Herb E.

A buddy of mine has a '97 Boxster and after winter storage, he replaced the battery. The new battery is now dead, and trunk & engine lid will not open. The dealer has told him that he has 'a problem' and must have the car flatbedded to the dealer to gain access and replace the battery. Sounds like ripoff in the making....I gotta believe that these cars have a manual internal release somewhere. If this really is the case, has anyone tried applying 12V thru the lighter to provide power to release the latches? I have thoughts of moving into a Boxster someday but issues like this make me wonder...maybe I'll just stick with my old Carrera. Any assistance is helpful.

Ed Newman

The Boxster has a minor difficulty. If you have the alarm and the battery goes dead, you cannot open the front trunk to get to the battery to jump start it. There have been three techniques discussed for entering the front trunk when this problem manifests itself.

There is a Porsche Technical Bulletin describing one way that works for entering the car. See Front and Rear Hood Release Inoperative [grp5 1-96 5510 1-21-97]. A description of what one owner did to construct the device mentioned in the bulletin is shown at <a href="http://grr.xoc.net/boxster/articles/dooropener.asp" target="_blank">http://grr.xoc.net/boxster/articles/dooropener.asp</a> .
It may work that a cigarette lighter to cigarette lighter jumper cable will power the car enough to open the car. This has not been confirmed to work, though. Make sure that you carry the jumper cables in the passenger section of the car, otherwise you won't be able to get them when they are needed!
Inside the top of the driver's front wheel well, just aft of the spring coil mount, is a little rectangular corner in the black plastic shroud that lines the inside of the wheel well. Reach under this, and you will feel a "wire" about 1/8" in diameter. Too thick for an electrical wire (and not in a harness anyway).
Now tug this cable gently out from behind the shroud and get a good grip on a loop of it. Now pull hard away from the headlight once, and prepare to hear the music of the alarm as the front hood pops open. Grab a 10mm wrench and take off one of the battery cables to silence this thing until you can get your key in the ignition and disarm the thing.

Disconnect the alarm horn, re-connect something with power to the battery leads, and unlock your car.

Good Luck

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John Welch

Ed,

I believe that the alarm is currently of the silent type so the there shouldn't be a rush to disconnect the battery (its dead, no?) LOL

It sounds like the cigarette lighter jumpstart thingie might be an option.

Good luck,

Herb E.

Thx guys, we'll try getting Boxster Bill's car going this weekend based on you input....one of the three ways has to get us there.

Turboflyer

Edward how many bones that set you back? Still dreaming on that one.

Ed Newman

The boxster was $65, the C2 is going to be about $110 with the dealer add ons.

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