New battery or tender? Advice needed.

So I've had my car for a little over 2 yrs now and in that time I've put 10k or so miles on it. Ever since day 1 of my ownership, the car has always had to turn over a couple times before starting. Battery has been tested and everything appears to be fine. However, recently it'd sat in the garage for about 2 wks, tried to start it and no dice so I had to jump it, got the warning lights and everything after driving it around some and they cleared after a restart. Drove it a bit more the same day and it started fine. Fast forward (or backward) to yesterday, it'd been sitting a week. Tried to start it and again, no go. Jumped it off again and drove it for a good 45 min or so and it's sitting in the garage again, I plan on checking to see if it'll start on Friday when I'm home again. Wondering if at this point I need to start looking at replacement battery , or would investing in a battery tender be enough? no real sense for me to do both honestly as I don't think I'm going to be keeping the car longer than another year or so. If I go the tender route, is CTEK the go to? or would a Sears brand tender work just as well? Thoughts and input welcome, thanks.

I am sure there are dozens of threads on this but the simple answer is this CTEK Toolbox - CTEK Battery ChargersCTEK Battery Chargers Buy from an authorized dealer. You will appreciate the rubber bumper. You will need the cigarette lighter adapter. You might not need the extension cord. In that case, just order the accessories separately. Done Can you get cheaper ones? Sure. Are they smart chargers? Dunno. I know cteks work. Forget the 3.3, not enough AMPs means slower charging. 7 Amp model is overkill.

Get a battery charger and a new battery. Porsche batteries are not too reliable. I had a dead battery on a two-year-old 987. It had low mileage (less than 10,000 miles in two years). Porsche would not give me a new battery because I had not driven my car enough. I ended up buying a new battery and a CTEK charger. I didn't have any more problems.

so with that one there's no need to connect to the battery directly, just through the cig 12v inside the car?

I'll add that your battery might be low on electrolyte. The Porsche battery is not actually sealed. There are caps under the sticker that you can screw off (helps to have a large screwdriver). Make sure the elements are fully covered - if not just add a little distilled water. Don't overfill. There have been several threads recommending periodically checking this to extend battery life. Apparently the liquid evaporates and escapes out the tube as gas.

Suggestion for a new battery and battery maintainer is spot on. Personally, I have 2 Sears versions of their DieHard battery maintainer and they have worked fine for the last 10 years without problems. One I use with a direct connect and the other with a cigarette lighter connect. Both do the job well. :cheers:

IIRC checking the electrolyte level is part of the maintenance checklist. The 987.1 anyway does seem to slowly boil off the water. Recall hearing that the charging voltage runs a little high which would explain that. Really have to check one of these days to see. The voltage that is. The Schumaker brand maintainers that AutoZone carries works well also. Don't have a lighter adapter, however. Not much of an issue for many later model cars as they shutoff all the 12V ports including the lighter after a while. Fortunately not an issue for the 987.1. I suspect any would do the job as long as they are maintainers, not just a trickle charger, so that they automatically shutoff and come back on depending on the voltage.

Yo shooter, no need to get fancy. A Yuasa wall wart maintainer runs about 40 bucks. Thanks to that, the original battery in my '11 CS (which sits for long periods of time) is still going strong. Just attach the lead to your battery and leave it hanging out of the battery cover. Get home, pop frunk, connect, close frunk.

never heard of this before, can you elaborate, or better yet any DIYs with pictures or video?

This will give you an idea: How to Check Car Battery Water Levels (with Pictures) - wikiHow I would just buy a new battery and buy a charger. Peace of mind when you're out and about, and the ability to easily charge it when needed. Get a charger capable of jumping and you're in even better shape. Walmart batteries fit just fine in our cars.

thanks for all the input. I started the car up last night and it was the usual turn over several times deal. took it for a 15-20 min drive, tried it again today and it started up even easier. going to check the water levels tomorrow during the day and depending on how that looks, may or may not go ahead and pick up a new battery this weekend.

I like the CTEK 4.3. It can bring a sulfated battery back to life if not too far gone. For the complete kit with charger, adapters, extension, rubber bumper and bag, u can find them on Amazon for $99 It's what Porsche recommends.

well i checked again on saturday and the battery was already an aftermarket one from interstate. took it to my local place and they checked it and said something wasn't right as it wasn't fully charging. battery was manufactured in 5/12 so not very old, but clearly i guess that's what happens to our batteries if not put on a tender. i didn't want to deal with the hassle of having to deal with a potentially dead battery every week or so so bit the bullet and replaced it. will probably pick up a cheaper tender soon as well. thanks for all the advice.

Did you get a wet battery or an AGM ?

Have a 2008 CS bought new. Used maintainer since new. Centek 3.3. My original battery just died. 7 years. Not bad at all. Only have 18000 miles on car so it does sit a lot. Once for 8 Months.

My degree in Electrical Engineering is a bit dusty, but one amp of drain with the car shut off seems pretty excessive to me. I know there are more smarts in today's cars that exceed the old milliamp drain of a 1980's car stereo channel presets, but one amp is serious juice levels. Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Mike--this makes sense. I'm mostly expecting when Porsche gets back to me, as your comment suggests, they will confirm less than 1 amp as the background draw when the car is just sitting. In that case, I'll have proof that something is wrong--either with a battery cell, with some odd draw of current that should not be there, or above all with the old maintainer itself. I've already special ordered another NAPA 85-302 maintainer because it's so cheap. If, when it goes green (meaning fully charged), if it stays green for quite some time, I'll know the fault is in the old maintainer and I'll throw it in the garbage. If the new one also keeps flipping quickly back and forth between fully charged and charging (every few seconds), I'll know the problem is with the car--either a bad battery OR an abnormal draw of electricity. The car's under warranty. They'll have to deal with it. I'll keep ya posted.

The modern Porsche AGM batteries require a little higher charging and maintenance voltage than maybe what ur older maintainer can do. That might explain it...

Not according to Schumacher. They claim their ordinary maintainers work just fine with modern AGM batteries .

I've read several threads that dance around my question but have not seen a solid answer: Do you hook the tender/maintainer up *every* time you park the car at home? Or what is the frequency of hooking it up. I've never used one, but apparently need one on my 2014 CS.

Some guys consider my rule of thumb to be on the aggressive side. I plug it in after 3 days or if I expect it to sit at more than 3 days. I use the CTEK 4300. Some won't bother unless it sits for weeks and some won't bother unless it's going to sit for months. But sulphation happens and the best way to deal with sulphation is to prevent it, if u want long battery life. Don't do the Diehard test. It will shorten the life of ur battery .

FYI. There's a notch in the bottom edge of the door gasket on the driver's side that I was told is for the battery charger wire. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

NO, nor should there be a need to do it every few days, as some do. I've used battery maintainers for many years and only hook them up when I'm not going to use the car for a couple of weeks. This won't work if "using the car" means driving a couple of blocks. All this might change should you actually use the start/stop function, which must put greater demands on the battery. The new AGM battery is "supposed" to be able to handle that load. I'm not sure any of us really knows the exact parameters of the equation comparing increased draw (from the start/stop function) vs. increased capacity (from the new muthajumpa AGM battery.