Battery dead again!

[bduggporsche]

Hi all

Once again I have been out to start my 987 boxster 07 plate and it is dead to the point it wont even open the bonet. The first time this happened I bought a new battery which was a bosch HSB096 from Halfords as recommended by other posters from this board. Recently I have not been using it during the week as I have been using the mrs car for the reason its costs half the petrol on a 150 mile round trip to work. Then at the weekend I have found it is dead and have to go through the rigmarole of getting the battery out of the mrs car to open it up and then charging it all weekend. Therefore I only get to drive it on Sunday night when it is charged just to loosen things up and reset everything. Although this is great for my fuel consumption I do miss taking her out to enjoy the reason I bought her. A few questions spring to mind and I am hoping with the knowledge contained on this forum someone will be able to answer them for me

1 Is it normal for a battery to deplete over a week of non use from a new battery, maybe a rhetorical question but thought I should check anyway
2 Only thing I can think of is I had a parrot fitted a few months ago, could this be the cause or do I need to look at other possible causes
3 Should I return the battery as it is well in warranty, even though I am guessing the car is to blame somehow.
4 Is there a way I can trace this 'leak' or do I need to go the painful route, monetarily and visit an opc for an explanation
5 Can somebody suggest a trickle charger as I guess I will need to employ this route in the future. It is outside but on a driveway by the side of the house. So any pitfalls I should watch out for when using these would be very useful also, unless someone can suggest a better idea

Nick_USA has kindly answered a post previously about how to get rid of all the errors when I finally get some life back into her so at least I dont need to ask this. I know it is a lot of questions but any help is much appreciated as I am still very much a newbie in terms of owning a porsche.

 

[Buddy]

Batteries will usually be ok for 2-3 weeks left unattended unless the new battery just wasn't fully charged which isn't uncommon or you have a current drain.

Try giving the battery a full charge and see how it behaves then.

For the trickle charger, Ctek 3600 or 7000 but get the lighter socket adapter. Or you can get the Porsche Battery maintainer it's made by Ctek and plugs straight into the lighter socket it is equivalent to the Ctek 3300.

I got the Porsche item off ebay they come up quite often I don't understand why people sell them after all they can be used on other cars too. Used mine on my son's Polo.

They are shower proofed and have long leads.

 

[heathview]

I had this problem when i had a 1978 Ferrari 308 GTS which i owned for a 18 years. I went through 2 batteries in 5 years till i fitted a Varta battery and the old man in the battery shop told me to buy an Airflow battery trickle charger. This type came with a cigarette plug, i used this till i sold the car. I kept the car and now use it on my 2002 boxster 3.2s manual with 33,000 mls and full Porsche dealer service history.A point of intrest have you had the altenator checked for charging? I had mine go a couple of months ago, had it replaced and was told that it's the achilles heel of the boxster / 911 range.
Regards,
Martin

 

[rich mich]

i too bought a new battery about 8 months ago and my car is only used at weekends,the car is not on a battery charger ,as there is no power in my garage where i keep the car.the car starts ok if left for 1 -2 weeks, when you had the parrot fitted did the person fitting this wire it in to the wires behind the radio,cd unit ,as when i wired my pioneer sat nav(d3) into these wires i found out even when i switched ignition off the wire going into the radio,cd unit would switch off ,but when i locked the doors the wire would go live and switch my sat nav on (later found out this was on the canbus wires , i got round this by running a switched ignition wire from the fuse box to sat nav unit) may be your parrot is powering up when you lock the doors and running the battery down if so you need to use a switched live from fuse box(fuse c 6) for switched supply on parrot hope this helps

(it might have been when you remove keys from ignition, not when you locked the doors the unit would power up ,happened about 3 years ago, sorry)

 

[Robin M]

Get a meter that measures Direct Current Amps and connect it between the battery and the positive lead and see what the standing current drain is. Then ask the OPC what it usually should be. If its much more then you definately have something taking power from the battery that should not be. A competent auto electrician will sort this for you if you cannot find it yourself.

 

[spyderman]

Note that the CTek model numbers have now changed as the range has been revamped.

 

[BartyB]

I can recommend the Airflow conditioner. I've used one for various cars and motorbikes for short (c. 2 weeks) and long (c. 1 year) term storage. These Swiss made units have proved thoroughly relaible and are widely used by car storage companies. If I park my car for more that a few days outside (at the airport for example) then I use a 12v solar trickle charger (£10 from Maplins). Both plug into the cigarette lighter socket.

If you want to check your alternator output, just measure the volatge across the battery terminals with the engine running at idle. If all is well you should read somewhere between 13.8v - 14.5v when running. If you get significantly lower than this then suspect an alternator fault.