Lost all power and car will not roll

2016 PORSCHE CAYENNE HYBRID
26,000 MILES • 3.0L • V6 • 4WD • AUTOMATIC
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Car was bought from Copart (front damage - cooling system intact) and I can't get it off the car transport trailer. Car did turn on with all dash lights and 'Hybrid system failure' warning at first, but now all power is gone. I managed to disengage the park by pressing the yellow button in the ashtray to put it into neutral but the car remains glued to the surface. I even disconnected the e-brake connectors on rear hubs but no change. I put jump box on the positive negative connectors in the engine bay but dash lights didn't come on.
Any suggestions what could be still causing the car to be in park? At this point I don't believe it's the brakes because I even tried to tug on the car which would have overpowered the brakes even so slightly. Does this model perhaps use electronic gear selector and getting the selector manually out of park does nothing to the transmission park pin?
Thank you in advance.
Ivan
Sep 8, 2019 at 5:42 AM
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Welcome Ivan!

From your description, it sounds like the vehicle does indeed use a mechanical park/shift mechanism. By pressing the yellow button and moving the shifter into Neutral, that should have effectively shifted the transmission out of Park. It sounds like the electronic parking brake calipers are not releasing. You mentioned trying to rock the vehicle on the trailer. If the vehicle rocks back and forth, it's likely that the transmission is still stuck in Park. If the vehicle does not rock at all, this means the parking brake calipers are still engaged. Based on the current condition of the vehicle, you may have to manually release the calipers. To do so, you'll need to unbolt the electro-mechanical actuators from the rear calipers and and manually rotate the park brake mechanism. Depending on the design of the calipers, this may require an internal hex socket, torx bit or a 12 point socket. You'll have to inspect the shaft once the actuators are removed.

A secondary method of releasing the calipers is to apply 12v battery power and ground directly to the actuator. To do this, simply unplug the actuator and attach jumper leads to the two terminals inside(making sure they do not touch). You can drive the caliper in either direction depending on how you have your leads hooked up. If the caliper seems to get tighter, simply reverse your lead connections to drive it the other way (released).

Please let us know what you find!
Sep 10, 2019 at 5:03 AM