24Chromium

Got up early this holiday morning to join a friend for a nice drive down the pacific coast highway for breakfast. He just picked up a new '16 GT3, so was to be a perfect warm sunny morning, ketchup and mayonnaise. Or so I thought.

I put the key in the dash and something didn't seem right. I turn the key and nothing - I mean nothing - happens. I'm a little groggy, as it's 6 AM. I immediately think it's the battery, but everything is lighting up on the car. I try to start it a couple more times and suddenly the alarm goes off. And it's loud. I struggle to try to shut off the alarm, but nothing seems to work. Suddenly, it goes off by itself. Only to come back on a moment later. I close my garage door to quell the noise as much as I can. I open the frunk, thinking it needs a jump. I'm confused, since I didn't think the alarm would be so darn loud (or work at all) if the battery was dead. And the dash lights all worked.

I get the battery tender on and crank it up. I try starting the car again and it cranks into life. Great! I've got an hours drive, so that should charge it.

We eat breakfast and I'm not enjoying it, as I'm preoccupied by the thought of being an hour from home with a dead battery and no jumper cables. Sure enough, as I try to start the car, the exact same symptom occurs as before. Nothing happens when I turn the key. My friend comes over to offer some help. As he opens the passenger door, I am turning the key, and boom! It fires right up! So strange.

I shut it off to try to reproduce what just happened. I ask him to close the door. Mine was open all this time. Sure enough, it won't start. I ask him to open the door, and viola, it starts.

Then in finally dawns on my. I suddenly remember a few days earlier, I found my key in the bottom of the washer. I left it to dry, but didn't do anything special as I would if it was a mobile phone. Anyways... I'm out of the car and I try all the buttons on the remote. I note that only the unlock button is working.

When I got home, I tried my spare key, and everything worked normally. I swapped batteries with the main remote and it (the washed remote) still didn't work. I assume it shorted out components, or the battery (the battery looked like it may have sprung a small leak).

The moral of the story - don't wash your Porsche key or take it for a swim!

montoya

Well Lar- Like a cell phone it might take a while to totally dry out. Put it in a big bag of rice for about 2 weeks in a dry place. We have had completely submerged I phones completely come back to life this way after several weeks - in one case months drying out, but they all finally worked.

Take it to the electronics gurus in the lab at your work. Maybe they have super duper drying ovens.

Mike in CA

Lar, it could have shorted out but it's also possible that there is still water inside the key. My wife dropped her Audi key in a puddle and even after sitting on a sunny window sill for several days I still found moisture when, as a last resort, I took the key apart. A hair dryer finished the job but the whole process was a PITA. Given the price of one of those keys it might be worth a try.

silverrules

6AM, no start and alarm going off. That will wake u up quickly.

24Chromium

I'm headed out of the country for a couple of weeks, so I thought I'd try the mobile phone trick while I'm gone. I got a zip-lock bag, placed a few table spoons of desiccant inside along with the key, battery removed and battery cover off. I'm not really expecting it to come back to life. Obviously, the key worked to some degree today. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to start the car at all. Or unlock the doors.

So, we'll see. If it works when I get back, great! If not, I learned a valuable (er, expensive!) lesson.

bronson7

Tough luck on that ordeal. Anyone have a ballpark price on a new one?

neanicu

I'd say about 400$...

Snowboarder54

Just one of many reasons why I will stick with my 997.1 with three peddles, a manual key and five lugs�� Not to mention 3.9

fskof

Try the rice in a bag method. It works!