Ignition/AC/Headlight/Radio Problem
 

Hi all,

I recently had a problem with my 2003 986 and searched around to see if anyone had a similar issue but couldn't find exactly what I was looking for. The first time I turned on my car in the morning (first hot day in a while), the speakers would not work. The head unit showed its normal display and I could turn the volume knob up and down but no sound was coming out of the speakers. I parked at work and left the car for a few hours. When I started the car later that day, the speakers were working but the snowflake icon on the AC unit disappeared, and the fan was not blowing any air (I have learned that this may mean that the AC capacitor is not working?). Then when I turned the car off the key would not come out of the ignition (seems like this is a common ignition switch problem, but with all of the other issues all happening in the same day it seems like quite the coincidence since this had never happened before). I wiggled the key and it eventually left the ignition, but then the key would not go back into the ignition. I removed the ignition fuse and put it back in, and that allowed me to slide the key back in, however the headlights now do not turn on, the snowflake icon still does not come on, and it is very difficult to remove the key from the ignition. I've had the car for over a year and for all of these problems to come up all at once makes me think the issue may be electrical rather than each component being bad? Any help or insight is greatly appreciated!

It is the electrical part of your ignition switch. You can purcahse a replacement from various sources except Porsche (they only sell the complete assembly). Pelican sells the switch for about $30.00. They are a pain (literally) to replace, but do-able on a DIY basis. I paid 1.4 hours to save the scraped knuckles and back pain.

Brad

Yep, ignition switch ;)

Thanks for the quick responses! I'll follow up after replacing the switch if I still have any issues.

Just did this Napa had the part for $10. Good luck replacing it, what a pain :).

There are some good tutorials on this forum. The Pelican tutorial on 101Projects is good, but if you go ahead and take out the headlamp switch first and that vent you can do most of it working through that hole, and not have to crawl down on the floor peering up under the dash. There are a couple of good threads on here with pictures.

Steve

Edit: this is the thread that helped me:

http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/46411-ignition-switch-replacement-holy-crap.html

My contribution to the thread is on page 2, the screwdriver set that let me do everything through the hole where the headlamp switch/vent was. The diagram on page 1 shows more details too.