elpasorabo

Ok so I have a 2009 997 turbo with LED Tailights. The left one will not come on. Is it common for the resister to go bad? I can't believe the whole fixture is bad, but it appears the only replaceable part is the resister. Thoughts about where to buy a replacement?

Dennis C

Bruce In Philly

2009 C2S 120K miles

I didn;t know the 2009 Turbo did not have LEDs...interesting..... so FWIW, my 2009 factory LED tail light went out and it was just the wire harness.... unplugged and replugged in hard.... and it worked. Happened again after I removed my bumper to do my plugs...... it snaps, but the contact is somehow not perfect.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

BillNye

It's weird, the exterior and powertrain refresh on the turbo cars lagged by 1 model year, but they still got the interior updates. There is some mis-match going on in 09/10. For example, GT2s are split with 08 getting the pre-refresh interior, and 09s getting the updated interior. 09 Carreras w/ manual still have the pre-refresh steering wheel+module, but PDK cars got the post refresh wheel.

Dennis C

It is odd. The 2009 model turbo is really a "1/2 year" model. It has the engine and drivetrain of the 997.1 cars, the exterior of the 997.1 cars, but the interior tweaks of the 997.2 cars and a few options from the 997.2 cars like center lock wheels and ventilated seats.

jhbrennan

You're almost there....we should have left bread crumbs. Here's the forum for your car although you may get more responses in the 997 forum.

https://rennlist.com/forums/997-turbo-forum-139/

Petza914

Unplug the main taillight connector for that side and look at the pins inside. I bet one is sitting further down than the others. Get some needle nose pliers and grab that pin, pulling it back out to the same position as the others, then go to the base of the plug where all the wires enter in a bundle and wrap a wire tire around all of them pulling it as tight as you can get it, then plug the male and female halves of the plug together, doing it very carefully and jiggling it a little as they mate - you want to make sure each pin finds its hole before you do the final push to lock the connector.

Then, disconnect the battery for 10 minutes (DON'T LATCH THE FRUNK), then reconnect it. The purpose of this is to reset the taillight bulb control module which will stop sending current to the lamp on that side after sensing a failure.

See if it works now. If it does you may be good and will need to monitor it. If it lights for a second then shuts off, the resistor for that light has probably gone bad and the car is not seeing enough resistance and thinks the bulb is out. You'll need to replace the resistor.

elpasorabo

Excellent, thanks so much for our help on this. Would have any suggestions on where to buy a resistor if it is bad?

Petza914

Resistors come in different resistance levels. If it looks like you need a new resistor, I would check the resistance from the working one on the other taillight and then find a proper one on Amazon or ebay. I much prefer the sealed/enclosed black ones to the open gold metal ones as the latter get so hot, I worry about them touching anything. They're supposed to be attached to metal to use as a heat sink, but I'd rather it just be encapsulated where I can tuck it into the taillight recess like the originals.
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