Ignition key stuck dead battery

[WagonWillie]

2008 Cayman S 987.1 Tiptronic 131k miles. Dead dependable until now.

I have read many forum posts about this problem because it also happened to me. I thought I’d add my experience to the list so that others may gain from what I went through.

The car was parked in an unheated garage without 110V power after I received an error message “Move Selector lever to P” and the key could not be removed. I have stored the car before, sometimes for weeks, by hooking it to a small solar charger and it did fine for several years like this, but I had never received this message before. I turned off the radio, hooked up the charger, and closed the hood to keep the mice from chewing on the frunk seal as I had to replace it once before due to their activity.

Then a series of winter storms invaded Northern California and I couldn’t get the car out, so I just left it alone. Bad decision!

The 6-year-old battery was completely flat, to the point where it would not take a charge off of my generator and 110V charger. It would not respond to the connector in the fuse box regardless of how I powered that release, either from the trickle charger or an external battery. Time to go for the cable release, so I ordered the lug bolt tool off the Web (it’s a TEMO #50 Anti-Theft Wheel Lug Nut Removal Socket Key 3437 for Porsche from Amazon) for ~$10 and took off the fender liner, which was torn, and with the help of my amazing neighbor, got the hood open. So, we waited for a new liner (~ $100 from Pelican with free shipping), installed it and then bought a new battery (~ $275 for a perfect replacement AGM from Pep Boys) and installed that. The old battery would not take a charge and would not even power on my battery tester.

Drove up to the heated and well-lit shop without being able to remove the key still, of course. My neighbor, who is a hot rod guy and never even so much as ever sat in any Porsche offered to help me. He’s in his 70s, as am I, but very meticulous and tenacious. I could not have done this without his dogged help as I have health issues that have left me quite weak.

I went back on the forums and almost everyone said that the problem was the ignition lock, so we removed it and bench-tested it. It seemed to work perfectly as far as the key release solenoid was concerned; ground pin 1, power to pin 16, and the solenoid worked every time. I did see one video on YouTube suggesting that perhaps the fault might actually be in the gear shift mechanism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpkOjO9asU4

So we, mostly my stalwart friend Craig, and I tore into the center console and removed the shifter. It did not seem right as we could not move the lever that is connected to the solenoid and microswitch in front of the gear lever at all. See video. We both fiddled with it for a while and it suddenly freed itself up, but we don’t know why. We cleaned and lubricated everything that seemed like it could benefit from it and reinstalled it. It now seemed to be working properly as the gear shift seemed to work fine now, but then it did before as well. But, no love; it continued to behave the same way as before; I could not remove the key without the tool that will release it. The Porsche tool in the fuse box lid was not up to the task, so I ground the tip off of a small screwdriver and used it instead. The car would start readily and it ran fine, I just couldn’t remove the key still.


So I ordered a used ignition switch and gear shifter from Parts Society for an amazing $100, shipped! I put the “new” switch in and it would release just fine! Great, everybody seemed to be vindicated who said all along that it was the switch. Only the car would not start. Nothing. No dimming of the lights, no noises, nothing. My research lead me to believe that my original key should work, but could not get a definitive answer. So, I disassembled both switches, cleaned them up with contact cleaner, and moved the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) from one switch to the other and vice versa. That didn’t change anything: my old lock with the “new” circuit board would run the car, but not release and the other combo would not start the car.

So, I put the locks back into their original configurations and then replaced the gear shifter with the “new” one and used my original lock and PCB. The car fired right up, shut it down and… I removed the key! Yay!

We put everything back together and I was dreading sending Craig under the dash to fiddle around with the lock as the forums said it was very fiddly. It turned out to be very easy and simple. I tied a string to the key, turned it so it would not come out, and just pulled the lock up and through the hole in the dash, screwed on the lock ring and we were done! Well, we did need to put the zip tie around the wire bundle again, but that was quick and easy. We undid and tightened the lock ring without the special tool, just the same modified screwdriver that we used to release the key. A couple of taps with a jeweler’s hammer loosened and tightened the ring perfectly.

So, it was not the ignition lock! It was the gear shifter. No, I don’t know what about the new shifter fixed the problem; I suspect one of the sensors, but have no proof of that, other than it now works.

The airbag light would not go out even after the “disconnect the battery for 10 minutes” trick. The seat back was not against the bulkhead either. I dug out my trusty iCarSoft POR 2.0, updated the firmware and cleared the airbag light, reset the service light and cleared up a couple of other minor ghost faults, none of which have returned.

All up it cost ~$1,500 as I “forced” Craig to accept a thousand dollars, even though he tried to refuse it. Great guy!!

Sorry, no photos.