Well ladies and gents, time for an update to this oldie but goodie thread, nearly a year later, too.
So, winter finally came and went and I found some time to bring my car to a local independent shop that specializes in all cars German (BMW primarily, but they also service VW, Audi, Porsche, and M-B). They're called NEO Autos in South Windsor, CT for anyone in the local area looking for a good and reasonable indy shop for their Porsche, including those in the Springfield, MA area.
I'd been having some problems as time wore on, and my alternator actually just crapped out over the year. The battery was not getting recharged, and after a few starts would be completely dead, the latest incident of this leaving me marooned in front of a gas pump (thanks for the bail out, AAA). The AAA guy who helped me ran a diagnostic and found that the alternator was shot, and basically unless I kept the car on a maintainer, the battery would never charge. So while my light flickering suspicions were leading me to an alternator replacement, it now became a necessity just to be able to drive the car without fear of stalling in rush hour traffic and getting stuck.
I brought the alternator to NEO Autos, which I bought from John Magistro (JMINMD923), a great guy to deal with who I found through this forum, so if you need 986 parts, check him out. Anyways, I had them test the replacement alternator for me, which tested good, and had them put it, a new accessory belt, and a new battery into the car for me, to the tune of a little over $600, the majority of that cost really being labor for having to pull the passenger seat and material to gain access to the alternator. The mechanic who worked on the car is a former mechanic for a Porsche race team, so I felt much more comfortable leaving the car in their hands after speaking with him for a good amount of time about my experiences with the car in the past year.
I received the car back at the end of last week, and it immediately started up with a strength I haven't experienced since a year ago. I drove it on a 42 mile round trip commute every day from Saturday to Tuesday, and it started up and ran strong every time. So my dead battery/alternator issue is solved, and I'm quite happy about that.
However, the light flickering is still occuring, and I received a call from the shop owner a few days ago asking about the car, so I was sure to let them know this. The owner said he'd speak to the mechanic to see what other possibilities there could be for this issue. It's not as prominent as it once was, but it still occurs as before, when stepping on the brake while in motion or from hitting the turn signals. It also occurs the most consistently at idle, where the lights basically do their dim flickering in time with the engine's idle. What I did not remember to do when I took the car back was ask the mechanic who worked on the car whether or not he checked the grounds as I had asked. I'm considering bringing the car back to them and telling them to drive the car at night to really see what goes on when the car is running with all the lights on.
I won't fault the mechanics or shop here because they really are good people and did a great job for me, and are going that extra step by continuing to look into the problem on their own time. I'm defintely glad I found this shop and will continue to use them to work on the car for me.
I'll continue to update on here more frequently as I continue to look into the problem. Thank you again for all the help and advice on here.
EDIT: BTW, finally got around to getting my multi-meter, so I'll be doing a little troubleshooting myself, too.
