Last Saturday night I left the key in the "on" position after going out to put up the Cabriolet top. This always happens when I'm leaning through the door rather than sitting down. This time I ended up with a flat battery. Odd was that the spoiler was in the up position the next morning. I thought someone had been futzing with the buttons in the car, but we're out in the country (no neighbor kids wandering by the driveway) and the family just knows better.

My theory is that as the battery ran down there was a threshold where something on the CAN bus (remember, the key was "on") triggered the motor to go up...and that event also flattened the battery completely.

This would be a "so what" story, but for the attempts to revive the car. The Schumacher charger (6/12 model works for the 356, too) on the terminal in the fuse panel and tried the door hinge plate and the latch hoop. After a couple of minutes the Schumacher went "888", which is its "I give up" signal. Hmm. So the mighty Dodge with its double in-series 880Ah batteries needed to start the 13:1 compression diesel steps in. After a LOT longer than I've had to wait trying this exercise previously, the hood latch finally responds.

There's a variety of clicking behind the dash and the PASM and PSM both report faults. Oh, great. A brain hemmorage. With the Schumacher on the battery posts direct, it reports 3% charge. Yep, trickled dead. So I let it the charger spray electrons for a couple hours as I do errands. I come back to "888" again. Hmm. A reset and the battery shows 26%. Enough for a starter bump? Nope. Just a little more than a solenoid click. Try with the "start assist" mode on the Shumi. Negative. Okay, let it go a while longer.

To make a long story short (too late, huh?) after several hours, several resets of the Shumi from "888" mode and letting the Mighty Dodge stand in again for a while, I'm still not showing enough charge to get the car to start. At one point, after a couple hours on an electronically goverened charger there isn't enough juice to light the odometer and I'm thinking, "Oh, crap, I triggered the immobilizer". I start thinking about using the 800 number, but I don't want the car to have to flatbed it to the dealer. Not yet, anyway.

The kids get their rides hither and yon Sunday morning in the Audi, to much disappointment as it really was a spectacular weekend weatherwise up here and the cabriolet was muchly sought after to take advantage of same.

Back at the farm I consider that it is an '05 and maybe the battery just got drained too far to recover. I have an Optima red top in the 356; I've flattened that battery so it wouldn't light a 1.3w bulb and it has come back just as strong as ever, but this one is a factory model. But wait! This is a CPO car, purchased July this past summer and the records state the battery was replaced in June! Hmmm... unlikely to be bad so suddenly, even if drained flat (though I know that a lead battery can be pushed "over the edge" so that it can't recover w/o forcing the issue a dramatic and life-shortening charge--"charging....CLEAR!...beeeeeep, beep, beep).

I continue to ponder the DOA battery possibility, weighing battery purchase options (including measuring for fit: 8"h x 12.5"w x 7"d) but soon turn my attention to the Most Obvious Sign of Something Wrong: the tail being up. What if it isn't deployed all the way? What if the motor is engaged in the circuit and is drawing enough load from the charger to not allow the battery to get all the charge juice but is below threshold to actually move the tail? Hmmm.

A load like that from motor windings could cause the battery to drain completely, too. I also had the tail motor replaced at the dealer not too long ago, too. Hmmm. The Shumacher charger could be being thrown for a loop (pun intended) with varying charge/loads and the car trying to moderate the loads as it hovers on the verge of coma.

So I reach in and with the key on hold the tail-deploy button. The light goes on, but I can't see nor hear the tail moving. Well, not hearing it is a good thing. I had the assembly replaced because it was whining like a former majority senator after returning from the lame duck session. But I couldn't see it either. With the cab top up the rear window is too small to see what's going on back there from inside the car and I neglected to get a spotter to help. The switch light doesn't go out, but the spoiler does look higher, more like the "cabriolet rake" angle it is supposed to have.

Back to the charger, I reset once again and let it do its thing. I go inside and take in the F1 finale and lament poor Mark Webber's fate (oh, uh, that's a spoiler alert, btw!).

I come back out after a couple more hours and the battery shows a 48% charge. With a "start assist" it turns over and Hansel is once again running on his own power. After a few more minutes I turn him off and back on (weak, but unassisted) and the trouble indicators on the PSM/PASM clear. The battery isn't strong, but everything is fine by the next day after my normal commute.

So I can't say that the spoiler was the spoiler in this story for sure because I didn't put a meter on it during the charging attempts and get Better Evidence to Support the Theory. But there are some suggestions to that being the culprit.

If anyone else has had spontaneous nighttime spoiler erectile malfunction (okay, kids, stop your snickering) leading to a flat battery and/or charging problems, I'd be curious to hear your tail, er, tale.

Keep the Faith!