Not starting when turning key
 

I had recently ripped up the interior to remove the carpeting and dry/clean it. I am putting it back together and I have everything as it was. Water was collecting on passenger side of the car only and I don't believe any water was under the driver side seat.

Now when i attempt to start my 1997 986, the normal electronics/lights kick on with a slight turn of the key. When i fully turn my key to the right instead of the engine turning over, I get maybe one (sometimes none) click and then everything shuts off.

There is zero power to any of the electronics of the the car and this is only rectified by disconnecting and reconnecting the battery. But the same thing happens if I try to start the engine. Any thoughts on what the issue I'm having might be?

I had the battery disconnected prior to working on it today and when i connected the final terminal, I immediately got the car alarm which i silenced. Not sure if that is relevant, but wanted to include as much info as possible, thanks!

Ironically I had this exact same problem earlier today and I tried to post about it the performance and technical sub forum because it seemed like the right place to post it, but maybe it wasn't because my post never showed up.

My problem was I would stick the key in, turn it to on, the dash would light up, the vent blower would come on, the oil level check would do its thing, everything normal, but when I turned it to start everything went dead, completely dead, everything, dead.

I decided to check every fuse one by one, but thought maybe it would be a good idea to unhook the battery first. The second I touched the negative terminal I heard a click and everything was back to normal. Although my battery terminal was not corroded, looked perfectly tight, and even seemed tight with a gentle wiggle, when I really gave it a good wiggle it moved quite easily.

I took it off, cleaned it for good measure, put it back on and gave it a couple extra ugga duggas and everything is working perfectly now. So even if your terminals look clean and tight, I'd recommend taking them off, cleaning them, and putting them back on like the German engineers originally intended... Guten Tight.