JP66

Sorry for the longish post to follow, but just want anyone reading to have the details.



Friday (Sept. 21, 2022) I'm in paddock A getting ready to take my '22 BGTS 4.0 out on track at Lime Rock. While sitting at idle, I put the rear spoiler in the up position, put the car in Sport Plus, turn off the PSM, turn on PASM. Next, I had an older gen 1 AIM Solo setup on the left that was held in place with a RAM mount on the windshield and plugged into the OBDII. It's not turning on because the battery is low so I plug a power cord from the glove box USB to the AIM Solo. As I'm reaching over the steering wheel I feel myself bump the windshield wiper control arm and at that exact moment the right side electronic dash display suddenly flashes "System Warning" and turns yellow then goes blank. I look around and everything else seems normal so I'm thinking to myself I'll turn everything off and hope that I get the dash back because I must have triggered some strange combination with my bump and plugging in power on the AIM Solo. I turn the car off.



When I try to turn the car on - nothing. No click. No dash info. Absolutely nothing. I try the windows and door locks. The windows go up and down, and the doors lock and unlock. I'm surrounded by mechanics taking care of other peoples cars for the track day so I go over and talk to one guy and he comes over to help. We pop the front trunk. Put a jump on the battery even though I tell the mechanic the car is brand new and the battery is fine, and still nothing. I then call the dealership, and they say call Porsche Roadside assistance and bring the car in. Now the real saga begins.



I speak with a nice Porsche Roadside agent from Tennessee, and she has me fill out information on my phone to create a case. Then I get a message that a tow company has been contacted and should be there in 60-90 minutes. It's 12:30 on Friday. Whilst waiting for my rescuer, the mechanic comes back over and says to try disconnecting the battery. I hesitate at first 'cuz the dealership service guy specifically said not to bother trying a "German reset" meaning disconnecting the battery, but I defer to the Porsche specialist on hand and we disconnect the battery for 5 minutes and reconnect. Still nothing.



2 PM rolls around and I contact the tow company with the number provided and the dispatcher says "where are you". I say Salisbury, CT Lime Rock Park. She says "oh Porsche gave us an address in Southbury. The driver will turn around, but now he'll be 3 hours from you." 3:30 PM and a Porsche Roadside agent calls and says the tow company isn't answering any more and they have no indication anyone is on the way so they will find a new provider. I tell the agent that I'm at a park that closes the gates at about 5PM so that won't work. We'll need to reschedule for tomorrow. In the meantime I had called home and my son had shown up so I at least had a ride.



So now, my son drives my to Danbury Porsche where the service manager has been following my case, and I stop to explain what happened and where we stand. He is extremely apologetic and offers me a loaner car even though my Boxster is still sitting in paddock A at Lime Rock. I take him up on the offer, and the next morning I drive 90 minutes back to Lime Rock to meet the tow truck at 9:30. When I arrive I get a text from Porsche Roadside saying the provider was a no show again so they contacted a new provider who is now 60 minutes away. Within another minute or so the dispatcher from that tow service calls me directly and says he just read the order from Porsche and saw the note that the job required a flat bed and not a regular tow. His company doesn't have a flat bed, but he can't cancel the service so I need to call Porsche and cancel. I do that.



At this point some of you are wondering when does this guy get mad. Well, I'm 56 and perhaps I'm overly patient in situations like this, but now I reached my boiling point so I told the Porsche agent not to bother that I was going to contract a local company 20 minutes away, pay myself, and fight with them later over the bill. So, I do just that and the flat bed shows up about 30 minutes later. I get in the car and go to put it in neutral and the shift won't budge. The car is stuck in park. The tow guy tries to help by looking on the internet for the emergency release procedure and I get a crowd of people coming over to help, but the driver says he has other calls and he's really sorry but he has to leave. Give him a call when the car is in neutral and he'll come back.



Now here's the first Boxster trick that MIGHT be helpful to someone in the future. To get the car out of park manually the instructions are listed under "Selection Lever Emergency Release". Basically you have to remove the trim around the shifter, then remove the trim surrounding the lower "switch module", and the mechanical release is found under the shifter. It only took 5 guys looking over the manual and trying every combination of pushing, pulling, lifting etc to finally figure that out, hah. As soon as I got it in neutral I called the tow guy and told him I was good to go. It was 1:45 and he said give him 90 minutes.



