Porsche 996 Carerra 4S Running Report

While it has been a busy year attending Porsche events and road tripping around Europe, the 996 has had periods of inactivity which the electrics have taken umbrage to. Slowly but surely small things have been intermittently failing which I generally forget about until the next outing. Nothing major but a niggle with the seats has now become a shopping list waiting for the next service

First to become recalcitrant where the seat adjustments. The coincidence that both seat switches intermittently fail simultaneously is unlikely and as the switch sets prices are astronomical a fishing expedition to replace both isn’t an option I wish to explore just yet. I suspect it is up stream of both switches requiring a bit of tracing back using the electrical diagrams I have handy.

The next item to malfunction was the sunroof, which moves, tilts and slides in a way unrelated to the buttons you are pressing. This reared its head after the battery failed on the 9Werks Norway trip and required replacing in Oslo while the convoy of accompanying Porsches waited patiently. Allegedly there is a way to reset it but six months on it is still haphazard in operation.

Also having elicited from the Norway trip, as we opened the farm gates after driving 4000 miles across northern Europe the airbag light has come on permanently and I understand it could be the seatbelt receiver connected to the loom under the seat, so there may be a connection to that and hopefully seat adjustment and airbag issues could be cleared up by cleaning the connectors under the driver’s seat that serves both items.

The last fault happened last weekend on a spirited drive to Croissants and Neuf with our friends Stuttgart South. An early morning blast down towards Horsham is part of my old commuter route; a mix of round-about punctured dual carriageways and a bit of B Road for good measure. On one of the sections of dual carriageway the rear spoiler failed to deploy, producing a heart stopping new warning light that wouldn’t go away. Not the kind of distraction you need when concentrating on not hitting the rev limiter even on a deserted Sunday morning. There are a whole host of warning lights that could have lit under those conditions with a far more adverse outcome. It went away once the car was stopped and hasn’t appeared since but is added to the list to look into nonetheless. It was great seeing Ed and his 40th Anniversary 996 from the 9Werks road trip to the Stuttgart Porsche Museum.

The last and newest irritation has been that both keyfobs have stopped working requiring the key to be used. There is a knack to this and a 50-50 chance that alarm goes off if you knack it wrong. New batteries, cleaning contacts, and anointing it with oil from the black forest has failed roundly to fix either and it looks like whatever is wrong is beyond my fettling.

Having partaken vigorously in Editor Lee’s mid 9Werks Road Trip keep fit regime he covered in last months column, getting the electronic quirks and features won’t be ignored. In fact, I have started putting together a small kit of useful roadside tools and equipment to ease the pain of unscheduled stops. First item is a solid towing bar followed closely by an enhanced OBD2 code reader. Next is a multimeter, spare coilpack and a selection of other useful ‘things’ in a fashion to make my grandfather proud.

Compared to the other cars in my menagerie, the Porsches are pretty exemplar in their behaviour compared to the others but now and then even the best maintained 911 potential for a hiccup. Except for the battery which was pretty easy to replace, the C4S has behaved. The slow creep of intermittent faults are not mission critical but is more an alert that connects need cleaning and 21 year old brittle plastic need a once over.