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What was interesting is that the Porsche announcement indicated that Magna Steyr will not just take over assembly, but also take on some development work for Porsche as part of the deal. Porsche used to do design work for other car manufacturers, and now Magna Steyr does design work for Porsche! BMW used Magna Steyr to design and build most of the BMW X3, and supposedly will be shifting X3 production to the US in the future. Really makes car branding in the future confusing! What is also interesting about Magna Steyr is they are scheduled to assemble the Aston Martin Rapide, which will be a Porsche Panamera competitor. I can't wait to see the build quality comparisons when all the cars are in full production.

Take a look at the CTEK 3300 battery charger users guide All the CTEK manuals are at http://www.ctek.com/EN-US/Support.aspx The Porsche battery maintainer is essentially the CTEK 3300 with the Porsche name on it and the cigarette lighter plug adapter as standard. A bit of price difference too. The AGM charging mode is the colder temperature charging setting, not the motorcycle setting. It's 14.7 volts and 3.3 amps. See page 8 of the manual for battery types and settings

Softronic supposedly has the capability to revert to the original Porsche firmware if there's any problem. I've heard good things about them on some of the other Porsche boards. You could check on rennlist or 6speedonline. Scott Slauson (PCA Boxster tech lead and Porsche mechanic) is one of the key people in the company

I have 3 battery maintainers - the original Porsche black charge-o-mat, the Deltran Battery Tender Plus and a new CTEK 7000. I use them all. The newer style Porsche charger/maintainer is the same as the CTEK 3300. The Battery Tender and the CTEK chargers don't come with the cigarette lighter adapter - you have to buy that as an extra. The CTEK 7000 is a little fancier than the 3300. If you buy the CTEK 3300, it's about half the price of buying the Porsche branded version Any "smart" battery maintainer will work just fine. You want one that stops charging when the battery is "full" and will go into maintenance mode. Plugging into the cigarette lighter is the easiest. The original Porsche one, Porsche or unbranded CTEK ones, or the Battery Maintainer are all decent quality and I can't tell much difference in terms of battery staying fully charged when not driving a car for several weeks. I found Amazon has the best prices for a retailer for the CTEK ones (just don't expect any customer support), and you can order through the Renntech Amazon store under the Special Offers menu at the top of each page. If you buy the CTEK one, make sure you buy the "comfort connect" cigarette lighter adapter and not the old style. Also, if your car is parked outside, make sure you get something that is waterproof and will stand up to the elements When I bought our new Cayenne recently, I asked the salesman about solar powered battery maintainers. Audis used to come with them, but don't any more. VW part number 1C0 915 687 is a 170 mA solar cell based battery maintainer that you can use to maintain your battery if there's no power outlet available. Apparently that's what VW uses (or used to) to keep new Beetles' batteries charged while on the ship to avoid dead batteries upon arrival in port

When my alternator died ('01 Boxster), I had similar symptoms. The car was basically running on the battery and the battery was not being charged. If your battery is good (and some new batteries go bad), you might want to check all the connections coming off the battery (such as fully tightened battery cables) and your alternator. Flashing dash lights and possessed windows sound like the computers aren't getting enough power to function properly. After my alternator was replaced (about 6 months after the original 4 year warranty), I decided to go ahead and replace the original battery since it was drained so low, even though it would still hold a charge. If you only drive the car a few times a month, you should definitely look into a battery maintainer. You will be amazed at how long it runs to fully charge your battery.

$320 to ship wheels & tires sounds kind of high. You might want to check with Tire Rack, Discount Tire and Wheel Enhancement to see how they ship and just copy them! Just looking at the Tire Rack site, shipping for 4 mounted 18" tires is under $200. It might be cheaper to unmount the tires and ship each piece separately. USPS has a flat rate box, but I don't think your wheels or tires will fit

Make sure your shifter cables are properly tensioned. You will need to swap back the stock shifter and use the Porsche alignment tool to get the cables set properly. Then you can reinstall your short shifter without disturbing the cable settings. I can shift my '01 5 speed with one finger and I have the Porsche short shifter installed (and no, my finger isn't particularly strong)

Vibration in the steering wheel is often caused by tires that aren't balanced. Sometimes the stick-on balance weights fall off the wheel (even with new tires if they didn't clean the disk brake dust off the wheel before sticking the weights on). Any decent tire shop should be able to check the wheel balance. If there's a Discount Tires by you (national chain, same as Americas Tires her in So. Cal), they will have everything needed to balance the tires. Re-balancing tires is a lot cheaper than an alignment, although it's a good idea to get your wheels aligned every few years anyway for tire wear and handling. If your wheels are out of round (like from driving through pot holes), then the wheels aren't good for much. The first time I had my wheels balanced after I bought my car ('01 Boxster), all the wheel shimmy and vibration went away Your options list says "upgraded" several times. If the previous owner did a lot of upgrades himself, it might be a good idea to get everything checked by a knowledgeable mechanic so you have a baseline for the car's condition

See http://mike.focke.googlepages.com/randrcenternuts and scroll down to the section titled Removal. Each side takes less than 5 minutes. Since the visors only pivot up and down, and not side to side, you have to remove both the inboard and outboard ends.

