Locked keys under hood, alarm engaged

[YogiB]

Hello big brain,

My girl friend was packing for a road trip and upon finishing, she had already locked the car with the remote (so the alarm is engaged) and she closed the front hood.... with the keys in the 'frunk'.

CAA already gave up on the project Friday night due to a lack of knowledge.

We have the driver's door open, so we get to play with the fuses (at least we took out the fuse for the horn (so we don't have to listen to the alarm 20 minutes every time we try something). We don't have the means to take of the wheel and, more so, we don't have the right tools to undo the cap screws to reach the emergency release under the passenger's headlight.

It's a 2001 Boxster S with the electric buttons to open the latches.

I've found a trick to use a 9V battery to jump-start the emergency bonnet unlock (as shown on the image on the paper fuse list and in the manual), but it didn't work.

I've read about using the radio to push a code into the central board computer to desengage the alarm, but the radio won't even power up and we can't find the codes.

All the jump-start tricks we've read about are for older Boxters, so not sure if boosting fuse contact C3 will do the trick. Not tried though (we're going to grab lunch before continuing our efforts).

Does someone here have the magical solution?

Thanks in advance!!

[nicecar]

have you located and tried the emergency trunk release cable?

[tommy583]

You should be able to reach up under the front bumper and locate the emergency release cable. Don't be to gentle, just move the plastic on the bottom of the car away from the bumper and reach you hand up there. It will be on the passenger side. Between the headlight and the middle of the bumper.

[thom4782]

The more traditional way to reach the emergency release cable is to remove the passenger front tire, remove three or four plastic rivets from the front upper side of the wheel well liner and look for the loop on the steel cable near the back of the headlight tray.

I hope this helps.

BTW: if you ever remove the bumper cover, the take the opportunity to relocate the frunk release cable so you can reach it from the tow hook hole. Then it's easy as pie to pop open the front trunk. I even did the same with the rear cable by locating it under the driver side bumperette.

[YogiB]

As mentioned, we don't have the tools to remove the front tire.
We tried to remove the plastic rivets to bend the wheel well liner enough to stick out hand in, but we were afraid to break it. We were successful in pulling back the middle part, but the rivet didn't want to come off.

We've found a hole in the bottom of the car, but that only led to the back of some radiator.

We've tried to put +12V DC on the terminals of C3 with a bunch of Alkaline batteries placed in series. It didn't work either.

[particlewave]

Break the plastic rivets!

They are plastic, cheap and replaceable.

[Nine8Six]

For a unique set of keys locked in the frunk, something tells me to support this idea ^

Luck with that mess buddy

[YogiB]

CAA came back.

The guy managed to gracefully undo the first rivet. It wasn't enough to reach far enough. He had the tools to undo the wheel, but one of the nuts is a special locknut that will break if undone, so it will have to go to the garage any way to replace that nut.

As we speak, they're are two guys battling with the beast to get it on a flatbed tow truck. The steering wheel is locked and the wheels are to the side. Furthermore, the car is low, so with a lot of effort they're getting it on without damaging the bottom.

The specialized garage will do the tough job to reach the emergency release cable for the hatch.

Also their proper 12V DC booster wasn't able to pop the hood (probably because the car battery isn't dead yet).

Apart from that the towing is included in the CAA subscription, we'll see how much this joke will cost us at the garage.

[YogiB]

Conclusion after a full weekend of trying any possible solution:

Porsches are frickin' safe cars! Can't steal it, can't steal anything from the trunks!

[SoCalBlackbox]

I guess the road trip is postponed.

[Mark_T]

I guess the cost of a spare key isn't so bad, all things considered.

[Perfectlap]

^ and if the battery were to die on you the spare key isn't going to get the front trunk open to replace the dead battery... not sure who came up with that idea.

You'll need to keep an external battery pack that can give the car just enough juice to disarm the trunk locks. Or make sure that rip cord under the bumper is well located for quick access.

[Mark_T]

That's the part that isn't clear - at what point did it become a dead battery problem? Was the battery already dead when the keys were locked in that trunk? I didn't get that impression so the original problem, keys locked in trunk with car doors also locked, could have been immediately solved with the spare key.

[YogiB]

The battery of the car never got drained enough. But in the manual it says that you can electrically do an emergency release of the front trunk, but that only works when the battery is empty.

Any way... The garage took off the wheel and wheel well liner, opened up the trunk with the emergency release cord, took the keys out and put everything back together. Only 100$. Getting a spare key was already on the shopping list for this winter (since we need to kiss the key goodbye for a week, but the car is stored inside during the entire winter, so no problem then). The garage was already pissed that they had to help us out in this busy week (they had several engines to disassemble and reassemble), so we'll save the emergency release cord extension for the next big appointment.

My girl friend threw out her new keychain, since she claims she had plenty of **************** since she adopted it.

Since I need to work next weekend, the road trip is delayed for 10 days. No biggie though, still having fun celebrating some time off.

[Davev]

You should RIGHT NOW go out and put the emergency release cord in an easy to get to spot. Behind the little tow hook door is a good place and always it's ready and out of the way.

Hopefully they didn't put the cord back where it was to start???

[BruceH]

Originally Posted by Davev

You should RIGHT NOW go out and put the emergency release cord in an easy to get to spot. Behind the little tow hook door is a good place and always it's ready and out of the way.

Hopefully they didn't put the cord back where it was to start???

First thing I did when I got mine If new owners do nothing else, do this!

[Nine8Six]

^ good advice. Bruce I don't even know where is mine, and with my kind of luck sometimes.... very likely I'd get stranded as bad as friend YogiB here. His story xux

I might at least give it "a check" next time I reach in the garage

[BruceH]

Here are a couple of links. I re-routed mine when I cleaned the radiators. Made it easy. One guy mentions just removing the right headlight and then using a wire to fish it through the tow hook. I guarantee if you do this mod, you will never need it, but if you don't, well...........

http://986forum.com/forums/diy-project-guides/35685-yet-another-front-trunk-emergency-release-cable-thread-pics.html

http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/13276-emergency-trunk-release-cable-rerouted.html

[Nine8Six]

nice, thx for linking

Originally Posted by BruceH

I guarantee if you do this mod, you will never need it

ahhh man you see that's one of those thing.... once you see it, it WILL happen. Karma?! dunno what its called but this often works on me for some strange reasons)

[Rob175]

Much easier to just buy another key (even just to unlock the doors and not start the car) and stash it somewhere accessable...... I know of some that stash it behind the rear license plate....and others that wire it inside the front lower grills.