+ Rain Damage, please HELP! - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Me and my mother have put my dad's 986 in even worse condition. He already wrecked it once in the rain, but now it's been left in the rain with the windows down. So here are my issues. 1.) Check Engine: giving me a PO430 code 2.) Rarely when in automatic the car doesn't want to shift from 2nd to 3rd. 3.) Drivers side window is glitched and stays in the up position unless you pull the handle, then it drops the half-inch to clear the convertible door-seal. 4.) The leather seats are essentially ruined, and have dried into a hard, sandpaper texture. (I'll just replace these with Katzkin) The car has been wrecked before. I'm hoping the Check Engine isn't from the water damage, because that points to OBC damage under the driver's seat. My justification in this is, I was about to take the car to meet my dad (I work for him), my mom stopped me in the kitchen and ********************ed about me driving the car and took the keys from me, I drove my grandma's car, and the windows never got put up. I've never mistreated the car, or even driven aggressively in my own car (a 328ic BMW). No one else is taking any initiative to fix the car, but they complain and use it to chastise me regularly. So, help an enslaved victim try and fix his master's Porsche. I know BMWs, but not Porsche.

The Check engine light has nothing to do with the rain. PO430 is bad catalytic conver, which is bad news because they are expensive to replace. It is the part of the exhaust system that cleans up most of the exhaust air leaving the tips. As for the window. Buy some Torx screw drivers. An entire set. T20, T25, T30 are the most important sizes to have. Start taking the door panel off. Some screws are behind the door handle. Some are hidden. One is behind the air bag logo. One is behind the small plastic trim on the door support handle. One screw is in the cubby storage space in the door. Once you get the panel loose, be careful, there will be two electrical cords you need to unplug. One of the door light and one for the window going down when you open the door. Dry everything in there if it is wet. Water might have gotten in the window motor so that might need to be replaced. Did water get near the middle window switches? If so, take the center console apart and dry it.

Thanks, I'll get on that. Things should be dry inside. It's been 2 weeks since the rain got in it. I'm assuming it's a micro-switch issue, but the question is, which one? I'm trying to find the part number for the driver's side door parts, but because the common issue is in the convertible top micro-switch everything links to that. I'm having difficulty finding exactly what parts are what and where in blown-up images of this car.

I've had it throw the PO430 code twice in 5months. Just reset it. Not buying new cat converters -- given price tag -- until it is absolutely necessary

Would the catalytic converter give me the shifting issue? It happens maybe once a week. I'll be in second coming off a light or something, in automatic, and it won't go to third till it revs almost 5k rpms, then I have to let off the gas cause I don't want to take off into the car in front of me. I can override it just by manual shifting obviously, but it'd be bad news if someone else was driving it and jumped off the line in taffic.

A little more detail about the door. Pulling the handle out brings the window down, but as soon as the handle is released the window jumps back up. So to close the door at the moment, I have to hold the handle open and push the door closed, then release quickly so the latch catches, but the window doesn't smack the plastic ridge on the convertible. Speaking with one of the mechanics I work with, he said it could be the microswitch, but if the window is being told to pop up at the wrong time it could also be what ever tells the car the door is closed.

Sounds like an IMS failure. (what, that's the answer to all Boxster problems, isn't it?)