Great drive with my son today... - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

CraigM · 06-06-2015, 09:23 AM

Took my 2 year old for his first drive in the Porsche! About a 45 minute trip to Dallas Cars and Coffee, 80 degrees, and he absolutely loved it. He's definitely a car guy - LOVES tunnel blasting.

Favorite Conversations along the way:

Come around a bend on the freeway with a tunnel(ish) up ahead:
Ryan: "More Tunnels!"
Me: "What should we do?"
Ryan: (pointing to shifter) "This one Daddy! Blast it!"
Down to 3rd, big smiles all around.

Ryan tries to reach some buttons:
Me: "Oh no, buddy, Daddy will touch all the buttons."
Ryan: "Yeah, Daddy touches all the butts."

Me putting my arm on his car seat arm rest:
Ryan: "No, Daddy, this is my car seat and that's your car seat."

He wasn't feelin' the pics, but got a few:

Dualist · 06-06-2015, 09:26 AM

I Love his tee shirt

geetee · 06-06-2015, 09:57 AM

looks like you had fun
what do you need to do to make it legal to have kid in front? Disable airbag is that it? Do you need to carry any paperwork just in case you get pulled over?

CraigM · 06-06-2015, 10:23 AM

Thanks Dualist! I've been waiting a while to have everything set up for him to ride and bust out this shirt.

Geetee, you need to either get a deactivation bar and modify a 944 buckle (which I did, can then use any car seat you like), use the same bar with a Porsche child seat with built in buckle, or buy the switch from eBay user hfaning.

Any of these routes, though, you need to get it activated by a dealer or Indy with the proper Porsche diagnostic stuff (durametric will not do). Here's the service bulletin for them to follow, seems to be somewhat hard to find:

http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/Boxster_Tech/96-MISC-Child_Seat/tsb.6923.deactivationbar.pdf

I doubt you need paperwork. When you buckle into the bar the airbag light flashes for 30 seconds and goes away, I assume that would be some form of proof if it was ever an issue.

Giller · 06-06-2015, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dualist

I Love his tee shirt

+1. Awesome shirt man, good find.

Fintro11 · 06-06-2015, 10:58 AM

You can also buy a switch of eBay, and just need to activate the child seat occupancy

Santafe · 06-06-2015, 12:23 PM

Wow! I really envy you, your making a great bond with your Son and creating great memories for the future, well done. I remember doing exactly the same in the past with my Son in my old Saab 900 convertible , now he takes me out and scares the life out of me.

BruceH · 06-06-2015, 03:10 PM

Thanks for the smile Craig!

gtoger · 06-06-2015, 04:00 PM

Thumbs up, man. Way cool for the both of you to enjoy. Believe me, he'll remember this stuff. Not the exact moments and all the details, but the feeling. That's gold!

CraigM · 06-06-2015, 04:21 PM

Thanks guys. Honestly, that was one of the most fun drives of my life. Totally worth all the effort to get the airbag deactivation bar up and running.

And Santafe, it's kinda funny because my Dad bought this car new (had to wait 9 months after ordering), and he taught me stick, including hill starts, in this car when I was 15! He was so patient, but I'm sure it was pretty brutal over there in the passenger seat. "Things" are just more fun if you can share them with those you love.

jrblackman · 06-06-2015, 04:27 PM

As soon as I saw it I had to go find one for myself.

BruceH · 06-06-2015, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jrblackman

As soon as I saw it I had to go find one for myself.

Get the one in German

Or both!

jdlmodelt · 06-06-2015, 05:05 PM

I LOVE taking my son and daughter for rides in the Porsche and so do they. My daughter likes me to drift. My son just knows he looks dang cool behind the steering wheel.
17 year old daughter and 15.5 year old son.

EJ-Fresno · 06-06-2015, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CraigM

Thanks Dualist! I've been waiting a while to have everything set up for him to ride and bust out this shirt.

Geetee, you need to either get a deactivation bar and modify a 944 buckle (which I did, can then use any car seat you like), use the same bar with a Porsche child seat with built in buckle, or buy the switch from eBay user hfaning.

Any of these routes, though, you need to get it activated by a dealer or Indy with the proper Porsche diagnostic stuff (durametric will not do). Here's the service bulletin for them to follow, seems to be somewhat hard to find:

http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/Boxster_Tech/96-MISC-Child_Seat/tsb.6923.deactivationbar.pdf

I doubt you need paperwork. When you buckle into the bar the airbag light flashes for 30 seconds and goes away, I assume that would be some form of proof if it was ever an issue.

Can you please let us know how you modified the 944 buckle to be able to use any seat? Thanks!

antny · 06-06-2015, 10:20 PM

That is awesome. I cant wait to get my 7 week old daughter into cars. Be careful around the Subaru guys, they will think you own a Subaru lol. All the local Oklahoma Subaru guys think that shirt and gear is only for them lol.

CraigM · 06-07-2015, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EJ-Fresno

Can you please let us know how you modified the 944 buckle to be able to use any seat? Thanks!

Honestly, scroll down and buy the one on this page: Seats Baby & Child

I would have done this if I had known about it. You'll end up spending about the same getting a 944 buckle off eBay and going through some dremel discs and beer.

It you happen to have a 944 buckle around and want to go this route, PM me and I can send you the PDFs another member (Rick3000) very kindly sent to me. They have all dimensions and print actual size.

And Antny, I wondered about the Subarus! And this was his first real drive, but both my kids have loved sitting in it in the garage since they could hold their heads up, so you can start 'em young!

EJ-Fresno · 06-07-2015, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CraigM

Honestly, scroll down and buy the one on this page: Seats Baby & Child

I would have done this if I had known about it. You'll end up spending about the same getting a 944 buckle off eBay and going through some dremel discs and beer.

It you happen to have a 944 buckle around and want to go this route, PM me and I can send you the PDFs another member (Rick3000) very kindly sent to me. They have all dimensions and print actual size.

And Antny, I wondered about the Subarus! And this was his first real drive, but both my kids have loved sitting in it in the garage since they could hold their heads up, so you can start 'em young!

Thanks for the link!

barron35 · 06-08-2015, 08:55 AM

I'm excited to start taking my car crazy son in the Boxster as well and have been doing a bit of research lately. You can also make a deactivation switch that replaces the bar. I'll try and find the original link if anyone is interested, it's a pretty basic schematic and I'm no electrical engineer. I wanted to do this so I can wire it up to a switch in the dash. This doesn't remove the need to have the setting changed in the car computer, just replaces the bar and buckle.

Hummer-addict · 06-13-2015, 08:44 AM

Great pics!

I remember taking my boy out when he small like that! I just unplugged the air bag in the pass side... Had to remove vent ducting to find the plug... Only drawback is the airbag light is on and now I'm assuming my airbag is also not operable. So worth it... My kid loved it!