[unknown4u]

Electrical gremlins despite, but yes I als have logged the car in the past and It seems It comes to life during the original alarm etc in the nightly hours. Thats why my battery dies.
But luckely I installed a charger [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img] . Now it stays unfortunatly for more than a month but still starts!

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[nevilmi]

hey guys... i have the problem of my battery dieing overnight. i found that my dme relay is drawing 1.5 amps as soon as i put the positive terminal on. i tried a different dme relay and get the same result. also my car exhibits little to no power under a load but will rev just fine under a no load scenario. ive inspected to entire vario cam mechanics and all looks good. im starting to suspect a bad dme. does anyone have any ideas on how to test the dme? id hate to spend the money on this dme if its not the problem. any help is appreciated.

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[flash]

i would look at the grounds, particularly the one at the fuel pump - it seems that one of the circuits is open, either fuel or ignition - check the key too to see if it is stuck in accessory position

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[black beauty 42]

Twice in the last 12 months I have left my '92 coupe in the garage while away for 2-3 weeks. When back, the battery is dead. Today, I decided to try to find the "drain". I hooked up a meter which indicated a constant 11ma drain. I then proceeded to remove each fuse (in the fuse box inside the engine compartment), one at a time to see if any effect on the drain. Sorry to say, none of the fuses had any effect on the drain. None of the interior/engine compartment/back storage area/ lights are on so they can't be the problem.

As indicated by Flash, I checked the glove box switch. No change in the drain when the button is fully depressed. Lot's more drain with the light on of course.

However, I wanted to remove any fuse that is associated with the glove box, but could not find it.

Any one know where it is?

And, wouldn't a poor main ground wire connection just cause electrical stuff not to work; not actually drain the battery?

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[94SilverCab]

Also check lights in Trunk and under hood.



Regards,



Jay

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[Cloud9...68]

11 mA is an extremely low drain - most source I've read say anything under 50 mA is normal for a modern car (not sure how well the "modern" label fits the 968, though...). Did you measure that by placing the leads of your ammeter between the negative terminal of your battery, and the cable that was attached to that terminal? If it's going dead in 2-3 weeks with that low of a drain, my guess would be that your battery is getting weak. Before you do anything else, I'd get it tested.



My 2003 BMW X5, on the other hand, has a parasitic drain of a staggering 1.4 amps! Kills the battery in about two days. Now that's a "man's" drain!

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[black beauty 42]

thanks guys for the responses.

Yes, I had my meter between the negative battery terminal and the cable that goes to this terminal.

The light in the rear storage area was not on, as were all other lights.

The battery is less than a year old, and I got it from a trusted Porsche mechanic. However, I will check with him and see if he will test it.

Today, I'll also test the battery voltage.

Anyone think my voltage regulator may be the problem?

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[Cloud9...68]

"Anyone think my voltage regulator may be the problem?"



It's not out of the question. Any of the major auto parts stores will run a test for free of your charging system, which will at least narrow it down to the alternator or regulator if the test shows that the charging system is weak.

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[DaveN]

11 ma is almost nothing given the amp rating of a battery, a clock draws more. That sounds like everything in your car is turned off already. I would look for a shorted cell in the battery or a charge problem. Once can have decent voltage but no current reserves.

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[black beauty 42]

thanks for the tips

I'll add a post when I find out more



BTW, anyone going to Rennsport Reunion 4 this weekend?

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[psuphoto]

Battery would die all the time until I Got the battery maintainer. Quick release plug in. Dead battery however kills the life of the battery. I got this great trouble shooting guide and discovered negative battery cable not too good. After replacing the negative battery cable things were good for a couple years. Now it looks as though the positive cable to the alternator is not so good. Would like to run a cable directly from alternator to battery. Where is the voltage regulator located? In the alternator? Is there any problems running a zero resistance cable in parallel with the existing alternator cable to get more charging juice while driving?

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[flash]

regulator is in the alternator. it is also well known for wearing out.

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[Cloud9...68]

If you're finding that your cables are in that bad of shape, I would urge you to give Robby of Higher Connections (I believe they're still a sponsor of this site) a call. He has a very high quality set of replacement cables for a more-than-reasonable price. I wouldn't put this off, either, because it's a good bet that the cable bundle going into your starter is also on its last legs - the insulation around the wires in that bundle tends to wear off, causing a short, which can (and often times has) cause the starter to start on its own. It happened to me while I was driving, and it's happened to people while the car was stationary, causing it to essentially "self-start", a very inconvenient thing to have happen if the car happens to be in gear.



I put a ridiculously tiny battery in my car (to save weight - it's getting converting to be primarily a track car) that looks like it would have trouble starting a lawn tractor, and yet it fires up this beast of an engine with juice to spare, which I partially attribute to my new, low-resistance cables.

