Bay Area 986

[elav]

Hello, I'm not new to Porsches but new to the 986 Boxster. My son was looking for a manual transmission car that we could work on. We found a '98 986 with under 100k miles and it already has the LN Engineering IMS retrofit kit. There are 4 issues with the car that we would like to address and we hope the wisdom of the forum can help us out. The issues are...

1. The windows don't operator correctly when opening and closing the doors. Driver's side goes down when you open the door but immediately goes back up. Passenger's door isn't moving up/down at all with opening/closing the door.
2. When we lock the doors manually, we sometimes hear the horn beep twice - which I believe indicates a locking issue. I'm not sure if this is related to microswitch in the door handle reporting the wrong state? BTW, I only have a single key and the fob board has clearly gone through the wash and is corroded - so would like to get a spare key and have each key have a working fob (is going to Porsche the only way to get the car programed?)
3. The original Becker CDR-210 radio randomly turns off and back on when you are trying to listen to it. I've cleaned the contacts and made sure the faceplate is solidly attached. I haven't tested this enough to be sure but it seems to work perfectly when I switch the ignition on by one notch but show the power issue when the car is running so I'm guessing it is the ignition switch???
4. The rear spoiler can be manually moved up/down by the footwell switch but the warning light comes on in the dash after you hit a speed it should go up automatically. I have noticed the spoiler doesn't go down smoothly when you manually operate it so we were going to pull it and perhaps lube the tubes for the arms.

I bought the icarsoft reader hoping that the Porsche specific codes for the door microswitches would show up but no luck - or I'm not seeing the right screen in the reader. We would like to find other 986/987 owners in the Bay Area and hope to leverage the wisdom of the forum to help us get the Boxster up and running 100% (and hope to give back too). We will do a search but we would like to hear people's experiences on replacing the door microswitches and the handle mechanism. Curious if it is worth debugging or simply buying all new replacement parts and replacing all at once. Also thoughts on Genuine Porsche parts vs. other brands (and I've read that you can use VW parts that can be cheaper too).

[Benitom]

Originally Posted by elav

Hello, I'm not new to Porsches but new to the 986 Boxster. My son was looking for a manual transmission car that we could work on. We found a '98 986 with under 100k miles and it already has the LN Engineering IMS retrofit kit. There are 4 issues with the car that we would like to address and we hope the wisdom of the forum can help us out. The issues are...

1. The windows don't operator correctly when opening and closing the doors. Driver's side goes down when you open the door but immediately goes back up. Passenger's door isn't moving up/down at all with opening/closing the door.
2. When we lock the doors manually, we sometimes hear the horn beep twice - which I believe indicates a locking issue. I'm not sure if this is related to microswitch in the door handle reporting the wrong state? BTW, I only have a single key and the fob board has clearly gone through the wash and is corroded - so would like to get a spare key and have each key have a working fob (is going to Porsche the only way to get the car programed?)
3. The original Becker CDR-210 radio randomly turns off and back on when you are trying to listen to it. I've cleaned the contacts and made sure the faceplate is solidly attached. I haven't tested this enough to be sure but it seems to work perfectly when I switch the ignition on by one notch but show the power issue when the car is running so I'm guessing it is the ignition switch???
4. The rear spoiler can be manually moved up/down by the footwell switch but the warning light comes on in the dash after you hit a speed it should go up automatically. I have noticed the spoiler doesn't go down smoothly when you manually operate it so we were going to pull it and perhaps lube the tubes for the arms.

I bought the icarsoft reader hoping that the Porsche specific codes for the door microswitches would show up but no luck - or I'm not seeing the right screen in the reader. We would like to find other 986/987 owners in the Bay Area and hope to leverage the wisdom of the forum to help us get the Boxster up and running 100% (and hope to give back too). We will do a search but we would like to hear people's experiences on replacing the door microswitches and the handle mechanism. Curious if it is worth debugging or simply buying all new replacement parts and replacing all at once. Also thoughts on Genuine Porsche parts vs. other brands (and I've read that you can use VW parts that can be cheaper too).

Congrats and welcome to the forum. I have a 98.

2. I had a similar issue. My alarm stopped working using the Key Fob and the key barrel started sticking. I took my car to my indy mechanic and he removed the key barrel lubed it up and replaced some of the pieces with a barrel lock he had in his shop. (Some of the pieces were broken) He suggested I take the car to Porsche to get the alarm fixed and acquire a second key. I am fine locking the car manually so I decided to save a few $$ and not fix the key fob/alarm issue. When I originally bought the car, Porsche quoted me about $500 for a new key and to program it.

I haven't experienced the other issues you are having. I added an aftermarket Radio so I can use Android Auto from my phone.

I recommend short shifter if it doesn't already have one.

[elav]

Thanks for the information! Is your aftermarket radio a double DIN and you moved the heater/AC controls to the lower position?

[Benitom]

Originally Posted by elav

Thanks for the information! Is your aftermarket radio a double DIN and you moved the heater/AC controls to the lower position?

No I use Android Auto via my phone - I figured out a way to mount my phone using the cigarette lighter. Basically my magnetic mount fits perfectly into the cigarette lighter slot with an easy mod.

This is the radio: Pioneer DEH-X4900BT

[Thunder36]

Hello,

I have had a couple of these issues

1. on youtube there is a guy called Piston Kirk, if you go on his channel he has a video of the window issue, its in french but has subtitles. Maybe that will help

2. I read that if the horn beeps when locking the doors, the front or rear bonnet or boot lid is not closed tight or the centre console or glove box is not locked / shut tight. When it did this i found it was the centre console was not shut properly, I think this could be if you leave the roof open it warns you that people could reach in and open them.

3. My radio is fine, i just bought a Bluetooth transmitter so it recieves the phone and play my songs from there

4. I have never seen the spoiler light come on, so looked in the manual, it says failure of spoiler control. So not seeing it is good news!

[elav]

Thanks for the updates! I'm kicking myself - the center console latch is broken and I was at a junkyard this weekend and almost grabbed the center console latch from that car but I didn't have the right tools and decided to pass on it (this is before I realized there is a microswitch in the center console). I was going to go back on Sunday to pull it once I realized the microswitch was there but they crushed the car. I hear the car latch and unlatch when I use the key (and the 2 beeps) so I'm hoping it is a door latch but will look into the center console too.

My son and I took out the spoiler from the car, dismantled the entire mechanism, removed all the old grease and re-greased the mechanism and added graphite to the tubes that lift the spoiler. Works very smoothly now but haven't had a chance to get it on the road to test the automatic up/down.