Help - panic!

I have just had first panic. I had the front nose resprayed/touched up today to get rid of some unsightly stone chips. All done very well by a mobile company who specialise in this. Now the problem. I think one of the doors was ajar most of the time (about 5 hours), which I did not really think about at the time. However when I went to start her tonight all I got was a lot of clicking noises, all the warning lights on and no engine turn over. I guessed it was the battery, mainly because I had not used it for about 10 days and because of the internal lights being on for most of the day. I finally managed to get it going by jump starting with my other car. Although I am not sure about this because I have never been that successful with this on other cars in the past and it did not work the first few times I tried it tonight then I finally got the engine turning over and finally it caught. Before this I had the alarm going off, and could not get it to turn off. Tried pressing the button on the both keys and unlocking with the key. How can you stop this? Is it caused by a battery failure. Then went for a drive to charge the battery. That all seemed ok, but then when I got back and reversed in I started getting a buzzer or alarm type sound, but only when in reverse - where has this come from? I also had check oil warning messages - but oil is ok. I had another warning message saying "Indicator Failure" - what is his about? Any idea why all these things have occurred? The battery guage was saying it was at 14 as soon as the car started, and when I got back from a drive and turned the ignition on with no engine running it was at 12.

Don't panic, just read this. Most likely your battery is old and has been discharged too many times and is now dead. Check age by looking at the datestamp on the battery lugs (which shows month & year of birth). Anyway, read the FAQ and see how you go. Good luck.

Thanks - very useful. So all the fun and games withe electronics should settle down. The reversing alarm was the oddest surprise. I have a Porsche warranty so assume I will need to get an official battery or risk invalidating the warranty?

One other question - when the alarm starts going off in these circumstances and the key fob won't stop it what do you do?

Ref to your first question, if you turn the Ignition on and off 5 times in a row, this clears the ECU memory. :thumb:

It's supposed to stop if you switch the ignition on with the key.

Its official - the battery is a goner. I think it is 5 years old so when it drained it died and cannot be recharged.

Hi KentMan. I had exactly the same problem - which in my case was due to lack of use + having a (useless) Porsche battery!! Your battery was obviously so shot to pieces that it wasn't powering up your 'slave' battery which is there to run your alarm just in case someone tries to steal you car and stop the alarm going off by removing the main battery! I ended up getting a nice Exide one and (more importantly in my case) a trickle charger: http://www.theultimatefinish.co.uk/Store/Product/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=104 ...+ the cigar lighter adapter that allows you to continuously charge the battery via said hole! Simples! Adrian.

My car lives on the drive so a mains trickle charger is not an option. I have read conflicting reports on the solar powered ones, but surely some extra juice is better than none and can only help to keep the battery topped up? Maplin do a reasonably big one for about £25 - worth trying?

I would have agreed with you about eighteen months ago. I don't have the luxury of a garage either and I bought the exact same one from Maplin but I'm afraid that it didn't really do the job - despite me persevering with it for ages. I ended up drilling a hole through one of my external walls and got a water proof socket for the wall which I can now also use for garden tools. I wish that I'd not had to spend the extra £50 for the charger + socket and cable & sundries for the power supply but I have to say that there's no comparison to what it was like before. The car just spins up like I use it every day whenever I start it - even after being SORN for the whole of last winter!

I don't know if the technology has improved over the last few years but I had one a number of years ago for my Impreza and it was bloody useless!! :sad: May be better now though.

I had my warranty renewed this year with a non porsche battery. It was noted but they said it didn't matter.