So I drove my 2 wk old C4S down to LA to break it in, and this morning a valet guy couldn't get the car started. I tried it also, and it cranks but won't start. All other electrical component works. Now I'm getting it towed to Be early Hills Porsche, and stranded in LA for a night!

Valet guy thought he saw a warning saying the key wasn't recognized when he first tried to start it, but the key otherwise works fine, and there is no warning that I see. Can a valet guy mess something g up accidentally. Never had any issue with my other Porsches; valeted my cars many times without any issue.

Any thoughts? Hope they can fix it tomorrow so I can get back home...

 

Sorry for your troubles, but I'm confident they will get you back on the road quickly.

ChuckJ

 

Did you try another key. I had the problem before and it had to do with a key/car malfunction with the car computer system thinking someone was trying to still the car.

 

Do you have MT or PDK? If MT it could be the clutch switch is not connecting correctly. You could try and engage and release the clutch a couple of times, usually that would work.

I'm sure BH Porsche will fix you car quickly and you will be on your way and enjoying your car again.

 

Hope it's just the key. I remember a thread awhile back where a brand new 991 was having a similar issue and due to excessive cranking before break in the car ended up needing a new engine...Make sure to avoid this possibility.https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...-stranded.htmlProblem seems different, and I'm sorry if this causes unnecessary worry. It was just the first thing that popped into my head and I thought it might be worth knowing.

 

Thanks, guys. Unfortunately I'm out of town, so don't have another key to try. Hope that's all it is. It's a PDK by the way.

 

I was out of gas!!! The sender unit to fuel gauge is faulty, and it showed 1/4 tank fuel left when it was out...

That unit is back ordered to Germany, and will have to wait to get it replaced.

 

Good news.

Better than something else wrong. At least you can drive it.

 

Glad it's nothing terribly serious. Now you have all 991 owners running to keep their tanks topped up!

 

haha... I would actually be doing the opposite. I would want to know about it so they could fix it if it was broke.

 

Oh man that's funny hehehe
I mean all things considered that is about as minimal as you can get... no gas.

OK with this allow me to give you a heads up... the C4S (and I'm pretty sure all 911's) has a fairly unusual shaped gas tank... it's kind off like 2 separate tanks (one on either side of the car) connected at the top and by an overflow towards the bottom.
This is done to have optimal weight distribution while keeping the center of gravity as low as possible...

However... if you let the gas level drop below 1/4 you will start getting reading which could be wrong.
This is because it's actually only reading on tank... which means it will give you a false reading of 1/4 when actually one side will be almost empty.. so you're running on half of 1/4...

East fix, make sure your fuel level never drops to below 1/3.
Which is a good habit anyway since it's never a good idea to run a tank to it's reserve point (or anywhere near that) all the (possible) particles/contamination which inevitable makes in to the gas tank collects there.
Plus gas stays much cooler when the tank is full (better performance) and I prefer the piece of mind knowing I can drive without having to make sure I make it to the next gas station...

Anyway, glad it wasn't anything more serious!

 

Thats very interesting, and somewhat concerning. If that's true, replacing a furl sending unit won't necessarily correct this problem. Funny thing is on the way down to LA, I let it drop to far less than 1/4 tank without any problem. I think the gas tank gauge was stuck at 1/4 level.

Once I get the unit replaced, I was going to let it run low to make sure the gauge is accurate. Of course, I won't do it when I'm out of town!

 

ah... Yes, the C4S tank is larger than C2S...and I thought that's because C4S consumes more gas?? But it's logical for weight distribution...

I didn't fill in the tank of gas after first fill up until it almost had 280 miles.. and the light was on for a while. Now I need to be careful.

Sorry to hear your trouble Schunmd...This is a major issue if this gives a wrong info as designed. I don't like it!!

 

What's the science behind this? I'm not challenging you, I just want to understand it better. I'm worse than a rookie when it comes to engines, but i would have thought since the gas is combusted at high temperature, having warmer gas would improve performance?

 

Yeah, how does this work? Better performance when the gas is cooler?

Before they changed the rules, Formula 1 teams used liquid nitrogen to cool their pit-side fuel storage tanks so that volume of the ice-cold fuel shrank and they could get more fuel into the race car's tank. As the remaining fuel in the tank warmed and expanded, maybe that gave them an extra quarter-lap before having to pit to re-fuel or running out of gas in their fuel-restricted races. Probably not meaningful most of the time, but under the perfect scenario of caution-flags and other racing conditions it might make a difference. Enough of a chance that they took the trouble to do it.

But better performance/higher ignition/higher compression? That's new. Explain?