Ctec on Porsche cigarette lighter? ?

[Barry Thompson]

Quite new battery is dead as garage electric been off for days.     Battery always needs to be on charge.   Wife's car and she didn't notice.  Top   C checkintelligentl charger with adapter to cigarette lighter always worked ok but my sonhas just looked at it (due to illness I cannot look at or do anything. ) ask ally on turning on mains the charger lights up but apparently all the Porsche boxter warning lights start to keep flashing. Son thinks this is a possible problem and wants to know if safe to just leave the newis h   c teck charger on the cigarette socket.   He Amy's he cannot get to the battery to charge it with connectors due to a ver tight garage and obviously cannot start the wife's car.     Any advice please.  

[Jonathan Kay]

I'd leave it on for a bit.

Check that it isn't give a warning of being connected with the polarity reversed, but I doubt that it is: that's the Error Lamp on the CTEK with the exclamation mark next to it

I suspect that the Porsche is telling you that it is waking up rather than that the charger is causing any damage.

If the battery isn't sealed check the levels asap.

Jonathan

PS: If the battery does need to be charged all of the time I'd check its levels (if possible), its condition, and whether there is excessive "parasitic" drain at rest. The last of those would include asking the appropriate Porsche forum for known problems and getting an autoelectrician to measure what's happening.

[Roadsport06]

It won't cause harm, but don't be surprised if it takes a few days to charge.

[Benton]

Note on some cars these days the cigarette socket "switches off" after a period on time with the ignition off and therefore you cannot charge via them.

[ScottR400D]

I'm not sure if they're all the same but my 2007 911 sat for weeks at a time on a CTEK connected to the fag lighter and never went off. 

As said, if the battery's been allowed to fully discharge the car's warning lights might be it reactivating. 

[Mark w]

Buy the sub loom ( circa £10 ) and connect the charger directly to the battery .The sub loom plug can poke out from the corner of the bonnet by the windscreen pillar .

You then dont have any issues of cigarette socket switch off or interference with the cars electronics. 

Have never had to buy a new battery on any of my P cars charged this way.