Mike Murphy

DBJoe996

Yes, I do believe this is correct. You can mechanically unlock the door for access. However, if the car is locked down and the battery dies completely, the electrical system and immobilizer may not have any juice to "unlock" the interior cable pulls next to the seat, meaning until you get 12V to either the frunk battery or engine bay jumper point, you may not be able to completely unlock the car. The interior cable pulls are locked when the car is locked. A trickle charger plugged into the cigarette lighter might work to get things unlocked, however, if the battery is dead it might take hours to get enough charge, and you might run the risk of a damaged or bad cell in the battery that prevents charging and then you are screwed.

Mike Murphy

DBJoe996

To the best of my knowledge...nope. Not only can one not pull the cable release when the door is shut, if the cable pulls are locked and the battery is dead, then you cannot do it either. Thus the recommendation to relocate the emergency frunk release cable to an easily accessible point.

Mike Murphy

tharbin

I have had two 996s. Both displayed the exact same behavior. If you leave the car unlocked the battery will drain enough in 7 days or so that starting can be problematic. If you lock the car the car can sit for a month or more and still start easily. The car never shuts down the remote radio receiver while unlocked. It is obviously a substantial battery drain.

tharbin

Both the front and rear emergency release are connected directly to the latch mechanisms. No power needed.

Antigravity

Hi all figured I would offer my input as well. We are a new vendor, Antigravity Batteries to Rennlist and sell lithium batteries for motorsports vehicles. Lithium-Ion batteries tend to have a lower amp hour rating than lead acid, but much higher cranking ability than lead acid. So parasitic drain is an area we always look into diligently on the vehicles we have our batteries in.


We have a 2106 GT 3 RS with our Battery in it..... And what I can tell you from my conversations with my Porsche Tech is that since 2005 Porsche has had a battery management system in the vehicles, and that battery management system would turn off certain areas of the vehicle and put them into sleep modes. But initially the battery management system was very broad and would turn off many systems all at once and put them to sleep. Whereas now it is much more refined and can actually put certain areas of the car to sleep to minimize the draw on the battery system earlier and more efficiently. Since 2014 the system has become extremely efficient and from the 2014 and recent models the parasitic draw is exceptionally low... In fact we have an 18 amp hour battery that weighs roughly 7 pounds and can last a month if not more in the GT 3 RS and other 991.1 models as well as Caymans and such. But as many of you had said the earlier models do have a significant parasitic drain if you don't make sure you lock the doors... The tech I spoke to believed that because the doors aren't locked the car puts itself into more of a ready mode thinking it will be driven soon so it never goes into the deeper status that it achieves when the car is locked. So that definitely could be an issue with the 996 as many of you have claimed

Anyway I just figured I would also add that you do not want to have your key fob near the car or stored in the garage with the car. This may not apply to some older model years. But the key fob awakens some parts of the system of the car because the car is looking actively for key fob's in the vicinity.

Last, if you ever put any aftermarket Bluetooth system, alarm system or any accessories those tend to have create dramatic draws on the battery. I have measured some Bluetooth systems that draw over 2 amps... And that is crazy actually because a correctly functioning Bluetooth device should be able to draw just milliamps... But many times these systems will be actively looking to connect to a Bluetooth device in the area so they stay active which the owner doesn't realize.

The fact is if you're drawing down a 70 amp hour battery in a week that's pretty significant so you're definitely going to want to make sure you're locking the doors and as others have said tracking those parasitic draw's which you can do through the fuse panel and by using a typical and even cheap multi meter.... Rather than me explain how to hook up to check parasitic draw you can go on YouTube and search for how to check parasitic draw which is also called phantom draw and you will find YouTube videos that explain it quite well.

gtred

Thanks fpb11: Those ma numbers will be very helpful when trying to find the draw.

Antigrav: It looks like I can no longer leave the car unlocked and the keys in the console... living in the country has it's perks! But apparently hard on the electronics.

Mike Murphy