pzull

So my battery went dead over winter and I couldn't get the hood opened with the charger that came with this <6000mile gt3rs v.2. instead the lights started blinking and the chrono started rotating like crazy when I plugged in the factory charger

Manual says use the clamps with the charger on the red fuse but the factory charger only had cigar lighter plug. Borrowed friends generic charger with clamps, popped open the hood, removed stuck key, removed battery and prayed battery is not beyond help.

3 days of charging did the trick to revive battery. popped battery back in, car alarm goes off, hunting for keys in my cargo pants....too many pockets. finally found keys & switched off alarm hoping I haven't awoken neighbors. ...got into driver's seat and started car...hooray starts first time.....but wait warnings lights and messages started popping up. "PASM failure", "sports mode failure", "TC failure"...windows rolled down halfway on their own. What's going on? I thought I might have fried the computer or corrupted the p-OS. Shut down the car...re-boot...same error messages and red screen of death on the display...btw deep red text and bright sunlight does not make for a legible warning message for middle-aged p-drivers.

Out comes the manual...contents page doesn't seem to give a clue which page I should go to...check back index pages...hmmm maybe the section on battery. Voila...manual says start the car, wriggle steering from side to side, drive in a straight line, stop, roll windows up to top until it stops, release window button, push it up again, turn off car, turn on car, check if warnings lights are still on, if not drive carefully to dealer.

Well I tried the "reboot" and lights were still there. My decades of experience with windows (the MS version) taught me to try again. Worked the second time around. Car is back to normal.

OK all the above procedure seems to be part of the advanced design of the 997 as it's all documented in various/multiple/somewhat unrelated sections of the manual. My question is: is there a reason or a logical logic behind this?

They should have a short cut for this entire process like Microsoft's windows' ctrl+alt+del...just 3 more buttons on the key fob . And the screen of death in blue would have been easier to read than red.

OK end of rant. Now to type out the "for sale" ad....I'm going back to air-cooled...at least leaky oil gaskets, overheating inducing engine undertrays and climate (outta)control can be fixed and stay fixed....and I don't need to worry about radiator fluids

George from MD

There is a perfectly logical reason. Porsche dealers need to make money too. I had to have mine reset at the dealer when the same thing happened.

If my car isn't running it's on a battery tender. I learned my lesson.