P-car battery dead, what a PITA
 

It seems I left the lights on by accident. I go to jump start it and realize the hood release is electric. You need to get a donor battery and jump a terminal in the fuse box just to pop the hood. Except my wife took the MCS and my cables were there. The key is stuck in the ignition and wont come out. I decide to plug in the battery tender I bought from stuka years ago.

I go back home during lunch with borrowed cables from my dad. No luck from the tender. No surprise since the key is in the ignition probably draining what little is going in (among many other reasons). I try to jump the terminal with the BMW and the key can now be released, but the latch is still a no go. Out of time, I go back to work only to find out that apparently, I cannot use the latch release in the car, but must instead use the one on the key fob. Dammit! I didn't try that. We'll see if that works tonight. I plugged the tender again. Hopefully with no key in the ignition it will charge the battery enough to actuate the hood release.

The car had a new battery put in by the dealer a year ago.

That sucks. The lack of any time out on the interior/trunk lights in the 993 is really annoying. We've killed a few batteries that way.

Cigarette lighter plug on all the time? If so, they are wired to handle more current. maybe you could jury rig a charger to a cigarette plug :dunno:

I thought I read somewhere that you could use a 9V battery to pop the trunk.

I got it working. The suggested ground (door latch) looked sketchy (seemed to have a weird finish) so I found a different one (base of door hinge) and that worked well and popped the hood.

Had to leave the battery plugged to the MCS for a few minutes to get enough juice to start, but it did. Problem is, in my haste, I initially reversed the polarity on the 997 battery (Doh!) and that blew two fuses (so far, that I can tell) because my PCM/Nav screen and radio were completely dead. Everything else seemed to work fine. Replaced the fuses after my drive and it all seems to work. Left the car with the tender plugged in.

It's the little stupid shit that always seems to be the big problem, eh?

Always.

Oof. That could have gotten expensive.

I really hope you didn't damage something by reversing the polarity of the battery. That's bad mojo.

:eek:

:+1