Battery died after 12 days

**4by4** · #1 (**permalink**) 10-25-2006, 08:50 AM

Is that normal? The manual cautions after 6 weeks of no use, but 12 days? Maybe I have a suspect battery? The lights would go on but when I tried to start it up, I got the dreaded klunk-klunck-klunk. Yikes!
Put it on the charger that night and all is ok. But for how long I wonder.
Maybe I will measure the leakage current with my Multimeter.

The Youngn · #2 (**permalink**) 10-25-2006, 08:51 AM

take it back right away

**4by4** · #3 (**permalink**) 10-25-2006, 08:55 AM

PS that is 12 days of no driving btw.

The Youngn · #4 (**permalink**) 10-25-2006, 08:59 AM

its still a problem. i went to vietnam for 5 weeks and came back and the car started up with no problems

The Youngn · #5 (**permalink**) 10-25-2006, 08:59 AM

not take it back as in return it but take it back to them and have them look at that problem

T Bolen · #6 (**permalink**) 10-25-2006, 01:47 PM

Batteries can and do fail early sometimes. If you had no load operating on the car and you did not have the key in the ignition then ask for a new battery. This will only get worse.
This year I bought a new battery for our boat and spent several hours trying to troubleshoot a slow starting problem thinking that it can't possibly be the battery. It was. Took it back to the battery dealer for a load test and after 2 minutes on the tester they simply went to the shelf and got me another.

**Swampcroc** · #7 (**permalink**) 10-25-2006, 04:03 PM

4by4,

Horror stories abound here about battery drain in our cars. If you haven't already, do a search to be scared. At least you had a clunk, clunk. Some of us have had to use the dreaded jump technique to open our bonnets to get to the battery and to release our keys that were locked in the ignition. Lots of controversy with Porsche design.

Cocodrilo · #8 (**permalink**) 10-25-2006, 06:29 PM

Mine after a week of no driving does the same. I wait for 1 minute, put the AC off, etc, turn the ignition on, back to normal.

**fmarshall** · #9 (**permalink**) 10-25-2006, 07:36 PM

There is a part in the manual that talks about not driving the car for 5 days. It goes into a standby mode to save power. ANd it talks about recovery, ie, entering the car with the manual key and then using the electronic one ...

RE Batteries, in general, cells do go bad. And lead acid batteris can only go "dead" a few times before they go really "dead". And after that point they will never hold a charge under any kind of load.

The Cayman battery is being used all of the time monitoring stuff. After the engine is shut off the temperature will rise and the cooling fan(s) will operate at certain intervals. ANd i'm sure there are other reasons - clock, some settings, etc.

I make it a habit to at least drive my car every 3-4 days and generally more often. And I haven't ever had any problems at all.

Porsches are meant to be driven ... and if you can't drive the car due to some absence, I would get one of the Porsche approved battery maintainers.