smartin Posted November 13, 2019 Report Share Posted November 13, 2019 What does this indicate? Something not shut properly. Both doors are locked, I've opened and closed both front and rear lids, the centre console and glove box. Anything else I should check? I'm (almost) 100% sure it wasn't chirping until a couple of days ago. Car is still locked and only gives the usual two indicator flashes when locking with the remote - just that it now gives a short, pretty quiet chirp that appears to be coming from under the front boot lid next to the compressor. I assume that is the alarm siren. Used to be much more audible beep when I had my old 986. Thanks in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davey P Posted November 13, 2019 Report Share Posted November 13, 2019 Has the siren got a battery back up? Could be battery low warning? I should add, I've got no mechanical skills or expertise at all, it was just the first thing I could think of, that's all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVO Chris Posted November 13, 2019 Report Share Posted November 13, 2019 ^^ what he said Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ringer250 Posted November 13, 2019 Report Share Posted November 13, 2019 How about the fuel flap? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patt Posted November 13, 2019 Report Share Posted November 13, 2019 I thought the central locking was 2 beeps if in error ? Have read somewhere that cleaning out the boot lock mechanisms can fix this issue. Although the pored neat vodka on them - I couldn't waste such a fine liquid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted November 13, 2019 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2019 I just checked the fuel filler flap and that was secure, so it's not that! The earlier response about the siren battery being low might be onto something, though. I sat in the car, locked it with a single press of the remote and then started moving around. After a few seconds the hazard lights start flashing quickly but there was not a peep from the alarm - total silence. Surely, I should have been deafened by an alarm sound going off, shouldn't I? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted November 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2019 Do anyone know if this kind of thing is recorded and detectable via Porsche diagnostic tools at a garage or is it going to be more hit and miss diagnostic approach? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mneil Posted November 14, 2019 Report Share Posted November 14, 2019 Had the same thing with my 2012 981s last month. The easiest test i found was to leave the passenger window open, lock the car and then reach in and open the glove box. I took exception to replacing the whole of the Cobra siren for the sake of a 6v rechargable battery and at a cost of +£140. The exact battery as you would expect is no longer available but here is the link to a replacement from RS Components: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/coin-button-rechargeable-batteries/3252894/ First thing is to remove the siren from under the bonnet, it attaches near the tyre inflation pump by a single self tappin screw and a push fit wiring connector. I use my Dremel with a small circular saw to cut around the seam and part the unit. Unsolder the duff battery (TAKE NOTE OF THE POLARITY POINTS FOR RE-ATTACHING); you will note that it is oval along its length and the one from RS is round and slightly bigger in diameter, no problem just butcher the internals of the battery holder until it fits having first soldered lengths of wire to the battery. I replaced the PC board into place and soldered the wires on the opposite side of the PC board from the original battery, only because it was easier. Glue the two halves together with good old Gorilla clear et voila! Hope this helps: the battery is just under £14 with free postage! Doing my part to save the environment, oh and my wallet:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davey P Posted November 14, 2019 Report Share Posted November 14, 2019 Wait... whoah... back up a minute... just to be clear... are we saying that my complete guess using absolutely zero automotive knowledge is the correct answer...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mneil Posted November 14, 2019 Report Share Posted November 14, 2019 54 minutes ago, Davey P said: Wait... whoah... back up a minute... just to be clear... are we saying that my complete guess using absolutely zero automotive knowledge is the correct answer...? 👍 As my youngest Grandson would say," you come from Smartland". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davey P Posted November 14, 2019 Report Share Posted November 14, 2019 9 minutes ago, mneil said: 👍 As my youngest Grandson would say," you come from Smartland". Brilliant, I'll take that as... er... a compliment... I think... