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OK, disclaimer. I have no idea whether Bulletin #2229.3 solves the phantom battery drain issue as some folks have said it does and others said it doesn't. Whether it does or not there is the aforementioned bulletin and it's quite explicit as to what the conditions and vehicles concerned are. Personally I don't care what your dealer "thinks", the Bulletin is a Porsche bulletin and as such supersedes their opinion. Here is what should be done IMHO.
1) I assume from your delivery date you have PCM5 and not PCM6 (aka MIB3). In the unlikely event that you do have PCM6 this patch doesn't apply to your car
2) You need a VAL and verify that you have ConBox LOW and that it contains the label "Connect" or "Connect (incl. PVTS)" with the software 0420. If you have any other software version such as 0412 for example this patch is for your car. If you can't do a VAL yourself demand that the dealer run one, that will show what you have and whether it meets the requirement for this software upgrade. Once you have them do this, demand a copy of the VAL so you can see that this was done showing the new version number.
3) My SM refused to have this done on my car, I've now elevated this to PCNA level 2 or 3 and I'm due to conference call in the next day to address this having supplied them with all the pertinent info.
The jury is still out as the whether this patch will actually solve this as some have also found that the phantom drain came from the driver's seat. But what is clear is that if your car fits into the criteria the upgrade should be performed irrespective of what your dealer "thinks". If they don't, contact PCNA, your car is under warranty. Keep us posted
I've been looking through Rennlist to try to find posts that are similar to what I am experiencing but have not seen any.
5.). based on what I can tell from what Battery Tracker is telling me it seems as though battery is holding charge at 13 volts when OFF trickle charger (I tried this as a test yesterday for 10 hours or so);
6.). when starting car battery voltage drops from 13.0 to 12.2 or so and stays there for the most part when driving. When braking I'm getting readings of 14 to 15 or so but that's only when braking. The Battery Tracker during driving shows the battery power slowly working it's way down from 100% power to low 50's or so (it might go even lower but at that point but I start getting concerned about the car shutting down on me and head home). So it seems to me that the car is not able to keep the battery charged and is actually discharging while driving. When I turn the car off for 5 or 10 minutes and then restart it the battery doesn't seem to have recovered (and may also become more fully discharged due to fan coming on to cool engine etc.) and I get the "Chassis System Fault" error.
7.). bringing the car back to dealer tomorrow.
I've seen posts about a Porsche bulletin about some kind of software upgrade that was needed for 2020 and 2021 992's due to battery discharge and sent to dealer but they did not think that was applicable to my situation (I did not ask for VAL report). I've also seen posts about grounding straps but am not sure if that would apply to what I am experiencing.
Aside from the Antigravity Battery Tracker the only other after market device I have installed in the car is a radar detector. I tapped into rear view mirror light to run this and have disconnected this to see if that made any difference in what I was experiencing and it did not.
Just curious anyone else has experienced this fact pattern.
Thanks.
Cool your using the battery tracker and that is exactly what it was designed to do.... point out your real voltages and track it. You might want to take some screen shots of your Battery Tracker History Page to be able to show to your Dealer. Keep in mind you dealer may try to claim you can't have something like this connected to your car (because they can be quite ignorant), the fact is the battery Tracker only tracks voltage and cannot interfere with the Cars system in case they try to claim that. It also will not put any parasitic draw on your battery. It can drag down your Phone battery if you leave the Battery Track App on all the time when in range because it is then in full time communication with the Tracker and they will connect via bluetooth and keep trying to push data. So best to use the App only when you review your 30 Day History or if you want real time voltage readings.
As far as what you are saying your Car does NOT seem to be charging, YES you will see a voltage drop on the Start, because there is a high pulse of current required to start a car, but then it will bounce back within seconds to start charging the Car. The raise in Voltage when braking is because the cCar is designed to Charge when braking or decelerating more so than when accelerating to create less drag on the motor and offer better milage and emmisions.
