Sean F

Not good so far...

The dealer had the car all day yesterday and couldn't pinpoint anything. Hopefully today will go better. Seeing my baby on the flatbed yesterday was not a good sight. Especially when the driver went after the openining for the tow hook with a big screwdriver...yikes.

OCBen

Oh man, you should have stopped him dead in his tracks and removed it yourself by pushing in on the bottom of that circular cover.

Sean F

I did stop him, just in time. Spoke to the dealer today, they still haven't found anything. Of course, haven't found anything consists of pluging into the computer and waiting for fault codes to show up. No original diagnostic thought goes into it at all, just what does the computer say. Sounds like they might actually have to think about the problem in order to figure out what's going on.

OCBen

Ah yes, the dying art of troubleshooting...

Have they (or yourself for that matter) been able to duplicate the problem? ... Is it running smoothly now? ... If so, sounds very similar to what happened to AeroSmith's Blue Zoomer (haven't seen him post lately, I think he was away at PDE), but his hiccup wasn't as bad as yours.

eilig

I had something exactly like this happen with my Vette two months ago. It turned out to be the optispark unit (i.e. essentially, the distributor). Good luck.

Sean F

I just read AeroSmith's thread again. Does sound similar although I never got an error message. The technician is going to drive/work on it later today. I should know by end of day if it's still running the same way. We're expected a big snow storm tonight and the dealer isn't open on the weekend so it's looking like it won't be until next week until I get the car back. Ugh. I'm started to get that feeling that they won't find anything and just give me the car back.

Sean F

Ugh. As I feared, they couldn't find anything and say the car is running perfectly. I can only hope they're right and it doesn't happen again. I've got my fingers crossed but I have a feeling I might be in for an unpleasant experience.

OCBen

Well, you did the right thing in bringing it in to see if there was something seriously wrong, which at the time it sure seemed like it to you. Sounds like it could have been just a computer glitch that will never surface again. It's possible. Just keep a keen ear open for a while and see if there are any other hiccups. I have a feeling it may well disappear for good like AeroSmith's glitch. At least you now know how to call Roadside Assistance in case you're ever disabled again.

Knock on wood and have a stiff drink and enjoy your car again (not necessarily in that sequence).

Sean F

Drink in hand. I hope you're right. I can't wait to get her back, put on some winter tires and play in the snow

Sands

Try to be optimistic about it. It's clearly not anything major. Maybe just a software glitch that was corrected on a normal reboot. Still, waiting for info about this has been as stressful for me as it has been for you! LOL. No one wants to see a fellow Pcar person suffer. It's awful!

steve775

It's under warranty and only for that reason the dealer is probably the place to take your care, but I'd take it to a Porsche mechanic that is recommended by your local PCA President for anything else. Too late now I guess but next time I would research this kind of shop and take it there for service.

Always check out your car before taking it to someone, remove any valuables, then when you get your car back, take an inventory of your car, walk around it 2 or 3 times, check your trunk for foul play, bad things happened to me from the dealer. If you catch anything unusual at the dealer, they will have few excuses to deny the situation.

eilig

If they couldn't find anything wrong with the car, I'd be willing to bet it was bad gas. ...and not the type you experience after eating a bean burrito...

Sean F

Got the car back on Friday afternoon and drove home...no problem. Drove the car on Saturday, no problem. Go to start the car this morning and take it to my local mechanic to have the winter tires put on and nada. There's juice from the battery but no crank, it just clicks. To add insult to injury, I call the service manager to discuss (read yell at him) and his lackey tells me he's too busy to talk to me and to have roadside assistance tow the car in, again. On top of this, I have a work crew in my driveway rebuilding the stonework in the front of my house. The car is parked nose first in the garage with just enough room to squeeze by the stones sitting in my driveway. No way a flatbed is going to get into my driveway. We're going to have to push the car out into the road to get in on the flatbed. Arrrgggghhhh!

OCBen

Oh man, so sorry to hear that. Well, on a positive note, I think you can take heart from the fact that the problem has gone from an intermittent problem to a set problem that has undoubtedly generated fault codes and should be easy to troubleshoot.

It now sounds like an ignition problem, and the ignition coils may be suspect, as was the case in AeroSmith’s car. The good news is that once it's fixed the problem should never resurface, and life with be good with your 997 again.

Sean F

That's what I'm hoping Ben. Although, with this dealer I could imagine them saying something like "I know your car doesn't run, but it isn't generating any fault codes so there's nothing we can do"