Coolant level and flat battery

Happy new year to all of you and your cars! I was not moving my car for a few weeks (3-4) and when I wanted to start it the battery was flat and I had to get some help. After that the car is running perfectly fine again. Have you had similar experiences? I mean a few weeks does not sound like that long to me, so I would not have expected to have problems starting the car....After starting the car there was quite some steam coming from the back... One other thing that I recognised was that the coolant level has dropped a bit below the min mark and now I was wondering if I can just fill it up with water? Thanks a lot for your help

As with any car, battery performance depends on the age and condition of the battery. A brand new battery may just about hold enough charge in the summer months to start the car if left for 4 weeks. Remember in most Porsches whether activated or not, there may be a tracker system hidden away still squirrelling power away. If you have a 3-4 year old battery in poor condition and left over the worst of the weather just past then it is likely that it wouldn't have started the car after even a couple of weeks. This is all assuming that there is no other parasitic drain from the car. Regarding the coolant, if the coolant mixture is borderline weak then adding water is something you definitely don't want to do as the. Night temperature only needs to drop a bit and you have slush instead of coolant in the engine. A bottle of Porsche coolant is only £8 plus vat which you can make up a 50/50 mix with distilled or soft water. If the level still drops after then look for the obvious causes like the tank cap, leaky tank or porous radiators.

Thanks minny, I guess then it was just a sign that I should take her out for a drive a bit more often... Regarding the coolant is there any problem if two coolants are mixed in the sense that, if the current coolant is different to the one I would buy or is that not a problem at all?

If the coolant in your car is yellow like mine then it is ok to add the newer pink Porsche coolant to it. I think the older one is an OAT coolant and the newer one a HOAT (hybrid organic acid type). Never mix a silicate based one with an OAT/HOAT one as you can get a reaction leading to a brown sludge then you are in trouble. The silicate based ones tend to be blue and most classes of coolant are a specific colour but this is not definitive so never accept when someone tells you that all blue ones, all pink ones and all purple ones are the same. Look at the spec at the back just to confirm it.

I will have a look and I guess probably also check with my dealer, just to be sure not to produce the brown sludge you were talking about...

If the coolant in your car is original, then the pink Porsche coolant is fully compatible.

Is the only coolant available the newer pink stuff?

Yes. This is probably an OAT or HOAT one. The VW G12++ is definitely an HOAT which is compatible with older OAT stuff. For topping up I would just stick with the original Porsche stuff as for £8 you don't have to worry about compatibility.

yea thats what i ordered last night as my coolant level is a bit low as in its an inch below the min mark so i may have a leak! do i have to mix it 50/50 or should i just use it neat?

It should be a 50/50 mix for -35 degrees protection and maximum corrosion protection. However you may find if you buy a cheap coolant concentration tester from the motor factors or halfords and test your coolant, you may find your coolant protection may be at -17 or even less so you may want to add neat coolant to increase the concentration. My turbo's coolant was sitting at -17 degrees protection when i got it and i drained 3 litres from the coolant tank then added 3 litres of neat coolant which brought it up to about -23 degrees protection. And I was glad i did it when it was -17 outside in November! I actually took a small sample and left it outside just to be sure it wouldn't freeze which it didn't.

Yea i might just use it all, its not going to do the car any harm.

You don't want a concentration greater than 50/50 as coolant is actually not as good a conductor of heat compared to water. However I suspect most ares are not filled with a 50/50 mix anyway.

Hi how you doing? Regarding the flat battery, it may be a good idea to carry out a battery drain test to see what the current drain is. On a 996 the Max amp draw you want to see is 0.06 amps, if you have more then something is is faulty and draining the battery, this needs fixing. A simple circuit elimination usoing the fuse board will help you find the culprit. Replacing the battery will not cure it and just cost you money. Trackers are normally one of the most common problems i come accross and have to resolve. Hope this helps.