If I mess with it the car will finally start. It's not a battery voltage thing. Is this the ignition switch?

 

pretty common problem I think. search the site for the diy fix...

 

I cannot start my car last Sat
fuel pump failure
towing guy said he could judge from the sound that engine has no fuel to injectors

 

Maybe clutch starter safety switch as well. Might just want to make sure it is plugged in. Just look up in the driver foot well. Not sure if it goes to open or complete circuit when the clutch is engaged but you could see if disconnecting or jumping the wires makes a differenence while diagnosing it. I would not leave it that way for safety reasons though.

 

Mess with what? Ignition switch? Stereo volume control? Mirror? Seat positioning? What?

 

The key.

 

So it doesn't crank? Turn the key and nothing? Is the key sometimes hard to remove? It's likely the ignition switch, buy the VW/Bosch one vs the upmarked dealer part. It's EASY to replace yourself.

 

Most likely then the ignition switch is bad.

Some have luck replacing just the electrical portion at the back of the ignition switch assembly.

Porsche no longer sells the electrical portion separate from the assembly. The way it was explained to me was too many cars being brought in under warranty and having just the electrical portion replaced were being brought back with problems traceable to the assembly so Porsche decreed from then on -- this was some years ago -- the SOP is to replace the entire assembly.

But there are other sources for the electrical portion. For my Boxster I found a suitable Audi part. (However when it came time to do something about this I just had the entire switch assembly replaced and sold the Audi part to some guy that emailed me asking to buy it.)

Similarily when the Turbo ignition was acting up -- the key was hard to remove -- I just had the entire ignition switch assembly replaced.

I have no non-Porsche part #/source for the electrical portion for the Turbo ignition switch. But I bet a google search will turn up a number of these.

 

Sometimes i find this occurs on my car but for me it's the clutch switch and if I haven't depressed it fully to engage the switch (or I have but it didn't activate) then it won't turn over.

I just pump the clutch again and cycle the ignition and it always starts up. I will say i'm assuming it's the clutch switch as I think the pumping of the clutch is what has always worked for me but maybe it's really just a ignition switch on the way out and a false correlation of what is actually making the car start on my part.

 

it probably is the switch. search on amazon. the audi/vw ( same ) switch is about 12 bucks. thats ( again, probably ) all you need.

 

I think I got my ignition switch from autozone.

 

In my experience you don't want a knock off repro part. I bought the cheaper one from Pelican a few years ago and regretted it. I'd hear what sounded like a tiny fan somewhere in the cabin after removing the key, had batteries going flat in days, and best of all noted my wipers sensing rain and running with the key in my pocket! Swapped to a new VW sourced part and ALL of that went away! Opened up the old part and found it's simply plastic cams and brass wipers inside. How this was done wrong I cannot figure but the new part saved me much aggravation and stress!

 

Here is what I ordered. Works fine on my 2002.