2001 996TT in Canada - the alarm system is smarter than you!

Published Aug. 4, 2009 at 4:31 p.m.
This latest entry had me waste the better part of yesterday and this AM. The story is, my driver's side external door lock is broken (the part is on order, with a six week lead time), and I had been traveling for more than a week...So, come home, and the car is in "power down" mode such that you can't unlock the car with just the fob...Well, that's a problem!

I decided that the best bet was to hopefully unlock the front trunk, set off the alarm, then disconnect and reconnect the battery, and be off to the races...So, I needed to locate the steel cable that allows for this - there are many posts on this for caymans, boxsters, and naturally aspirated 996 cars.

Locked in the car was my wheel lock key...And, as part #1 of getting access to the manual hood release, you're supposed to remove the right front wheel.

So, I decided I'd try and hack at this without removing the wheel...I was able to jack the car up, remove the forward-most fender liner (the part with venting for the brakes), and peeled back a bit of the top fender liner to get better access to the area between the headlight and the trunk, where this cable is supposed to be.

Well, I didn't see the cable...And, there are some posts about the 997 cars (specifically the turbos) having the wire on the driver's side...There's also something mentioned about the cable being "aft of the driver's shock tower" in a plastic casing...I chased down both of these possibilities before finally deciding that I had better call dealer and confirm the location of the pull cable.

I was told that even on the turbo variant of the 996 cars, the cable pull should still be passenger side...So, I fished around some more...I used coat hangers, some sturdier metal devices, the spoiler removal tool for my car, and finally asked my wife to try and put her skinny arms between the trunk and headlight in the hopes of finding the cable...No luck.

It gets better...The next morning, I decide I should just get the car towed to my independent mechanic...A flatbed shows up after an hour, and says, "I can't tow your car, as it's not in neutral and I don't want to destroy your transfer case." ****...So the only option is to send a regular tow truck with dollies...I did have this experience in the past, 3 times in fact - and 1 time was $900 in damage, the other 2 times better but scary.

So I decide before going the tow route, maybe I can get my wheel off and search properly...My independent, who is awesome, actually allowed me to borrow his master set of Porsche wheel locks...There were 30 or so sets in there, and I tried a bunch of them before finding the one that allowed me to remove my wheel...So, now at least I'm thinking visibility is on my side.

I return the lock set, get back home, and start peering down the firewall...I can see to the front of the car, but no luck - no cable visible...I call the mechanic, and he asks, has the car gotten any body work? Well, I did have the front fender completely refinished (removing all old paint, applied new paint) about 2 months ago...If that's the case, he says, the cable could have been moved and I'm just SOL (I assume this means the front of the car will have to come off at the dealer to find the cable...ugh.).

So, I decide I'm just going to have to live with the damage from the tow...The truck shows up about 45 minutes later. I explain the situation...In the end, he decides that he's going to try and jimmy the door before we risk damaging the car - at a minimum, if we opened the door, it would allow the car to get put in neutral...Worst case, the glass flexes and breaks...And that's on the towing company!

The driver takes out what look like two large oval pieces of thick wax paper. and jams them through the glass on the passenger side...He then takes 2 plastic devices that are used to increase the glass panel gap...this is where things start to look ugly, you can see the glass flexing...From there, the driver uses a long metal pole to hook the door handle - and it works, the door opens up and the alarm starts to go off.

Of course, the key's remote buttons won't do anything to silence the alarm, and the driver's door is still locked...The driver suggests that I try to insert my key into the ignition...Well, that turns out to turn off the alarm - and now, everything returns to normal...I'm able to use the remote to lock and unlock the door; the car starts right up...Amazing, but true - and thank goodness...It finally felt like I caught a little break in this mess.

So, I suppose, the moral of the story is twofold - first, Murphy's law applies...Since I knew my door lock was out of commission, and I travel for work, I should have found the cable in advance and tried to route it for easy access (have I done that yet, though? No!)...Second, I need to remember that Porsches are more similar to normal cars than I regularly realize...Had I called for a lockout 24 hours ago, that's 24 hours of worry time I would have added back into my life.

Once I do find the cable, I'll be sure to take pictures...In the meanwhile, I suppose this means that the door-jimmy operation can take the place of locating this metal loop in most cases...much simpler...Since once the driver's door is opened, you can easily use the fusebox technique to open either decklid and replace the battery or jump-start the car, if in fact the battery has died.

I think my favorite part of this whole experience was the searches that were returned as I tried to diagnose the issue...Many posts that were trying to help exist - but I found the posts that mocked the whole Porsche ownership experience for these kind of debilitating simple issues the funniest...There's some husband and wife story where the wife has a corvette, and the husband a 996TT, that played out nicely on the web...That's why you buy American, was the concluding line...I laughed...And, with the new ZR1 out there, I could imagine it at some point!



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