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted November 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2019 3 hours ago, mneil said: Had the same thing with my 2012 981s last month. The easiest test i found was to leave the passenger window open, lock the car and then reach in and open the glove box. I took exception to replacing the whole of the Cobra siren for the sake of a 6v rechargable battery and at a cost of +£140. The exact battery as you would expect is no longer available but here is the link to a replacement from RS Components: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/coin-button-rechargeable-batteries/3252894/ First thing is to remove the siren from under the bonnet, it attaches near the tyre inflation pump by a single self tappin screw and a push fit wiring connector. I use my Dremel with a small circular saw to cut around the seam and part the unit. Unsolder the duff battery (TAKE NOTE OF THE POLARITY POINTS FOR RE-ATTACHING); you will note that it is oval along its length and the one from RS is round and slightly bigger in diameter, no problem just butcher the internals of the battery holder until it fits having first soldered lengths of wire to the battery. I replaced the PC board into place and soldered the wires on the opposite side of the PC board from the original battery, only because it was easier. Glue the two halves together with good old Gorilla clear et voila! Hope this helps: the battery is just under £14 with free postage! Doing my part to save the environment, oh and my wallet:) Thanks. That's really helpful. Your car is a similar vintage to mine, so perhaps 7 years is the life span of these batteries and lots more people are going to experience this in the future. My car has just passed it's 7th birthday but I've only had it less than a year so no idea if this happened before or not. Never experienced it with my 986 which I had for 15 years so perhaps that was set up a bit more old school and the alarm was simply linked to the car's battery rather than it's own source. Progress, eh?🤣 Did you get this diagnosed as the issue first or just went with a hunch? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mneil Posted November 14, 2019 Report Share Posted November 14, 2019 Found a thread on Porsche USA forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
entdgc Posted November 17, 2019 Report Share Posted November 17, 2019 On 11/14/2019 at 1:17 PM, mneil said: 👍 As my youngest Grandson would say," you come from Smartland". Is that just down the road from Luckyland? 😁Just kidding - well done Sherlock! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIkeyv60 Posted November 18, 2019 Report Share Posted November 18, 2019 I had the hood half open yesterday when cleaning the car, i locked the car and got a single blip? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted December 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 17, 2019 An update... Wasn't confident enought to hack open the alarm siren, so after describing the issue to an OPC, it was suggested that it could be a faulty siren unit and the cost to fit/replace would be £248. As that is not much (in Porsche terms 😀), booked it in to have the work done. However, in the couple of days before it was due to go in, the car stopped making the single chirp noise. On arriving at the OPC, I parked the car up, locked it whilst sitting inside and waved my arms around for a few seconds. The flipping alarm goes off. Explained this to the service guy, they said, no problem, they will plug it into the diagnostic equipment and take a look. No errors were reported, so it was suggested that they send the part back and I report back if it happens again. Left it at that and drove off. You can probably guess what happened the next day. Yes, the single chirp comes back. 😕 Over the last week or so, I am now getting the alarm going off randomly a few minutes after locking the car. Sometimes with the siren , sometimes without. In case there was something flying around inside the car that was triggering the alarm sensor, I tried locking it and disabling the internal monitoring - alarm still went off! I did see another owners thread where the drain holes had got blocked and a lot of water had got in, causing issues with the parking sensors. I've checked the seat belts and the carpets behind and under both seats and see no sign of moisture. I think the alarm control module is no longer under the passenger seat in the 981 as Porsche moved it to avoid the previous issues with it getting wet down there but, in their wisdom, decided to put other control units down there, instead.. So, is my car possessed? I'm sure there are many microswitches that could be playing up but if no errors are reported is it just a case of replacing them, one by one, until the problem goes away? I'm guessing that there are microswitches/sensors on both doors, the roof, front and rear boot, fuel flap, glove box and centre arm rest storage. That sounds like it could end up getting expensive, especially at OPC rates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patt Posted December 17, 2019 Report Share Posted December 17, 2019 My old 986 was prone to spiders crawling into the front stay of the hood. When they crawled out at night it set the alarm off. Took me weeks of sleepless nights to work out what was setting off the alarm, especially as it never happened during the daytime. Suggest give it back to Porsche and tell them their suggest fix has not worked and thus you expect a full credit, that you will spend with them when they can correctly diagnose the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted December 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 17, 2019 1 hour ago, Patt said: My old 986 was prone to spiders crawling into the front stay of the hood. When they crawled out at night it set the alarm off. Took me weeks of sleepless nights to work out what was setting off the alarm, especially as it never happened during the daytime. Suggest give it back to Porsche and tell them their suggest fix has not worked and thus you expect a full credit, that you will spend with them when they can correctly diagnose the problem. They