boxster hood release

[hucqym]

My 2001 boxster was parked in a garage for over 4 months while I was abroad. The alarm went off a couple times and so my brother unlocked it using the key manually and kept it that way. Apparently that helped with the alarm. But now when I returned battery appeared to be completely out so I proceeded to connect an external battery using red-pullout in fuse box to pop the hood. That didnt help. I have successfully used that approach multiple times in the past. I browsed through the forums and tried the couple other techniques as well but nothing works. To summarize:

 

All electricals are off!

1) Pull out red-tab in the fuse box and connect to external battery. Kept it connected for about an hour as well but hood doesnt pop

2) All fuses look good. Connect external battery positive to a small piece of wire wedged into C3 fuse. No luck

3) Connect a CTEK battery charger to cigarette lighter but it doesnt seem to start the charging process as it probably doesn't detect a battery

4) Looked for the emergency release cable in the front passenger side wheelwell but can't find it. Looks like I wouldn't be able to access it without removing the headlight assembly

5) No flooding or dampness under the seat that might have possibly blown out the immobilizer either.

 

Any clues what might be the issue? Perhaps the immobilizer has disabled the system?

 

 

 

[mikefocke]

The CTEK needs a specific minimum voltage at the battery before it will function.

 

Some approaches to getting into the trunk to access the battery directly here.

 

 

[hucqym]

Hi Mike,

.  Yes that was my guess with ctek given it tries to detect reverse polarity and so i got  a jumpstarter kit that i tried with the red-pullout and C3 and neither worked. I had already taken a look at your website and as outlined above I have tried it or it is not applicable to my 01 boxster. emergency release cable not accessible and i wasn't able to directly unlatch mechanically by inserting a small tool in the gap.

 

I didn't have a multimeter handy so haven't checked voltages at cig lighter, C3 or red-pullout so that is up next.

 

Is there anything else that might be messing with me other than a dead battery? Immobilizer or something else?

 

thanks

[hucqym]

just wanted to update the thread with my solution:

I finally tried the OBD route and that worked. opened my durametric adapter and soldered wires to battery and ground connections. Connected the jumpstarter battery to that and popped open the trunk. 

 

It seems that either my battery pullout tab in fusewell is busted or the chassis ground doesn't work well when battery is too low. 

Even the OBD solution didn't work when I connected to the door lock hook instead of OBD ground

 

Hope somebody else finds this useful.

 

Note: Needless to say but a gentle word of caution for the noob, DO NOT try to jump-start with this connection. Use it to just pop the hood.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2017 by hucqym

[mikefocke]

Thanks for the update.  Some more specifics on the OBD connector route you say worked. Never seen it mentioned.  Reference?

[hucqym]

no reference, really. I wasnt able to measure a voltage using my multimeter at the battery connector tab so thought about another way to get access to the battery connection. Suspected OBD port might have it and checked the pinout here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics

Pin 16 is battery+ and Pin 4/5 is ground. On the durametric adapter pin 4/5 is shorted together.