Here is how a Battery Tracker will portray a typical graphic in its History while Idle and Driving. This is back in 2019 when I had my GT3... So I wanted to show how my Porsche looked when using the Battery Tracker. This first shot shows the voltage is resting at 13.2v on Feb 22nd... Then at 2:30 I start the car and you can see the Car's Voltage Jumps up high and is charging the battery, then around 3:15 it drops off from high charging to a lower level of Charging, for about 20 mins then it jumps up again high at 3:30 and at 4:00 I have stopped driving and the battery goes down to its resting charged voltage of 13.2v again. So that is typical of looking at the history in the Battery Tracker App and clearly seeing the Battery being charged. So if you not seeing something like that then you Car isn't really charging. Also when driving you will see different variations of the charging going in and out, but you will not see a steady drop in voltage as you described.
In this shot below of the History Graph in the Battery Tracker I can see the voltage holding steady at 13.2v (if you put your finger on the app it tells you the exact time and voltage but these are old shots) but then I must have gone out to the car and maybe washed it or been dinking around and opened the doors or something because you can see the voltage drop meaning I have brought the car out of it sleep mode so there is a load on the battery so the voltage drops for about 20 mins. I assume I went out to the car and was testing something or washing it and had the radio on and doors open.
For this image I can see a 24 Hour Period where I have not gone to the Car and its been sitting doing nothing, but notice my voltage is holding steady at 13.2v which is the resting voltage or our lithium Battery. If you car had a large parasitic draw on it you would see the voltage line slowly going down, but the GT3RS I had could sit like this for a month easily at 13.2v with our 40Ah Lithium Battery in it, it didn't have any parasitic drains which was awesome. Anyway I wanted to point out who you can tell what is going on with the Battery Tracker and show your Mechanic if you car isn't charging or acting oddly.
This is the screen on the Battery Tracker that can measure the drop in Volage during a start attempt.... as you can see the GT3 would momentarily drop it voltage on the start down to 10.84v and this is typical for a voltage drop on a start with a high sample rate catching the ultimate low voltage of the starts in-rush current. But this is perfectly normal and expected. It bounces right back and only goes this low due to high current draw on the 1st cycle of an electric motor (starter motors) turn over.
Good Luck with finding your issues, these are things that are really frustrating that we see in several Porsches.
Last edited by Antigravity; 01-19-2023 at 03:38 PM.
Cool your using the battery tracker and that is exactly what it was designed to do.... point out your real voltages and track it. You might want to take some screen shots of your Battery Tracker History Page to be able to show to your Dealer. Keep in mind you dealer may try to claim you can't have something like this connected to your car (because they can be quite ignorant), the fact is the battery Tracker only tracks voltage and cannot interfere with the Cars system in case they try to claim that. It also will not put any parasitic draw on your battery. It can drag down your Phone battery if you leave the Battery Track App on all the time because it is then in full time communication with the Tracker and they will connect via bluetooth and keep trying to push data. So best to use the App only when you review your 30 Day History or if you want real time voltage readings.
As far as what you are saying your Car does NOT seem to be charging, YES you will see a voltage drop on the Start, because there is a high pulse of current required to start a car, but then it will bounce back within seconds to start charging the Car. The raise in Voltage when braking is because the cCar is designed to Charge when braking or decelerating more so than when accelerating to create less drag on the motor and offer better milage and emmisions.
Here is how a Battery Tracker will portray a typical graphic in its History while Idle and Driving. This is back in 2019 when I had my GT3... So I wanted to show how my Porsche looked when using the Battery Tracker. This first shot shows the voltage is resting at 13.2v on Feb 22nd... Then at 2:30 I start the car and you can see the Car's Voltage Jumps up high and is charging the battery, then around 3:15 it drops off from high charging to a lower level of Charging, for about 20 mins then it jumps up again high at 3:30 and at 4:00 I have stopped driving and the battery goes down to its resting charged voltage of 13.2v again. So that is typical of looking at the history in the Battery Tracker App and clearly seeing the Battery being charged. So if you not seeing something like that then you Car isn't really charging. Also when driving you will see different variations of the charging going in and out, but you will not see a steady drop in voltage as you described.