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[psuphoto]

[quote name='Cloud9...68' timestamp='1371090200' post='144227']

If you're finding that your cables are in that bad of shape, I would urge you to give Robby of Higher Connections (I believe they're still a sponsor of this site) a call. He has a very high quality set of replacement cables for a more-than-reasonable price. I wouldn't put this off, either, because it's a good bet that the cable bundle going into your starter is also on its last legs - the insulation around the wires in that bundle tends to wear off, causing a short, which can (and often times has) cause the starter to start on its own. It happened to me while I was driving, and it's happened to people while the car was stationary, causing it to essentially "self-start", a very inconvenient thing to have happen if the car happens to be in gear.



I put a ridiculously tiny battery in my car (to save weight - it's getting converting to be primarily a track car) that looks like it would have trouble starting a lawn tractor, and yet it fires up this beast of an engine with juice to spare, which I partially attribute to my new, low-resistance cables.

[/quote]

Wow! my first day posting and all this great help! Car loves cold and wet weather, not so happy with hot Florida summer weather. Noticed charging voltage when cold is about 13.6V. After it warms up in the Florida Sun, charging voltage drops to about 12.4V with A/C and lights on (12.8V with everything off). I suspect the resistance in the cables increases greatly with the heat. Battery maintainer when in garage and Solar Panel when parked in the sun seem to help a lot. I get a strong feeling the problem is with the cables. do you have any more information on the contact who sells them? When I first got the car, I diagnosed negative cable bad. I'm cheap, so I got an arc welding cable and ran it from the negative post to the engine block. This solved about 7 different electrical and heat (not enough power for fans ironically) problems almost immediately, that was 9 years ago. Now, The diagnostic "First Things First" manual I bought (best $60 ever spent) is helping me identify the cable from the alternator. I was going to do the same "cheap" trick of running an arc welding cable, but I realize accidental shorting of this "cheap" fix would be very sad. Is replacing the cables a straightforward DIY task? I noticed the positive cable snakes it's way through the exhaust area and then behind the block. Does not look easy to get to. The Pet documentation shows the parts, but I haven't seen anyplace where the actual cable run is pictured.

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[psuphoto]

[quote name='flash' timestamp='1371086146' post='144221']

regulator is in the alternator. it is also well known for wearing out.

[/quote]

Love this car, but with 3 kids in college stinks to be putting $1200/year in labor to the local mechanic. It also stinks to be working on it all the time. When engine compartment gets hot, charging voltage drops (expected), but perhaps too much (12.4-12.8V). Which is probably exaserbated by bad cables. Also ironic is low battery voltage takes away from the power of the fans which further increase the heat! LOL. Used to think battery was dying because I wasn't driving it every day, now I realize (after discovering NO parasitic voltage leak) that perhaps the problem was always with poor charge. Car runs awesome in Florida winters and on cold wet days.

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[Cloud9...68]

To get the cables, just click on the link to Higher Connections near the top of the home page, and it directs you to an email to the owner. He's a great guy, who could probably do a partial solution for you if you don't want to buy the whole package. And the cable replacement is actually pretty easy. Lear35A (a member of this site) took some great pictures showing where the cables route, but you basically just run them where the old ones are. Not a bad job, but in the Florida heat, you definitely want a good strong fan blowing on you while doing it! Good luck.

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[tamathumper]

Here's my thread of my experience with the alternator-to-starter cable decay and subsequent replacement with the Robby Cable.



http://www.968forums.com/topic/12460-rep...msearch__1

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[Cloud9...68]

Tama,



Thanks for posting a link to that thread. Lots of helpful info in there.



psuphoto,



Don't let tamathumper's thread scare you off - it describes the work several members of the forum went through with Robby of Higher Connections to help him create the cable set for the 968, which has some significant differences from the 944 cables, and some of this activity was a bit of a struggle. Rest assured that the package he sells today is final and complete - no "assembly required", other than the install itself, which really isn't too bad. And you do not have to remove the alternator, which is an unnecessarily difficult job on these cars. Just take your time, and you should be able to disconnect the old cable from the back of the alternator, and attach the new one, without removing it. And I would definitely get the auxiliary ground cable - grounding can be a problem with these cars, so this cable should improve the performance and stability of the car's electrical system.

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[tamathumper]

Yes, I only realized afterwards that the alternator can stay in the car. I didn't know what was what back there so I figured taking it out would be OK, but man what a chore getting it lined up and back in! That's why the forum is great - you can learn from other people's mistakes.

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[Cloud9...68]

Yeah, as I said earlier, I thought I was the only one having so much trouble getting the alternator bolts to line up. Definitely not a job I want to do again anytime soon. Interesting how different cars differ so much in the level of difficulty of doing certain jobs. For example, removing the starter in a 968 is trivial (takes longer to get the car up on jacks than to do the actual removal), while on a BMW 3 Series, it's something like a six-hour job that requires removal of the intake manifold!

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