Battery not charging

[fishncarpet]

I seem to have an electrical problem with my "new" 02 Boxster S. After a drive of about an hour I put it on the battery maintainer and it needs to charge for a day before the little green fully charged light comes on. It has a new battery that was in the car when I bought it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

[geoff]

If your dash lights start looking like a Christmas tree all lit up after driving a while, your alternator is probably going bad. The alternator on my '01 Boxster went bad at the 5 year mark. Remanufactured Porsche Boxster alternators are a lot more expensive than you would expect, so you might want to get it checked before it fails and look into having it rebuilt. Search here for more alternator threads

Have you checked your maintainer on another car/battery to see if that's the way the maintainer works? The original Porsche maintainer takes a long time to bring a battery to full charge, even with everything working right, whereas the CTEK and Battery Tender products are a lot quicker

[pk2]

Also check your battery terminals and cables. They should be clean and tight. Untill you sort it out you should have a decent charger (have one around anyway). It'll charge a new battery in about 20 mins.

Regards, PK

[JFP in PA]

Suggest the following:

Check the voltage output of the alternator, should be well above 14V at an idle.....

Fully charge and load test the battery; we have seen more than one "new" battery with problems.

[70Sixter]

Make certain there is sufficient distilled water in the battery. You can unscrew the plugs with a wide blade screwdriver.

Edited January 8, 2011 by 70Sixter

[casharp1]

Also Check the Ground Wire to the battery. it is a twisted wire that corrodes. I had this happen to me and it went on for over 6 months before I got lucky and found it with a meter. Watch when you take the measurements with the meter I kept touching the wire and it would fix the problem.

[SA321]

If your dash lights start looking like a Christmas tree all lit up after driving a while, your alternator is probably going bad. The alternator on my '01 Boxster went bad at the 5 year mark. Remanufactured Porsche Boxster alternators are a lot more expensive than you would expect, so you might want to get it checked before it fails and look into having it rebuilt. Search here for more alternator threads

Have you checked your maintainer on another car/battery to see if that's the way the maintainer works? The original Porsche maintainer takes a long time to bring a battery to full charge, even with everything working right, whereas the CTEK and Battery Tender products are a lot quicker

unless bearings went bad the only thing that can break in alternator is a voltage regulator. $40 on ebay. 1-1.5 hours to take it out.

I thought Porsche maintainer is a CTEK maintainer (old versions) with Porshe sticker on it.

[JFP in PA]

If your dash lights start looking like a Christmas tree all lit up after driving a while, your alternator is probably going bad. The alternator on my '01 Boxster went bad at the 5 year mark. Remanufactured Porsche Boxster alternators are a lot more expensive than you would expect, so you might want to get it checked before it fails and look into having it rebuilt. Search here for more alternator threads

Have you checked your maintainer on another car/battery to see if that's the way the maintainer works? The original Porsche maintainer takes a long time to bring a battery to full charge, even with everything working right, whereas the CTEK and Battery Tender products are a lot quicker

unless bearings went bad the only thing that can break in alternator is a voltage regulator. $40 on ebay. 1-1.5 hours to take it out.

I thought Porsche maintainer is a CTEK maintainer (old versions) with Porshe sticker on it.

The very first Porsche maintainer (black in color) was not by Ctek, they came later.