But, while I was waiting I borrowed pliers and started pulling fuses one by one from the fuse box on the drivers side footwell. Believe it or not I found C1 blown. C1 controls the following items:

center console switch panel - the place where I pushed all those buttons

gateway control unit

diagnostic socket

steering column locking

light switch



I didn't have a spare fuse, but I thought hey what about my loaner Macan. So I went to the Macan found a 10 amp fuse that controlled a non-essential item and put it in my Boxster, and lo and behold the dash came back to life. This time I got a warning saying "possible R gear fault", BUT the car still wouldn't start.



At 4:45 the flat bed showed up and at 6 PM we unloaded the Boxster at the dealership and left the key in the After Hours box.



Standby for what is hopefully the final segment of this saga come Monday when the service department finally has a look and can hopefully decipher what happened.



Things I learned:

1) Never disconnect the battery on your own.

2) If jumping the battery Porsche prefers you not put the ground on the battery terminal but rather use a ground point provided and shown in the manual.

3) Sometimes Porsche Roadside assistance works great; sometimes not so much.



Well that's my story so far. [img]data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7[/img]

lowbee

Man, that's rough. Thanks for writing about it. I will now put spare fues in my car

JP66

The end story . . .

I went and picked up the car from the dealer yesterday. The Service Managers opinion was that the initial blown fuse was the result of plugging in the AIM Solo to the glove box USB port . . . however . . . I then compounded the problem when I checked for a blown fuse. Apparently the fuse that controls the DME (Porsche's name for ECU) is in position C8 and position C7 is unused. So when I took out C8 to inspect I put it back in C7, and THAT was the cause of the "possible R gear fault" as well as being unable to move the shift from P to N . . . AND . . . it took the technician over an hour to figure that out as hooking up the code reader provided no information since the DME was out of commission. Net result is they charged me 2 hours of labor. I'm not happy about that and initially thought I would file a dispute but upon further thought I do accept at least 50% responsibility and don't feel like fighting over the other $200 bucks especially since the next closest dealer is another hour drive so I don't want to pi$$ off this dealership over this issue.

So there it is. If you're gonna track your car make sure you carry spare fuses, and if you start pulling fuses make darn sure you put them back in the same spot.

Interesting . . .

I was about to post this and wanted to add a picture of the fuses in question just 'cuz a photo always makes things just a little more interesting. After taking the photo I saw that position C7 has a 30A fuse in it, and that is the position that the Service Manager told me was open and where I mistakenly placed C8. So now either the tech put a fuse into position C7 to prevent this from happening again or something doesn't add up with what the Service Manager was saying to me. I guess standby for further news as I try to figure this mystery out.

Aronis

Wow, what a PITA. Glad the car is back up and running.

I had a similar fuse issue last spring. My car's safety systems showed a fault after I had smelled burning electrical odor. I thought it was the clock spring in the steering gone bad but turned out to be a couple fuses. Cost me $300 in labor. LOL. ('18 M5)

Those fuses are very hard to see as 'blown' without pulling them unless you have a bright light and "Nintendo DS" eyes. (you're just a few years younger than me and mentioned you have a son, so you get it...). You have to pull each and check each....

Good ending to a crazy story.

Now get back to the track and post some wild videos.

Mike

Anthonyr105

Crazy story who would have thought all due to blown fuses! I was afraid it was horrible and crazy expensive PDK failure! Best bet is to plug those type of high draw accessories into the cigarrette lighter since that is a 10 amp circuit. So glad you got back up and running and may have to join you for the next Autocross.
If you look really close there should be a fuse map on the lid to the fuse box or tucked in the fuse box with the rating for each slot.

JP66

Yeah too bad I didn't learn this lesson about the importance of a fuse until now, could've saved me some serious headache. Happily got back out on the track yesterday with far better results. Still feel like I'm leaving a lot on the table in regards to this cars abilities. Hopefully next season I'll learn to push it a little harder. My new data logger says I actually could break 1 minute at Lime Rock if I put together all my best efforts at each corner. Not that I think that's likely anytime soon, but . . .THAT would be something!

Joe


I actually found the fuse list and "map" in the manual so now I know, hah. Thanks for the moral support and keeping me company. Definitely helped pass the time, and hopefully we'll end up at a track day together sometime soon!!

Zhao

Why not disconnect a battery yourself? That's nothing special.

I really dislike the 'need 10 engineering degrees and being able to communicate with the dead' requirements for putting a modern car into neutral. Some guy in his wife's <500km old bmw put it into a wall at the track this summer and 1.5 hours later the organizers just dragged it in park. No prior bmw experience, or car manual, or internet could determine how to override that car being stuck in park after an accident. Old cars used to have a slot for the release....... simple.