If I don't drive my car for one week, there is a 50/50 chance that it won't start. If I let it sit for two weeks, forget it .....it will be completely dead as in no lights at all and you can't even pop the engine lid and hood. Why is this?! You would think a car with such sophisticated engineering that this shouldn't happen. My friend can park his Nissan Altima for an entire month and it starts right up.

I do own a Porsche battery trickle charger which I plug in if I know I'm not going to drive the car for longer than a week but inevitably plans change and you forget and then have to deal with a dead car. Maybe this is just part of the ownership experience that comes with our beloved Porsches.

 

mine does the same thing.. I've already had to replace it once because it wouldn't hold a charge after that.

 

smaller battery than the average car. do turn on your alarm when parked at home. it goes into sleep mode. drains less.

 

You must have the battery tender on the battery at all times. i also drive my car once a week and have the charger on is at all times. I use "The Battery Tender" product. Works great.

 

I had the same problem with mine. I had a brand new Interstate Battery that turned out to be bad... interstate replaced no problem. I've since installed an Optima Red Battery and I turn on the Alarm so the car goes into sleep mode. It starts no problem, even after two weeks.

BTW, When it goes into sleep mode the remote door opener doesn't work. You have to open it with a key to "wake it up".

 

When you say turning on the alarm you just mean locking the car with the remote, right? I will start doing this from now on if in this mode the battery drains slower. I always thought that by leaving the car unlocked I'm using less juice because the alarm is off. Guess it's the opposite.

 

I have used the Battery Tender on my 996TT and it worked fine until we were gone and the breaker overloaded and shut off the Battery Tender and fried my new Interstate Battery. I am not using the Battery Tender ever again. It did the same thing to my wife's CLK 500. I will try the "sleep mode" approach, thanks for the tip guys.

 

I was wondering about that "sleep mode". Only problem is that the remote won't unlock the doors. I have to unlock the door with the key and then hit the button because by then the alarm is going off.

 

What are you talking about?
If you lock the car with the remote.. you can unlock it by remote.
I never use the actual key to unlock my doors.
Unless you're talking about something else??

 

It's in your owner's manual. If you arm the alarm and the car sits for a couple of days it will enter sleep mode. Once entered the remote door unlock turns off and must be turned back on by using the key inthe lock. The first time it happened to me by accident at the airport... I thought the battery was dead. When I opened the door with the key, all the power came back on.

 

LOL Tropical storm had my Porsche sidelined for over a week, sure enough when I went to start her up this morning she didn't fire. Guess it just comes with the territory, I'll need to invest in a battery tender soon.

 

If the car sits over 4 days, you need to open it up with the key.

 

start at ground zero with troubleshooting.....go to any auto parts store and have them do a load test on your vehicles battery. This will eliminate any issues pertaning to your battery. Any time you kill a conventional battery a few times it will never fully recharge to 100%. Only a deep cycle (Optima yellow top) will. Agree on anytime you plan on leaving vehicle sit for a week always arm oem alarm.

 

Teh Porsche battery are deh suk.

 

great advice, thanks..