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Hope this is a one-off and not the start of a saga, but M4ttc's post doesn't instil much confidence. Here is the story:
Having not driven the car since last Saturday, I went to the garage yesterday morning, pressed the unlock button and ........Nothing! Thinking that the car had gone into sleep mode (a little early), opened the door with the key and put the key into the ignition expecting the beast to wake up and spring into life..............Nothing!
The battery was completely flat and at this point, the ignition lock held onto the key in a vice-like grip and refused to let me remove it (apparently its supposed to do that in these instances). Rather than go into the crazy donor battery routine required to open the front luggage compartment, I rang Porsche Assist - I had to insist that I did in fact havea Cayman S and not a 4WD monster (Cayman was not on their database)and within 30 minutes an RAC patrolman arrived at the house.
He quickly gained access to the battery and confirmed that it was completely discharged. After charging he did some tests, got the engine running, said that the no-load battery discharge was excessive and referred me to my dealer for further investigation. I rang the dealer and booked the car in to be looked at this morning.
I must add at this point that I had my Origin B2 (camera/laser detector) professionally installed last Friday. Looks really neat, connected to the fuse box via a 1Amp in-line fuse and not a cable in sight. I became suspicious that this may be the root cause of the problem and the dealer service manger agreed it was likely to be - and if so it would not be covered by the warranty and if it did prove to be the cause I would have to pay for the investigation time and rectification. So all morning today I'm waiting for a call dreading the outcome. At £100+ per hour labour charges it could turn out to be really expensive and then the hassle of trying to get the expense back from the detector install company etc etc.
Got a call at lunchtime, the problem is a component within the PCM and the whole PCM unit will need to be replaced.All credit to the Swindon OPC, instead of disconnecting the unit, ordering the partand having me return next week to replace it, they immediately sent a guy to Reading to pick up a replacement and had the car ready for me to pick up when I finished work.
Hopefully that's the end of this tale of woe.............................................. but only time will tell.
Submariner
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It is stories like these that make me glad I didn't order PCM with my car and will figure out what to do about a replacement at some point in the future.
Sorry to hear about that Submariner, but good to know that the OPC went to the lengths of sending a guy to Reading to pick up a replacement PCM.
Hope all goes well. Good luck.
You may know this already. For all cars that remain unused for some time its recommended to have a battery trickle charger plugged into the cigarette lighter socket. This is due to the engine requiring quite alot of power to start. Porshce dealers have two type - one to maintain charge at approx £35 and one to maintain charge and to charge from flat at £72.
So worth considering depending on how much you use the car.
Agreed, I think it is 5-7 days without use that the car goes into sleep mode, but this is intended to conserve battery power over the longer term, the alarm is disabled and door can only be opened with the key. In my case the battery dischage was so excessive it completely drained in 5 days
I have a CTEK 3600 battery charger/conditioner which is a superb piece of kit - almost indentical to the Porshe product but much cheaper :
http://www.hamiltonclassic.co.uk/ProductInformation/BatteryCareCTEK.htm
Before I took the car into the dealeronFriday I connected the CTEK overnight and it remained in chargemode all night- indicating that the battery was less than 80%of capacity. Last night after the repair, I connected the CTEK again (as a comparitive test) and it almost immediately reverted to maintenance pulse mode. So for now at least my confidence is completely restored.
Submariner
