I;m a new (to me) 991 owner. Just received delivery of a 2012 991 Cab. and sold my 996 TT Cab. The 991 has 3 power outlets. Which one should I plug my battery tender into? Are they all live? I currently have it plugged into the one in the glove box.

 

All the outlets are live after ignition shut down not sure it makes a difference which one you use

 

anyone will do fine....

 

I have used all of them. They all work.

 

There is a current/active thread on this today/yesterday. The one in the smoker's package is "live" all the time. The one in the footwell and the armrest are switched to deactivate after a while.

 

I use the one in the footwell and my car always shows it being fully charged. In this frigid Chicago winter, I've gone a couple of weeks without starting the car, and it's been in a cold, detached garage, yet the CTEK 3300 always shows a full charge. My understanding was that as long as you plugged it in while it was still live, it would work fine and that has been my experience. If I am wrong, I'd love to know.

 

I also use the one in the footwell. Seems to work fine for me so far.

 

One observation. I have been using footwell socket successfully for a very long time and use the method shared previously (ie you must activate the socket initially by turning ignition on then off and then plug in the charger). However, I have had a couple of occasions when it disconnected the charger and repeated attempts at getting it to charge from the socket failed necessitating that I resort to connection directly to the battery under the hood.

My observation is that this happened when I believe the battery had been very run down (in my case because the battery had been run down by dodgy tracker module and on another occasion because of lack of use/too many short journeys). I don’t have technical proof but my suspicion is that when the car identifies the battery charge as low, it disables parasitic loads and that might include the module that controls footwell socket!!

If the battery is flat/close to flat my experience suggests you must charge it by connecting to the battery; footwell socket only seems to work for use as a tender.

 

One disadvantage of the footwell outlet is in the event of a power failure it will disconnect and not repower. Probably, not a problem for short term storage but could be for long term. Connecting directly to the battery via a pigtail is the best solution.

 

Super old thread, but I've been using a trickle charger plugged into the outlet in the console and the last 4 years it's been for three months twice and six + months twice and the battery has always been charged when I got back. I can't imagine the power has never gone out in that period, so it seems to have started recharging again when power has come back. Unless, of course, power has never been lost.

 

I think it depends on model year of your car. MY 2018 991.2 has spent the last four winters on a Battery Tender plugged into the passenger side socket for three plus months at a time. Always resets after power outages, never an issue. Go figure...

 

I am testing out the CTEK liPo charger and have it hooked directly to the battery posts. So far it’s been 2-3 hours and it’s still at the 2nd light out of 8. How long should it stay at the 2nd level? Didn’t think My battery was that drained, I’ve been driving it around.
I’ll leave it over night and see if it gets the level 7 in the morning.

last winter I was using the Porsche charge matic and connecting it t the footwell 12v socket, but it was inconsistent whether it will stay on past 30 mins, so this winter I thought I will try the CTEK and wire it to the battery.

 

 

I wire all my cars directly to the battery with a quick release plug, the wires coming out of the "cover" by the wipers. Plug it in and shut the frunk. Also put them on a timer, so the charger works about 4-6 hours a day. I don't leave the charger running 24/7. That has worked well for me for years... and sometimes a car will sit for a couple weeks without running. Use a "smart" charger that can tell what kind of battery it is charging.

 

I saw this from another user on this forum and decided to copy it. It works like a charm, takes 3 seconds to hook up, doesn't scratch the paint, and will simply disconnect if I ever drive off with it accidentally attached. Have it hooked up to a Noco charger.