Battery is fine, just can't keep car alive.

so here is the deal; car used daily from new (Sept 06) left for 4 days locked and had to be jumped left on a conditioner for 2 weeks and completely dead when I returned the conditioner reporting that the battery would not retain charge. OPC today told me that the battery passed their tests and until it reports a fault then its not a warrenty change! they were almost suggesting that you can not leave the car for more than a week without some form of charging! what do you think?

If the battery was fully charged when you locked it up and left it and if it was on a trickle charger during that time and still didn't hold a charge than I'd say faulty battery or charger. As reported here before the car uses a lot juice when locked and I'm not terribly convinced that Porsche delivers them with a fully charged battery to start with. Routine driving alone may not get the battery fully charged if sufficent speed and distance is not achieved as the Owner's Manual warns. You need to promise the Cayman that trip to Spa for the F1 race...

Well drove the car from Manchester to London the day i picked it up and the daily commute is around 70 miles round trip so would have thought the battery was charged? Charger is OK works on other cars fine. btw SPA is booked in so she will get a good run then

Battery is fine, etc. Something to add: We purchased a new battery for another Porsche after 6 years, and felt that 28K miles and trickle charger were sufficient to keep battery charged. It was purchased from other than dealer, but was still expensive. Seller stated most warranties are dependent on use of the car, e.g. driving activitity, and that NOT driving car could be used as a reason NOT to support warranty, if that was determined. We never heard of such, but other than daily drivers may want to be aware. Do any of you have any experiences which support this attitude by battery manufacturers?

Texas Red, yes that is Porsche's policy re batterys. This is a good read by the way: What causes car batteries to fail early? They key to battery life as I understand it is achieving periodic fully saturated charges. Something that a lot of Porsche owners never do.

This lack of charging issue is new to me. I have a 2000 Corvette in which I finally replaced the original battery this year (2007). I alway have the intention of charging it's battery every month during the winter when it is in storage, but it never happens. I just charge it in the spring and it works perfectly all summer. We also have 4 vehicles and only two drivers in our household. My wife only drives her XC90 and I drive the other three. So some of my cars sit for a long time without being driven. I never have any problems with any of the batteries. Also my boat sits from Oct to May every year and starts without issue.

exactly my point, never have i had to condition a battery if i intend leaving it for a while, my friend has a 993 that is left for long periods and starts first time every time! and i don't agree with the argument that modern cars have a lot more charge draining kit on them that adds to the problem, when locked up its just the alarm+door receiver module that should be taking power. look at the thousands of cars left at airports for weeks on end, I have a bad battery and until I can get my OPC to agree I either live with it or pay £250 plus for a new one!

Howi, I tbelieve that for whatever reason the current Porsche cars draw higher then average current when parked. The Porsche is programmed to turn off it's remote lock/unlock receiver after 4 days to conserve power. I was having problems with my Boxster S starting up. I would drive it for 45 minutes and park. You would think that would be enough to get to full chage. I then had trouble turning it over after sitting for an hour. It never stranded me or needed a jump but that time was fast approaching. Went to the dealer as my warrenty was near the end and they said the battery was just tired and nothing was wrong with the system, so they would not replace the battery under warrenty. They seem to regard the battery as a "wear item" like brakes and clutches and they will only do a warrenty replacement if a real problem is detected. Your problem seems to be comming on sooner then is reasonable and I would try another dealer to see if they can find a problem. The bottom line seems to be, no identified problem - no warrenty fix on batteries.

yea good point Mike, they are just calling it a tired but not faulty battery which after 6 months of normal ownership I am finding hard to accept!

If you use a battery tender make sure it is a float charger, quick charging with the wrong kind of charger does more harm than good. A deep discharge (leaving the lights on for example) will also considerably shorten the life of the battery . Sulfation from water loss, undercharging, electrolyte stratification, excessive temperatures or prolonged periods of non-use account for most of the deep cycle and starting battery failures that are not used weekly, vehicle charging systems cannot by themselves cope with certain driving habits (short trips with high loads leaving the battery constantly undercharged). Average battery life has become shorter as energy requirements have increased. In general car batteries last three to five years on average. Life span depends on usage; I've read that only 30% of all batteries actually reach the 48-month mark. A battery is like a piggy bank. If you keep taking out and putting nothing back you soon will have nothing. Since Porsche cannot control the owner's care of the battery I can sort of see why they treat them like brake pads but when something happens on the extreme short end of the expected life like Howi's you have to think the call is awfully close.

