duff Posted November 9, 2023 Report Share Posted November 9, 2023 (edited) Hi all I went out this evening to discover my brake lights on, rear spoiler up and roof trying to open - windows down, rear deck up and roof attempting to fold but still clipped shut. Given the weather my priority was getting roof back to a closed position so the windows would wind up. On unclipping it sprung back but did not want to open or close with the button. Eventually, possibly as a result of leaving the engine running, the button came back to life and I could first lower it and then raise it. The first time it raised made some awful noises, but after that it back to normal operation. I then spent so time trying to work out why the brake light were on but ended pulling the fuse. I then had a look at the spoiler and realised the motor was making a racket and seemingly causing the rear right brake light to come one despite the brake light fuse having been pulled. Pulling the fuse on this killed the noise. Unfortunately I then decided to try the spoiler button to verify the spoiler was now disabled and this tried to open the roof. Again it was still latched but as before the windows had dropped, the deck was up and the roof was trying to fold. Attempting what worked before, releasing the roof trying to close it again on the button did not work and even worse the roof mechanism seems to have managed to get itself out of sync and left it well and truly stuck. See picture below Any assistance to get it closed again in the short term would be greatly appreciated as would any insight into the underlying problem Edited November 9, 2023 by duff typo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menoporsche Posted November 9, 2023 Report Share Posted November 9, 2023 You have water under the pax seat, rear control unit is wet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menoporsche Posted November 9, 2023 Report Share Posted November 9, 2023 You need to pop the control arms off their plastic ball joints, either side under the deck, which I think then allows you to raise it manually. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menoporsche Posted November 9, 2023 Report Share Posted November 9, 2023 The usual culprit is blocked drain holes with autumn leaves, though there are other sources. If you can get it under cover that’s best. Then unbolt pax seat, remove, get under the carpet with towels then rice/dehumidifier etc to dry the electronics so corrosion is minimised. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duff Posted November 9, 2023 Author Report Share Posted November 9, 2023 Wow thanks, yes I went out the other day and the passenger side floor was wet so that tallies. I am not sure it got wet, I assumed seeing this that the roof must have dropped before but it sound like the wetness has caused this. This is the Mrs's car so there various drinks bottles in the footwell... Fortunately after posting this I realised that I ordered a full cover my car the other day and that was sat in the porch. This is now providing some weather resistance until I can have a proper look in the light tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BBB Posted November 9, 2023 Report Share Posted November 9, 2023 2 hours ago, Menoporsche said: You need to pop the control arms off their plastic ball joints, either side under the deck, which I think then allows you to raise it manually. If you have the owners manual there are diagrams showing you how to do this. The tool you’ll need is in the toolkit in the frunk. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul P Posted November 9, 2023 Report Share Posted November 9, 2023 2 hours ago, duff said: Wow thanks, yes I went out the other day and the passenger side floor was wet so that tallies. I am not sure it got wet, I assumed seeing this that the roof must have dropped before but it sound like the wetness has caused this. This is the Mrs's car so there various drinks bottles in the footwell... Fortunately after posting this I realised that I ordered a full cover my car the other day and that was sat in the porch. This is now providing some weather resistance until I can have a proper look in the light tomorrow. It will be the drains in the roof "void" that it folds into when down - that unit controls spoiler, rear lights, roof, boot,brake lights, has get wet as @Menoporsche says - the other unit under the seat is the reversing sensors - that also is a tee totaller and does not like a drink. Drying the carpet ( or rather the underlying foam) out will take weeks in the this weather - if you can get a dehumdifier in there - better still ( again if you can ) get the passenger seat out and get the carpet out - or at last raise it up and get some air venting around it. Once they rear control unit has had a severe drink they rarely survive - even if you dry them out - 2nd hand replacements are ok - but likely would need to be coded to match your car ( same unit in a cayman and in 911's) - but a 2nd hand one from a boxster might have had a drink before. Good indy, someone with a porsche PIWIS can code it if required - they are several hundred quid for a new one ....... Suggest update your profile with a rough locaiton - someone lcoal may be able to help - or at least recommend a good place to use to resolve if you cant sort it yourself. Drain plan here.... Good luck... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bike Loon Posted November 10, 2023 Report Share Posted November 10, 2023 If you can lift the carpet so you can see the sound deadening foam it makes it easier to wring it out to get more water out. A hair dryer will also help for that area too. Quite likely that control unit will be goosed now 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duff Posted November 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted November 10, 2023 Thanks for all the great information everyone. It is, and has been, really raining really hard here (Bristol) so I am hoping the cover I put over the car is keeping and more water out. I am planning to empty the garage so I can get the car in there (first time in 9 years!) when there is a break in the weather. I can then start removing things as suggested and drying it out before assessing the damage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phazed Posted November 10, 2023 Report Share Posted November 10, 2023 As everyone has said, new control unit and it isn’t that expensive. I bought a genuine item, fitted it, (easy peasy) and took mine to my local indie and he charged me 15 minutes to program it in. Absolute peanuts and everything worked straight away. I recently bought a 986 with blocked drains and a wet immobiliser under the passenger seat. It had been at an independent for regular servicing and no one has ever cleared the drain holes which is such an easy job. You can buy a small dehumidifier from Toolstation which is worth leaving in the car for several days and emptying the reservoir daily for best results. I did this until there was nothing being collected and everything was bone dry. Lift up the carpets best you can and place some small pieces of wood underneath the carpet foam to allow air to circulate and the foam to dry out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duff Posted November 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 Thanks to all of you for the advice and information. I have now managed to manually open and close the roof and drain the small pond that had formed in the roof void. It was fairly straight forward, although the lever supplied in the tool kit just bent when trying to pop off the first pair of ball joints and because of the angle the roof was stuck at was never going to fit in to prise off the second pair. Fortunately I had a long sturdy screw driver that I was able get the job done. Once those were off a fair amount of wrestling was required to free the roof and get it moving because it was clearly out of sync with the rear deck position and the two were jammed together. I am now looking at getting to the control unit under the passenger seat, and while most of the rest of the car is fairly dry the carpet down there is saturated. I think I will have to bit the bullet and take the seat out so I can remove all the wet carpet. On the plus side it is a nice for it day today! