987.2S: Frequency of driving to maintain battery life - Page 1 - Boxster/Cayman - PistonHeads UK

My car use will be infrequent for the winter but I want the excuse to get out often enough to keep the battery in good shape. I was planning to stretch it's legs once every fortnight on some good A-roads for 30mins. Question is, will this be enough?

Perhaps! Depends upon many things, how cold it gets, and health of your battery. My 987.2 lives outside and went through last winter with no problems but I have a little solar panel trickle charger which plugs into the cigar lighter socket. I took the car out when there was a nice day but it went for four weeks without being started and was fine.

HappyBoxster said: My car use will be infrequent for the winter but I want the excuse to get out often enough to keep the battery in good shape. I was planning to stretch it's legs once every fortnight on some good A-roads for 30mins. Question is, will this be enough? It almost reads like you are asking what is the minimum you need to drive your Porsche? Geesh, you should be asking what is the downside of when the roads/weather permit that you drive your car for hours. 30 minutes of something other than stop and go driving might be enough. Just late last night I took my Turbo out after nearly a week of no use -- I've been busy -- and drove it for around 32 miles at highway (well, nearly highway) speeds of between 55mph and 70mph. (The 55mph was through some nearly 10 miles of construction with the speed limit reduced and based on my V1 radar's activity with plenty of smoky bears monitoring traffic speed...) Based on the car's volt meter the battery was topped up after that amount of driving. It was night so I of course had the headlights (bi-xenon) on and ran the auto climate A/C for the first half of the drive to exercise the A/C system hardware then shut off the compressor on the return trip. I would have preferred to drive the car longer -- and for a moment considered continuing on past my exit for a longer drive -- but it was nearly midnight and I was tired and ready to call it a night.

Can't help the OP directly, but I do 60 miles a day in my Cayman and the 4 month old battery still sounds weak on startup. I'd hate to see what it was like stood after a week!

IMO you need to start a car once a week if possible and run it for at least 15 minutes. Doesn't matter what sort of roads but you want to make sure the brakes get used and all of the gears are engaged at least once. Car batteries are designed to be kept fully charged all the time. Nothing destroys a battery quicker than letting it run down then charging it over and over again. It's job is to provide high current for a few seconds when the car is started, not to power alarms and suchlike for weeks with the engine off. Having said all that, I imagine that so long as everything's in good condition you will have no difficulty with a fortnightly cycle.

I was having an issue using mine once a week (gen 1) - I just bought an Optimate battery, number 6 I think. You attach the included waterproof cable to the battery and leave it just poking under the bonnet - works really well on the Porsche. If I'm not using the car for a few days then I plug it in with extended cable run from my garage. The charged keeps it maintained, fully automatic. Cost about £100 in total but worth it for piece of mind/convenience.

SkinnyP said: Can't help the OP directly, but I do 60 miles a day in my Cayman and the 4 month old battery still sounds weak on startup. I'd hate to see what it was like stood after a week! Just to add to this, now the weather has got cold my car sounds very weak on startup. Pretty s t for such an expensive car tbh...so long as it starts.

I have a 987 for sunny days, so it sometimes goes a couple of weeks without running. I have noticed that it seems to shutdown somehow, using the remote does not wake it up; turn the key in the lock and it immediately jumps to attention. Although I do have a trickle charger, I do disconnect the battery over winter and then trickle charge before use. For all my cars I always buy a premium Varta battery and have never had a problem cranking from cold, except when the original expired after 7 years. In the good old days it was easy to stop the plugs sparking so you could prime the engine oil before starting. I tend to think that is the greater risk of not using a car, so I now use Millers Nano drive in the Boxster.

rdjohn said: using the remote does not wake it up; turn the key in the lock and it immediately jumps to attention. or just lift the door handle

rdjohn said: I have a 987 for sunny days, so it sometimes goes a couple of weeks without running. I have noticed that it seems to shutdown somehow, using the remote does not wake it up; turn the key in the lock and it immediately jumps to attention. Although I do have a trickle charger, I do disconnect the battery over winter and then trickle charge before use. For all my cars I always buy a premium Varta battery and have never had a problem cranking from cold, except when the original expired after 7 years. In the good old days it was easy to stop the plugs sparking so you could prime the engine oil before starting. I tend to think that is the greater risk of not using a car, so I now use Millers Nano drive in the Boxster. It still makes me laugh, in this day and age when you read quotes like this! As cars become more & more complex, owners read the user manual less & less

SkinnyP said: Just to add to this, now the weather has got cold my car sounds very weak on startup. Pretty s t for such an expensive car tbh...so long as it starts. In the case of your car it reads like the battery is weak and since you drive the car a good distance frequently I would go further and offer the WAG the battery is going bad. A battery can fail at any time. I've had a new battery go bad in around 7 months. (Thankfully the battery came with a warranty and I got a new replacement for free.) Even a new car can have a bad battery. Often what happens is the car sits around a while before it is sold. The engine gets started so the car can be moved to a "better" spot on the showroom floor or on the car lot. I've never met a GM at a dealer yet that didn't believe that moving a car to a different spot on the floor or the lot wouldn't help sell the car faster. The engine does't get run enough to replenish the battery. When the car does sell the original battery can be partially run down and while it might recover when the car is used more now it is owned -- though this doesn't always prove to be the case given how some owners buy a car to let it sit rather than drive it -- the battery has taken a hit that can only shorten its life. A less likely cause is the alternator is not just working well and is failing to replenish the battery while you drive. However, I think you would see other behavior arising from this condition and an alternator going bad is very rare compared to a battery going bad.