yea its a close call i guess this is the charger/conditioner I have; Oxford Products Maximiser 360T : Motorcycle Accessories : Battery Care - Tyres Online

Howi, FYI I had the dealer put in a new battery a couple months after they checked the charging system on warrenty. The funny thing is they did not put in an OEM battery but put in an interstate battery instead. I know we are tough on batteries these days but six months does not seem right to me. If you had left the light on a few times or ran it dead flat starting it I could see why it is damaged, but if you didn't the battery should be doing better that this. I suggest you check the terminal connections - make sure they clean and tight. If you have a volt meter and feel ambitious, you can test the voltage on each cell individually. They should all be very near 2 volts. A single dead cell will be really low in voltage and cause many of your symptoms. DOn't stick the meter leads directly into the acid, but use an extension wire. Mike

If you're worried about getting stranded, check out priority start at PriorityStart - Stop Dead Batteries on Cars & Boats [Priority Start! Battery Protector] (I think). It monitors the battery and disconnects it if it gets low so you'll have enough power to get started. When Corvettes were having a lot of battery problems -- even had an acronym DBS -- dead battery syndrome (eventually turned out to be a software problem that didn't turn off the accessory circuits properly), a number of the owners went to that.

Any Good as you underlined it will do. No need to spring for the extra bucks for the one from Porsche unless you come across a good deal. Cetek makes the Porsche one and they sell for less from many auto catalogs and sponsor Booth offers a good deal on a battery tender as well.

You battery is knackered. I leave my car outside in the street for two weeks at a time and have never had a problem with the battery .

ok closure on this, turns out that at standing we should be looking at 0.1 amp 0.2 amp tops, mine was 0.4! my radar blinder is causing the problem even though it is AFTER the ignition! I have pulled the fuse for now and need to look into it.

ANY Porsche I have ever owned from my 928 to the Cayman has been hard on batteries.....2 weeks is about the max you can leave one without getting into trouble. Weather & climate also play a big part. A battery may be in tip top shape 3 weeks one place and only 1 week in another. Big temp swings and sporatic non-use are not good for them either. If either the 928 or CS sits for more than three days, it gets put on the Porsche battery maintainer.....a little expensive, but works very well.

Extend Your Battery's Life I don't know how many of our readers are aware of this fact, but batteries begin their slow death from the moment the acid is introduced to the lead plates and the electrons start flowing. Every moment of a batteries life, it is producing sulfates and it is sulfates that ultimately short out your battery rendering it as "shot" or "dead". Recurring deep discharges or annually allowing your battery's voltage to drop ("get weak" or "go dead") creates much larger amounts of the sulfates to form more quickly on the batteries lead plates and precipitate like a snowfall to the bottom of the battery. If anybody has been driving for a number of years, I'm sure that they have once or twice inadvertently left parking lights, glove box door or etc. energized only to return to their vehicle one or two hours later and be surprised to find a "weak" or "dead" battery. You may have noted that the same battery (when new) would have tolerated such acts of forgetfulness with no problem but now that the battery is aging (sulfate build-up) it is losing its capacity. There is a wonderfully simple to install, inexpensive and peace-of-mind producing product that I use on my families, my business truck and my Cayman S (six vehicles). This device will preserve and extend your "like new" battery performance for double or triple the normal battery life. For just a fraction of the cost of a new battery ($59.95), you can keep your battery cranking strong at "like new output", prevent the inconvenience of an unexpected battery failure and also protect the environment by saving all of the energy required to recycle/manufacture two additional batteries. For winter storage, just leave the Battery Life Saver installed and use any battery maintenance charger and a conventional household timer that cycles the trickle charger on for a period of time then off for the same period of time repeatedly. This will keep your battery strong as new for maybe a decade. Regards, Joe

i did not drive my car for 7 weeks--used a porsche battery tender ( not charger) plugged into the cigarette lighter--no problem with start up--i never use the power outlets for this only the cigarette lighter--this plug is more convienet for me and has posed no problems--i drive the car infrequenly so i always plug it in

All of the cars on the showroom floor at my Porsche dealership are hooked up to battery maintainers. Not so at Mercedes and Honda dealers. Something is different.