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duff Posted November 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 (edited) Seats out and there is a lot more water than I had realised. This was the drivers side and I think the passenger side was worse. After mopping up the water and then squeezing as much out of under carpet foam as I could I now have the carpets propped up a little and dehumidifier running. I assume I now need to source a replacement control unit or two as the both the units under the passenger seat were sat in a pool of water. Edited November 11, 2023 by duff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iborguk Posted November 11, 2023 Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 2 minutes ago, duff said: Seats out and there is a lot more water than I had realised. This was the drivers side and I think the passenger side was worse. After mopping up the water and then squeezing as much out of under carpet foam as I could I now have the carpets propped up a little and dehumidifier running. I assume I now need to source a replacement control unit or two as the both the units under the passenger seat were sat in a pool of water. Well you can only try to dry out the modules but yeah they don’t like baths. What are the part numbers of the modules you found there ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menoporsche Posted November 11, 2023 Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 Before that, have you traced the source of the water and stopped it happening again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duff Posted November 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 These are 2 control units Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duff Posted November 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 6 minutes ago, Menoporsche said: Before that, have you traced the source of the water and stopped it happening again? I am as certain as I can be that it was blocked drain holes. These have been cleared and released a pool of water sat that was sat in the roof void. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul P Posted November 11, 2023 Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 (edited) 10 minutes ago, duff said: These are 2 control units Check the part numbers on Google but pretty sure the Bosch unit is the leaking sensor one. The other one is the rear control unit. That’s the one that has become possessed re roof and spoiler and lights. edit : Doh! Bigger clue is “parkassist” on the Bosch unit. the other one is the source of the issue. That said the park assist may also have a problem but that is at least just a swap - no coding required. Edited November 11, 2023 by Paul P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duff Posted November 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 Yeah I am pretty certain there isn't much point drying out the rear control unit and giving it a go - I think it is toast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul P Posted November 11, 2023 Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 2 minutes ago, duff said: Yeah I am pretty certain there isn't much point drying out the rear control unit and giving it a go - I think it is toast. Think you are right. That looks like a goner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duff Posted November 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 If I obtain a replacement rear control unit can the car be driven before it is re-coded? Just trying to work out whether I could take the car somewhere to get that done or if it controls things like brake lights - they seemed to be stuck on when it all went haywire and I had to pull the fuse to turn them off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iborguk Posted November 11, 2023 Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 1 hour ago, duff said: Yeah I am pretty certain there isn't much point drying out the rear control unit and giving it a go - I think it is toast. Yeah agree looks like a goner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul P Posted November 11, 2023 Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 1 hour ago, duff said: If I obtain a replacement rear control unit can the car be driven before it is re-coded? Just trying to work out whether I could take the car somewhere to get that done or if it controls things like brake lights - they seemed to be stuck on when it all went haywire and I had to pull the fuse to turn them off. I have coded a few of these for folks. From memory rear and brake lights work fine. It’s just the roof and the spoiler that need to be right to wake up so I would say yes. It should be fine to drive with the unit in place but not coded but please satisfy yourself re the lights. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Propofol Posted November 11, 2023 Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 (edited) How much is a new/reconditioned DME unit? I've just found some water behind the passenger seat. Car drives ok. Car was parked on a slope so I'm not sure if it has submerged the DME etc.... It's now too dark to take things apart... Looks like my drain hole on that side was blocked by the little white cap for part of the roof mechanism so that's broken at some point....sigh. The car is in my garage, carpet has been partially lifted, no free water left on the floor but probably sucked up a couple of hundred mls....I suspect it's all going to stop working. I shall try and remove the DME unit etc tomorrow. Carpet foam still very damp. Edited November 11, 2023 by Propofol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iborguk Posted November 11, 2023 Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 3 minutes ago, Propofol said: How much is a new/reconditioned DME unit? I've just found some water behind the passenger seat. Car drives ok. Car was parked on a slope so I'm not sure if it has submerged the DME etc.... It's now too dark to take things apart... Looks like my drain hole on that side was blocked by the little white cap for part of the roof mechanism so that's broken at some point....sigh. The car is in my garage, carpet has been partially lifted, no free water left on the floor but probably sucked up a couple of hundred mls....I suspect it's all going to stop working. I shall try and remove the DME unit etc tomorrow. Carpet foam still very damp. Do you mean Rear Control Unit ? (RCU) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Propofol Posted November 11, 2023 Report Share Posted November 11, 2023 (edited) That might be it! I think I got DME from...googling...or a brain fart. Edited November 11, 2023 by Propofol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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