First DE (or at least half of one) and the flatbed ride home...

I'll start with the good news, my first DE was a hell of a lot of fun and although I was pretty bad on the first couple of laps I did make some tremendous improvements throughout the day. What really helped was when my instructor took me out in his 2001 996 and showed me what the car is capable of, I was amazed by its stability and above all its ability to brake so deeply into a corner. So now for the part that cut my afternoon a little short. I guess I'll go back to the morning and talk about my symptoms. When I first started my trip, my xenons did not light up immediately. I had to turn them off and on again to get them fired up. I didn't think anything of it and continued on my way. When I got to the track tech inspection, the tech noticed one of my side marker lights out. Okay, no big deal again... Later on while on the track my instructor tells me he sees one of my dome lights coming on and as I accelerate it actually brightens. Okay, that is a weird one and I'm not really liking the sound of it. So I progress throughout the day and on the final session, right before we get to close shop, my car beeps at me and tells me I have a "Battery/Generator Fault". I glance over to the voltmeter and see it shoot up to 16 volts. Since I'm only halfway through the track I ask my instructor if I should pit. The car is still driving okay but I'm not sure what to do next. He suggests I take it easy and prepare to pit. As we're driving there a whole multitude of warnings come up from ABS failure, PSM failure, and who knows what else. I pull over and shut the car off, hoping maybe a shut down and "reboot" will fix it. It doesn't...One of the techs comes over and tells me it's probably the alternator/voltage regulator and doesn't recommend driving it anymore since I could fry all of my electronics. So I drive the car to the front lot and wait for a tow truck. Fortunately I had AAA premium and since I was only 70 miles from home I was covered. I left it at my mechanic as I have to head out of town for most of the week on business. I'm hoping this is not a total system failure as the car said it was but something relatively simple. Do these symptoms seem like an alternator? Or another thing I read on here is that it also could be the ignition switch. I know I've been having some trouble getting the key turned on mine and have been exploring replacing it, but just didn't think it needed to be done immediately. I'm disappointed that I'm not on the track again today but hey, what can you do?

awe dude, sorry about that its a wierd set of symptoms, but I am sure someone has had that before. Hope its a simple fix - could be the regulator portion of the alternator ? I just hope it didnt over amp anything!! Good luck on the repair and report the findings - again, real sorry it is "sick today" -

Battery...

at least you had a taste of DE... that'll keep you coming back fo more.

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I bet he will be back.

FYI - I replaced my taillight/brake lights with LED's the other week. I got the ABS and PSM lights flashing in my dash, too. Only when I had my lights on. Of course I switched back to my regular bulbs, but, in my elementary knowledge of things, this was, what, an electrical resistance thing? Too much, too little? Just sayin that it could be really something easy. Or not But I do know that replaceing a bulb set off the PSM and ABS warning.

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Yeah I'm crossing my fingers that it is something relatively simple. I was also thinking it could be the regulator since I thought a bad alternator would show low voltage, not high. But I guess we'll find out. I certainly hope so!!! Although I'll feel a little stupid getting the car towed and going through all of this because of a battery! That's for sure! I had a blast and feel the time was too short. I also now realize that these cars are really being held back from their potential by serving daily commuting duty. It does seem these cars are a bit temperamental when it comes to electrical dealings. I can't wait for the diagnosis...

Got the diagnosis today... A fried battery as a result of an overcharging alternator. So a new alternator, battery, and while we're there the belts and idlers will be replaced. Not exactly the best news I've had all week but it could have been worse!

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With these cars, thats a happy ending!

Porsche battery sucks!

so the alternator - or the regulator overcharged the battery....I actually got pretty close on this one !! (much better than the window/fuse diagnosis)

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Apparently the problem was a bad alternator regulator. No battery could have tolerated the overcharging that resulted. Besides I think the OEM battery is pretty good. Got around 7 years out of my 02 Boxster's original battery. I think the real problem is a lot of these cars don't get driven enough and that results in alot of early battery failures. If one's not going to drive the car enough to keep the battery charged at least one should hook up a good battery charger/maintainer. Sincerely, Macster.

At least the problem will be solved...it could have been worse I guess. Now off to your next DE.

Well I just got a phone call and another symptom came up... It seems the car is idling erratically - this is something it was not doing before so it's possible that there's still another problem. Damn I was okay with just the above diagnosis but am scared of what can be lurking next. I'm out of town right now and get back home tomorrow night, hopefully the car will be ready and I won't be out of a huge sum of money. I keep telling myself the DE didn't do this but it sure sucks that it happened at that time!

Got my car back! Aside from the alternator/battery the rough idle issue was caused by a loose vacuum hose. So all is well now. Feels good to have the car back. I am a little scared to do another track event but hopefully I'll get over it and just consider it to be a coincidence that these items broke during that time.

All's well that end's well. I wouldn't blame this on the track, it could have happened any time. Out of curiosity, what did they charge you to replace the belt?

All's well that end's well. I wouldn't blame this on the track, it could have happened any time. Out of curiosity, what did they charge you to replace the belt?

let me guess, you only pushed "reply" once no one ever believe me when I say that either

That's great it was so simple. I'd say that I figured it would be the reg if I didn't come across sounding like a know-it-all smart a** I just had to replace my regulator too, as a matter of fact. A stand-up kind of guy on the Pelican board sent me an extra he had for free. Right freaking on. Honestly, popping the alternator out of the P-car was almost easier than any other alternator R&R I'd ever done. Mostly because I could do everything kneeling with the alternator and engine staring me in the face, and didn't have to bend over and brake my back like in my other cars. There's one big tip that's good to know before hand, about pushing the rear bushing back in the alt housing to make removal/install much easier, but it's all easy peasy. I highly recommend it as a straight forward DIY to save yourselves some bucks. There's a DIY on it on the Pelican board. I'll try to put one together for Rennlist/tech soon, using some of the picts I took below.

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I'm not sure how much the belt by itself was to replace. The reason why is because it is lumped in under alternator replacement which ended up being 1.3 hours. If I would have known this was the problem and I wasn't going to be out of town for the whole following week, I probably would have tried to do this myself. But just with these circumstances I figured it would be easiest to get someone to look at it. At least now I know if there ever is a next time!