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I have your battery tracker, and it’s fantastic. Actually, I have 3 of the AG battery trackers. I keep my Porsche (has the Li battery) on a battery tender, so wan’t too concerned about this battery during a recent 3 week trip to Scotland.
But I found it very enlightening (and something not advertised) that on many EV’s (I just bought an EV/ Polestar 2), that the car’s system monitors both the SOC on the traction battery, as well as the voltage on the 12v battery. When the 12v battery drops below a certain level, the traction battery is automatically connects to the 12v battery, to re-charge the 12v battery used to start the electronics on the car. I had heard rumors about this capability on some EV’s but wasn’t 100% sure that Polestar had it…so before I left for 3 weeks, I connected the AG battery tracker on the 12v battery of my EV. When I returned home, I checked the 30 day data results…and sure enough, at about the 20th day of my trip, I noticed the voltage on my 12v battery spiking to 14.58v and remained there for about 30 minutes, at which point, the big traction battery disconnected from the 12v battery…and all was well with the world. Battery re-charged. Very, very cool. Don’t have to worry about my 12v going flat unless the traction battery has been depleted or another system on the car is not working. I also tried, using you battery tracker to record the data, from when I remotely turn on the car’s climate setting from my phone app, and saw that the traction battery connects to the 12v battery to re-charge, if needed. Since it’s WiFi based, I can activate it anywhere in the world i have WiFi connection.
Thank you battery tracker!
Last edited by CodyBigdog; 01-20-2023 at 05:00 PM.
Hi Antigravity - thanks for your post. Very interesting. The graphs from your car are totally opposite from what I was experiencing. While your graph shows the car charging pretty steadily at 14 - 15 volts, mine is down around 12 for the most part. I was at the dealer today and they performed a software update so hopefully that will help to resolve the issue. We'll see.....
Attached is a chart from my short ride home from the dealer (@ 13:30 (1:30 pm) it's maintaining around 14 volts. Everything before that is from when the dealer was working on the car. When I got home I put the car on the trickle charger and you can see that as well.
Hi Antigravity - thanks for your post. Very interesting. The graphs from your car are totally opposite from what I was experiencing. While your graph shows the car charging pretty steadily at 14 - 15 volts, mine is down around 12 for the most part. I was at the dealer today and they performed a software update so hopefully that will help to resolve the issue. We'll see.....
Attached is a chart from my short ride home from the dealer (@ 13:30 (1:30 pm) it's maintaining around 14 volts. Everything before that is from when the dealer was working on the car. When I got home I put the car on the trickle charger and you can see that as well.
Yes on the Charger you can see that smoother arcing charge rate at the end in the RED SECTION I circled. But the charging via the car you will see it go fast and directly to higher voltage rates... those charge rates in the RED section seem fine and you can press your finger down on the phone screen in this App section and get the exact voltage you are looking at. But they seem to be high 13s low 14s from the image so that looks normal. The occasional drop down to below 12 will be normal being the Battery Tracker samples voltage every 2 minutes in its history mode, and would capture a small dip like that if the timing is right.
In the blue area it appears to be a fast parasitic draw being it starts are roughly 13.2 then drops to 13... but this might be the car sitting in the garage and dropping to it nominal voltage of 12.8v. My car sat at 13.2 because I had our Antigravity Lithium Battery in it which sits at 13.2v compared to a Lead/Acid Battery that sits at 12.8v. So that would show different between us. Hopefully
Well, the software update at the dealer yesterday did not help with the "Chassis System Fault" errors I have been receiving. Just got back from a drive and watched on the Battery Tracker the battery power go from 100% at the start of the drive down to the low 50% range. Went home. Shut the car off. Restarted it and received the error. Just got off the phone with the dealer. Since battery and alternator checked out yesterday they need to get Porsche involved at this point and need to keep the car. They mentioned it might be the "gateway" unit to battery? Hopefully they can sort it out. Attached is Battery Tracker screenshot from drive (everything up to 16:20 (4:20 pm)) car was on trickle charger. Seems to me like the car is not charging the battery sufficiently but the alternator is checking out. Very confusing.
01-18-2023, 09:44 PM