didn't attempt to fix it last time, as the issue that I reported was not happening on that day. There was no charge for the quick diagnostic check, which they said, brought up no error messages and they simply sent back the part that they had ordered as they didn't use it. They'll need to spend more time on it now, as a) the problem has not gone away and b) seems to have moved on to random alarm triggers, too now. I'm sure they will charge now for a deeper investigation 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul P Posted December 17, 2019 Report Share Posted December 17, 2019 The diags will give them a log of the alarm events. So they can find put what caused the alarm to sound last time it triggered false alarms won’t necessarily give an error code chirp at lock means “car thinks something open” random alarm triggering “car thinks something just opened” They could have seen that when you were there and the alarm had sounded but as you say they had a quick check and didn’t charge but they don’t need to be able to see the random alarm condition to be able to work out what the car thinks happened. my virtual money is on “sticky frunk or boot lock” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted December 20, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 20, 2019 On 12/17/2019 at 4:12 PM, Paul P said: The diags will give them a log of the alarm events. So they can find put what caused the alarm to sound last time it triggered false alarms won’t necessarily give an error code chirp at lock means “car thinks something open” random alarm triggering “car thinks something just opened” They could have seen that when you were there and the alarm had sounded but as you say they had a quick check and didn’t charge but they don’t need to be able to see the random alarm condition to be able to work out what the car thinks happened. my virtual money is on “sticky frunk or boot lock” You may well be right! Will get the OPC to run a full check when it is booked in again and hopefully, they will be able to identify the root cause quickly and rectify it. I can hear the physical lock movement happening on both doors and the fuel flap but there are no locking sounds from either the front or rear boots - but maybe they don't normally make a noise when locking, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo000 Posted December 20, 2019 Report Share Posted December 20, 2019 Mine did this the other day when I changed the bulb in the interior roof light, I had managed to unplug the alarm infra sensor inside the mech housing - you haven't had the roof mech off for anything have you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted December 20, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 20, 2019 1 hour ago, Apollo000 said: Mine did this the other day when I changed the bulb in the interior roof light, I had managed to unplug the alarm infra sensor inside the mech housing - you haven't had the roof mech off for anything have you? No, I've not touched a thing. It just suddenly, started happening a few weeks ago. At first, it was thought it was just a faulty alarm siren (as the siren was not making a noise, apart from this small beep when locking) but now the siren is definitely working without anything being replaced. It's only seems to trigger the alarm after car has been driven and could be that the car warms up and then after it is parked up and locked and beings to cool down, the alarm goes off! I'm sure there are many micro-switches/sensors related to the security sytem and maybe the warming and then cooling down causes an issue with one of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topradio Posted December 20, 2019 Report Share Posted December 20, 2019 4 minutes ago, smartin said: No, I've not touched a thing. It just suddenly, started happening a few weeks ago. At first, it was thought it was just a faulty alarm siren (as the siren was not making a noise, apart from this small beep when locking) but now the siren is definitely working without anything being replaced. It's only seems to trigger the alarm after car has been driven and could be that the car warms up and then after it is parked up and locked and beings to cool down, the alarm goes off! I'm sure there are many micro-switches/sensors related to the security sytem and maybe the warming and then cooling down causes an issue with one of them. Have you considered @mneil fix above? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted December 20, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 20, 2019 39 minutes ago, topradio said: Have you considered @mneil fix above? Yes, I did consider that, but not confident enough to hack open the existing siren and mess about with it myself 🙂 Hence why I asked the OPC to order a replacement siren which never got fitted as, on the 2 days before it was going to be looked at, the siren started working again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartin Posted January 22, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2020 Final (I hope 🙏) update. A couple of weeks ago the car was booked into OPC to have the fault looked at properly. They had the car for not much longer than 90 minutes, in which time they diagnosed and replaced a faulty siren! As mentioned previously, I had suspected an issue with the siren earlier, so this, combined with me having had to free up the heater fan at the weekend after the blower stopped working, makes me a partially qualified Boxster technician😄 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.