new 992 had a different battery to the previous one :(

 Where you're trying to open the door worried its going to break the key...  try flipping the key over... I found it does make a difference :(.... Hope that helps

 Lee.

Current ride;
992 Carrera S (Aventurine green)
Previous rides;
992 Carrera S (Guards red)
718 S (Agate grey)
Macan Turbo (Jet black)
987 S (Basalt black)
986 S (Lapis blue)

checkers

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2020/12/04 17:19:12 (permalink)

Thanks for your reply its a big issue for me since the car lives in the street and I don't think
its reasonable for porsche to expect trickle charging as a solution. My 991 never failed to start
after being left!

Chris L

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2020/12/04 17:58:27 (permalink)

Hi Checkers,
Ah, having it on the street is going to be an issue if you wanted to plug a mains powered trickle charger in. But did you know you can get solar powered trickle chargers? I didn't, until I Googled them. No idea if they're any good, but if you do try one, please let us know :-)

post edited by Chris L - 2020/12/05 10:53:09

Regards, Chris
Current: 992 Carrera S, Macan S Diesel
Previous: Boxster 981 24V, Boxster 987 24V

checkers

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2020/12/04 18:48:35 (permalink)

Research needed I will have a look

AndrewT

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2020/12/04 20:50:28 (permalink)

Andrew.
987.2 Cayman S,
R17.

checkers

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Re: Opening and starting a 992 that has a completely flat battery :-/ 2020/12/05 10:38:53 (permalink)

Of possible interest to other owners is that I realised that even if you are able to manually open the drivers door (which so far I am unable to do ) be careful not to close it again as the window drop will not work. I am now waiting for Porsche Assistance
to come and return the car to OPC.
As Chris L posted originally, the instruction guide is not really clear on the manual key procedure since if the key is inverted
for RHD and placed in the lock should the rotation be reversed ie (clockwise not anti clockwise)? Anyway this is academic since
the turn is impossibly stiff in either direction !

How to Pass Cables to the Back of a 991 Porsche

Source: https://www.porscheclubgb.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=1038406

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