Sounds like somebody stuck bulbs that were too hot (too high wattage) in the headlights. There should be lots on eBay (I just looked) that are cheap, probably from people replacing the ambers with clear. Look for "Boxster halogen headlight"

It should be in your tool pouch or with your spare (stuffed in the black styrofoam). Dealers have all the security keys. A good reason to get rid of the security bolts. I had my tires checked last week at America's Tire and they said they never hear of cars having wheels stolen anymore

Thanks Loren. The cover just comes off with my finger and I see the 2 fastening screws. They come out with a T25 Then I'm looking at this: I have the double sun visor where one piece pivots to the side, and the other flips up and down Boxster style. After unscrewing the two fastening screws (part 8), the sun visor still seems attached to something in the headliner. Do I have to take off both the swing pivot side (toward the outside of the car) as shown in your instructions and the inside with the flip up-down visor? Or something else not too obvious to me? Even if I have to unscrew the other side, it still seems like the piece under cover (7) is still attached as the whole headliner moves up and down when I pull on the pivot

My nephew had an '84 944. It had a noticeable smell of gas. A few days later his car went up in flames all by itself. He thought it might have been due to old fuel hoses. Given that your car is almost a quarter of a century old, you should check all your lines carefully for fuel leaks! Replacing anything the least bit questionable might be cheap insurance

I searched and didn't see anything, and nothing obvious from looking at the visors. I want to remove the airbag stickers. The visors don't seem to pull off like on a Carrera, and there aren't any straightforward hidden Torx screws like on a Boxster. Anybody know how to get the visors off?

The Bentley Boxster manual defines "drive cycle" on page 22-25. Here's what the paragraph says: A drive cycle is considered complete when all of the diagnostic monitors have run their tests without interruption. For a drive cycle to be initiated, the vehicle must be started cold and brought up to an oil temperature of 160°F, at least 40°F above its original starting temperature. System status codes is set to "No" in the following cases: Battery or ECM is disconnected. DTCs (Diagnostic Trouble Codes) have been erased after completion of repairs but drive cycle has not been completed. There's also a little figure on the page that shows what's involved in a drive cycle.

Jeff, you are lucky your Boxster is a '97. Yesterday I took our '93 Lexus to get smogged so I could trade it to a friend. '96 and earlier cars now need an inspection of the evaporative controls. No more $29 smog checks, and they charge additional for the evaporative checks. Technically they're supposed to pump the system full of nitrogen and check for leaks. Some kid poked around under the hood with long-nose pliers for 10 minutes, then the tech said enough and just said I should be happy he passed me. I think the trick is to go to the cheapest place possible where it's not worth their time to pick nits. I'm afraid my '88 Toyota pickup is due for its smog test again this year

I posted a picture at http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?s...ost&p=82194 a while ago if that helps anyone, but never added it here

I've got one of the Harbor Freight 3000 lb lightweight aluminum racking jacks and it works fine on my 986 (lowered with ROW M030) and 997 (stock suspension). It's worked fine and I don't have any complaints with it. I would buy in person instead of mail order from what I've heard about Harbor Freight. Sign up for their email and mail flyers, and periodically the mail flyers have a 15% off coupon. I don't know if it's strong enough to lift the Cayenne I've got on order. I've seen similar ones at Sears and from time to time Costco. I also bought a fancy floor jack adapter, see my review here.

I was amazed the Corvette Z06, at 175.6 inches, is not any longer in overall length than a 997S. The Corvette always looks so much longer with that huge plastic hood. If you are a contributing member, the Porsche MY08 Fact Book in the Contributing Members Forum makes fascinating late-night reading. Just one more reason to contribute. Porsche compares the Z06 to the GT3 in their documentation, not to the regular Carrera S.

Loren - thanks for pointing this out. $200 plus about $30 shipping is less than what the dealer charges for 2 hours of labor!! You are right - it's a fantastic price for the real thing, and a no-brainer to order

:thumbup: This probably rates as the most intelligent comment I've ever read in any online car forum! Todd, I've been extremely impressed with your mechanical knowledge and ability, and here's another side of you to have high regard for :thumbup:

Unfortunately I won't be going to Europe in the near future. I was supposed to go to Germany, Netherlands and Belgium later this month, but my trip was canceled. i guess I'll just drive here (with speed limits!)

Thanks RFM! Word from my salesman is that my Cayenne is on a vessel and due in San Diego on April 23. I asked him to find out if we need an update for the TMC. Since it was just built a few weeks ago, I'm hoping we're set with all the latest updates when we take delivery. When I spoke to my service writer this morning, he said they've done about 3 updates on 997s, but they still don't know if it picks up the traffic and overlays it on the map. Maybe when he talks to some of the customers he'll find out if it works as expected

Do the EU Cayenne PCM/Nav systems do the TMC traffic overlay right out of the box? Or will this likely be an upgrade/update for the US models at some point in the future like the 997? I have not had the pleasure of driving any Porsches in Europe

I spoke to my regular service rep at the dealer today, after asking him about the traffic overlay by email. He didn't know much about it even after reading the TSB. The car is an '05 997, delivered March 2005 and we had the OEM nav installed a few months later. Anybody knowledgeable in PCM versions have a good understanding of whether the traffic overlay will work with a 997 this early in the production run? I assume I need to get newer maps and a software upgrade for compatibility with the traffic overlay. Anything else different about the early version relative to the newer model years I should be aware of? The dealer also said the PCM in the 997 is the same as in the Cayenne, except for the form factor. Does anyone know if the traffic overlay upgrade will with with an '08 Cayenne S with the PCM/nav installed as factory original (or does the Cayenne already do this)? We have one on order (should be on a boat by now) and would like to get it set up for the traffic when we pick it up (or at least get all the right stuff in the sales agreement)