entdoc

Thanks again for all the advice. I've got a couple of experiments brewing. I called my next door neighbour with a hibernating 996. He went over to my garage and switched battery tenders - we'll see if it does the same thing on his car. If it does the same thing, the tender must be faulty. If it's OK on his car, I'll plug it into my footwell socket and see if that makes a difference. I'll update the forum tomorrow.

David

PistolPete

The things that we worry over. Most of my co-workers would think I'm insane!

entdoc

If I wasn't insane before. This has made me insane.

I tried the battery tender on my neighbour's 996. We left it attached for 6 hours and it was working perfectly (although maybe this wasn't long enough). I then reconnected it to my car using the footwell outlet. After about two hours, the amber charging indicator changed to the green maintenance indicator. I thought the problem was solved.

I went out to the garage this morning - lights out again!

My current theory is that the car removes power from the outlets when it goes into sleep mode. I've reconnected the battery tender but not locked the car this time. We'll see what happens.

Any more suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

bjereb

don't plug it into cig lighter - it wont work. there is a socket in the arm rest compartment. it should be plugged in there.

bob

NVRANUF

huh??

bjereb

1Gunner,

I'm the first to admit that I'm not very mechanically inclined! :-) But i had the exact same problem with the same battery tender. The manual states to use a 12 volt socket (one is located in the arm rest). Apparently the cig lighter is not a 12 volt. When i switch to that socket, the tender worked correctly.

bob

PistolPete

OK, we're all getting confused here.

On the 997's and 987's, I know of two outlets in the cabin.

1. Cig. lighter outlet in the armrest.

2. 12V outlet on the left side of the passenger footwell.

I've used both outlets on my CTEK US800 charger and I've never seen both lights go out with them.

*NOTE: don't use the lighter outlet in the armrest to power the Porsche air compressor if you get a flat, it will blow the fuse. Use only the outlet in the passenger footwell for that.

I've always locked the car when I'm charging. After 3 days with the car locked, the car will go into a deeper power saving sleep mode and your remote key won't open the door. You have to stick the key into the driver door to open it and then the remote will start working again.

BUT even when the car is in this power save mode, the green LED is still on with the charger.

Hope this helps...

NVRANUF

I only have two 12V outlets.
In the center console ashtray, the cigarette lighter is one outlet and the other is on the left side in the passenger foot well.
I have no 12V socket in my arm rests.
I've always used my center console's 12V cigarette lighter outlet to plug my battery tender into and over the last 3 looooooooooong Canadian winters have had no issue.

bjereb

1 Gunner,

The cab and coupe must be different. Mine has the 2, plus the cig lighter. Page 254 in the manual shows location. Sorry for beating this to death!

entdoc

Latest update:

I tried using the outlet in the armrest storage bin (there is one there!). I also tried not locking the car. Same thing happened - when I got home from work, the lights were out.

I called the dealer - they haven't heard of this. They said that it should go into the cigarette lighter and weren't sure about the other locations. They asked that I try the lighter itself to make sure that there is current to the outlet (which I did and there is). They then suggested that I replace the battery tender and they exchanged it for a new one. Just in case, I paid an extra $20 to get the battery terminal adaptor so that I can try hooking it directly to the battery.

We'll see if the lights are on tomorrow morning. If not, I need a good mechanic, a good psychiatrist or someone to take the car off my hands because this is driving me absolutely nuts.

richc

Plug it into the accessory plug in the right side foot space. Mine worked best there.

entdoc

The new battery tender is working perfectly (car locked and plugged into cigarette lighter). Problem was apparently a faulty tender. Thanks again for all the advice.

David

Minok

Any reason one cannot use the battery maintainer on any other vehicle (say on the VW New Beetle when I'm driving the Targa regularly? )

Leader

Should work fine on any other (12 volt) vehicle.

RED HORSE

If using the cigarette lighter make sure it is active when the ignition is turned off. Lexus for one disables the lighter when the key is off.