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I am in the same boat with my 2013 S with Aero kit. Can't get to the emergency cable because of the aero kit fixed wing. I was able to see the main cable from under the car, but it is detached from the latch. Could someone please confirm if the emergency cable is attached to the actual latch or to the actuator. Since I cannot raise the fixed wing, I can't get to the latch. do you guys have any other ideas?
Lid will not open with electric or manual if cable is detached from latch.
You will have to go through the vents of the lid and maybe replace the plastic cover under the lid after you destroy it to get to the latch or let dealer do it for 450.00. Sorry, Bad design.
"Hey," says I to an admirer of the car, "you wanna see the engine?"
"Yes," they reply breathily, saliva forming at the corners of their mouth...
"OK," I say, reaching for the button... "here goes.." *click*...
"What the...?"
"Not to worry, you can see part of the tailpipe if you look through this wheel!"
H.
yeah, the open "decklid" (should it be called that?) is more like an access port and opening it is very anticlimactic. really do wish it was easier to see the engine in situ in our cars.
Has anyone noticed that Porsche has not listened to these complaints for many years. In addition to the engine compartment, getting the frunk open requires an independent power source which I have but is too large to carry within the passenger compartment of the car. There are many other shortcomings that Porsche has not paid attention to from their customers. Though I have a 2015 991.1 GTS and there are not as many problems that I have had to confront, those who own 991.2 and thereafter have dealings with PCM, Car-Play, et al that Porsche does not seem to be attentive to. My current gripe which other ownders have is the inability to disable the radio and ventilation BEFORE start-up. I share the frunk and engine compartment gripes from others. I do not understand why Porsche cannot address these long-term engineering oversights.
Last edited by freeman; 02-21-2019 at 02:26 PM.
Reason: spelling error, I like to deal with proper English and spelling.
I wanted to add this to folks with fixed spoilers. I just received help from Ivo over at Renntech.org and was able to release my engine lid even with my fixed spoiler. You active spoiler guys have it easy.
Thanks again Rennlist and all those of you who post such informative information. So here is my tale of woe, and the resolution. Disclaimer........Yeah, I do my own oil changes, so what immediately popped into my mind was "I left off the daim cable or somehow screwed this up". Based on the suggestions here, there are two options.........the easy "pull on the little cable on the passenger side" or the more difficult "figure out how to pull the latch with some sort of device." You'll understand these options if you read the previous posts. Well, I figured I disconnected the cable from the latch, or it fell out during an oil change so I had low hopes for pulling on the cable. BUT....that was the far easier option. So I opened the spoiler with the switch inside the cabin which revealed the latch and the cable cover on the passenger side. Used a screwdriver to pop that cover open enough to grab the cable with a needlenose. Gave that sucker a little tug and presto bango.....popped the engine lid.
So now it was.......what the heck happened? Obviously the cable was properly connected to the latch, which of course I verified once I pulled off the air intake. The cable was also properly installed in the groove in the air intake. No issues. So I traced the cable and ......holy smokes, found the issue. The cable housing is supposed to be routed through the hole in the small flange..........circled in red in the picture. That sucker was pulled out from the flange and just hanging there. So I pulled on the cable housing, slid the cable up through the slot in the bottom of the flange, and properly seated the cable housing in the flange. Tested the system and .......boom, problem solved.
Now, I'm wondering how in the world this happened and guess what.......about 4000 miles ago, the Porsche dealer replaced the PADM engine mount on the right side. I watched the guy do the job from the waiting room and I could see he was not removing the bumper, but instead he removed the spoiler, air intake, etc. until he could get at the mounts from above. I've not popped the engine lid since then, and I've moved about 1000 miles away from that dealer.
THAT'S a big reason why I like to do things myself.
SO.............needless to say I'll be triple checking that deck lid cabling every time I'm doing an oil change or any other service where I'm working under the engine lid.
Hope this helps someone else.
I wanted to add this to folks with fixed spoilers. I just received help from Ivo over at Renntech.org and was able to release my engine lid even with my fixed spoiler. You active spoiler guys have it easy.
-Feel free to ping me if any of you get stuck and need some further explanation. I Want to pay this forward for anyone who gets stuck here.
First off thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I just encountered the issue yesterday and was able to open the latch after much effort thanks the the above YouTube clips, photos in this article, and all your collective experiences.
I also went ahead and fabricated a plate to hold the cable in place like the article..I hope to never have to deal with this again!!
I encountered this earlier this week too on my recently acquired 991.1 C2S - seems like a stupid decision by Porsche to expose the latch cable.
I recall that the latch cable used to be concealed in the 997. Luckily I had my Techart II spoiler removed, so it was less of an issue and I could use the same method as if the OEM spoiler were raised.
If only I'd put the spoiler back on, then I would've had to go in via the decklid grille and am pretty sure I would've broken stuff
My latch cable's "holder" mechanism was broken - zip-tied currently, but I too plan to put in some sorta permanent bracket etc.
God save me when the solenoid goes out and I've the car fully clothed! Bad design by Porsche!
Ugh. I just found out how much fun it is to have this problem. Big thanks to those who detailed their methods in the previous posts. My cable came undone from the latch mechanism. I used a combination of the methods detailed in posts #19 and #24 in this thread to get my engine cover released. It seems like the key to quickly doing this is finding a way to view the hook as you fish for the release lever. I initially wasted about an hour trying to look under the fan cover and fish for the release lever. It went much faster once I could get my eyes on the latch.
I removed the rubber cover as in post #24. While looking down through the top slats, I used my wire hook to reach in from under the rear wing and fan cover. Now that I could see where my hook was, I guided it to the top bit of the latch mechanism I could see. Using the pictures of the latch posted in this thread as a reference, I could guide my hook down and find the hole where the cable was supposed to be. I gave it a few good tugs, and it finally popped open. Once I could see my hook at the latch mechanism, it only took a few minutes because I could finally see where my hook was. It took a surprising amount of force to trigger the release mechanism. It seemed like a coat hanger would have probably bent. I used a metal plant support stake as my hook.
Tested the release by putting an allen wrench in the latch to make sure it would pop out. Didn't really think about how much force the spring has to push the lid up. The wrench shot out of there like a rocket and bounched to whatever void it is that all small dropped objects fall into. Oh well. Proabably best to use a different object, or put a rag over it if you test.
I'm also enjoying the fruits of this stupid design right now. I've gotten as far as opening the deck lid in service mode and able to create some space as shown in video#2 of post #19. I don't have anything like the guy in the video...what has everyone been using as the metal hook and is it already being sold by a rennlist member?
06-16-2018, 07:58 PM
