palmpalm

Pulled over. Shut off. Got out. Locked. Walked away. Started up the minute later and error seems to have cleared. What’s the deal? My service advisor says they don’t know. Anyone experienced this? Know what it is?

neanicu

What's the state of your battery? Do you drive the car enough? Do you keep it on a charger/maintainer when not in use?
You can get electrical errors like that when the battery voltage is not sufficient to run all the modules,actuators,solenoids and everything else is needed to be ran off the battery in these computer driven complicated machines.
My advice to all newer cars owners that are not daily driven,is to be kept on a battery maintainer...

palmpalm

thanks.
It’s a 1 year old gt3 with 13000kms on it that I daily drive. No maintainer but never sits more than a few days max

neanicu

I really wish your service advisor's answer would have been : " Sir,bring it in at your earliest convenience : we'll do a full system scan using our factory PIWIS 4,it will only take 15 minutes. "

Alan C.

You’d need a ‘Way Back Machine’ to get that response from a service department today.🤣

palmpalm

So I went to drive it again and it came back on. Sigh.

Orca911

If it were me, before calling dealer, I would order a CTEK on Amazon and a cheap code reader, and have it delivered tomorrow. Give it 24 hours.
check the codes. Obsess over it and scoure the internet. And then call the dealership.

This is not good operating procedure. But its what i would do. Worst case you have a $50 OBD scanner to loan to co workers and a really nice battery tender.

neanicu

I agree with the C-tek but I don't agree with the Amazon cheap code reader : that error might be stored in one of the 50 modules these cars probably have(like the instrument cluster module) and the only module a code reader would be able to access is the engine controller...and even that,it will only read emission related codes,nothing manufacturer specific.

Orca911

You are probably right.
But FWIW I just bought this code scanner and it has a battery health mode that does a scan and graphing and might give some useful data. didnt play with that because I was chasing fueling CELs.

palmpalm

So it seems it was the battery. Now why the batter would be dying on a 1 year old car that I daily drive is beyond me. Never happened in any previous Porsches or my Ferrari…

V999

Strangely, there are probably dozens of threads on Rennlist about Porsche batteries dying earlier than one might expect. I've never experienced that w/any other cars either.

Putting aside the possibility of leaving something on, or bad aftermarket wiring (radar detectors or cams or whatever), the most frequently cited guesses at causes for dead batteries in 911s are frequent short trips or not driving it somewhat regularly.

So I always drive the car at least once every couple weeks or so. And any time I take the car out, I make sure I drive at least 5 miles (both the ensure the battery gets a good charge and also make sure the engine heats up to operating temp to minimize moisture buildup in the engine). Having to drive a 911 a more frequently, and a longer distance, than necessary is a solution I can happily live with.

It's anecdotal, but I never had a battery issue with my GTS (4 years and a bit of 40K miles). Didn't ever use a trickle charger, either. W/the incoming GT3, I probably will use a trickle charger since it may go more than a few weeks without being driven, at least in the winter. So perhaps those two reasons (above) really are the causes.

palmpalm

well I daily drive my gt3 often for hours at a time and the shortest drive I ever do with it is 30 minutes. Don’t think this car has ever gone more then 48
hours without being driven. Pretty ridiculous. Curious to see what happens with the replacement battery over time.

Shamir Udi

Its new car, which battery you got now ?

vodoxus

Just more info from someone who just faced a similar issue.

Got my Gt3 Touring in Aug Last year. (Singapore)
Mostly daily drive it, if not, every other day .
Have left it alone for 2 weeks on holiday , and a few one week stints.
No issues ever.

Went for another 1 week holiday. Came back and no juice.
They popped the frunk, restarted the Li battery, ( I say restart because apparently the Li batts have a protection circuit that shuts it down if not used, to prevent drainage) ,
And the car started immediately. They popped in the PIWIS, and car showed no faults, and the batt was healthy.

About 3 weeks later, i had a Vehicle Electrical System Fault error pop up while driving.
Got to my office, parked, started it 4 hrs later, and the error was gone.
Not 5 mins later the error resurfaced and I brought it to my dealer.

They checked and said the battery was dying, and changed to a new one.
Whats interesting is that from as far back as I can remember, the battery voltage always read around 14.2-14.5v .
With the new one it says 13.6 and stays there.

I've read somewhere(Porsche UK Owners forum) that Li Batteries around 30% of charge may jump up to 14.5v

Wondering if anyone has any knowledge or experience with the batts?