Alarm/door lock/gas lid issues

[Qmulus]

Originally Posted by Javi Cooper

New snag. So let me get this straight...

Porsche engineers decided that the best place to put sensitive electrical components crucial to the car's operation was on the lowest point of the floor of a convertible, and...

Porsche engineers decide to locate the battery inside a compartment that can't be opened when the battery itself dies.

Am I missing something here???

It is a German thing. I see a TON of water damaged modules from Audis, BMW and MBs as well as Porsches. I have a big box of Bose amplifiers from Audi Q7s and A6 Avants all with water damage. Those are $1500 or so. Same with transmission control and body control modules from Audi A6s and Allroads. BMW thought it would be a great idea to put a bunch of modules under the spare tire in the well. On new cars a damaged module (even something like a TPS or Bluetooth module) on one of the CAN buses can bring the whole car down. Spill a coffee or have your bottle of windshield washer fluid leak (that cost the owner almost $2k) and it can get really ugly.

Oh, I spent 5 hrs Friday repairing a '08 Jetta that had a damaged wire to the ECU in the cowl that was full of soaked leaves. The shop it was at had already thrown 12 hours and a new ECU at it trying to find the problem. If I couldn't fix it, it was going to be sent to a local dealer, where I suspect it would have sat for a LONG time. I found a wire to the ECU broken in the middle of a harness after a couple hours of troubleshooting. The insulation was fine, but the wire must have had a nick or porous spot. NOT fun or easy. It took 1.5hrs just to clean it up put it all back together once the damage was repaired.

FWIW, the Porsche techs I know LOVED doing alarm/immo repairs from water intrusion on Boxsters and 996s. It pays 10 hours, as it calls for stripping out the seats and carpet, shampooing the carpet, drying everything out reprogramming a new module and putting it all back together. A guy that knows what he is doing could do it in a couple of hours of actual work. At dealer rates, you are looking at $2k, all because the people let the drains clog because they don't know any better.

The moral of the story? Keep your drains clean and keep liquids out of the car whenever possible.