A very interesting debate about the PDK. People
have different needs and preferences, so I´m not surprised about the different
opinions.
I got my 997.2 CS with PDK in October. Before I
was used to a Cayman S with a manual, so I´m not accustomed to the
tiptronic.
So far I´m very pleased with the car and especially the PDK system. The
shifting is very fast, smooth and precise. For city driving/commuting/queues it
is much more convenient. Normal and Sport mode is usually the most natural
here. Sport Plus in the city makes no sense as it doesn´t shift before it
reaches the red mark then.
I haven´t tracked it yet because its winter here, but when driving it
more inspired on curvy roads the Sport Plus mode and the PDK worked perfect. Of
course I tried it out in manual many times too, but I think the PDK is doing
such a good job that I really don’t see the point. On ice and snow I think this
is different. In January I participated at Porsche Camp 4S in Ivalo in the
north of Finland, and the cars we got to use there were all Carrera 4 or 4S
with PDK, and also some Targas with PDK. We turned of course the PSM off and switched
to manual. At first we used the paddles to shift up and down, but I think the
most of us switched to using the stick which we found quite efficient. I was ok
with the paddles/buttons, but on the ice you really turn the wheel a lot, and
that muddled it up a bit. And 2 or 3 times I touched the paddle by accident
when driving as they are exactly where you hold your hands on the steering wheel.
Anyway the 4-wheel drive cars handled great on the ice.
I see that there are different opinions as to
which way the paddles would be more intuitive. I´m not used to the “old” system
with the tiptronic, but I honestly think the PDK paddles are quite intuitive
the way they are. I drove roadracing some years ago, and on the racebikes we
turned the shifting upside down so that we pushed the pedal when shifting up.
You got used to it after about half a lap. On the PDK you also push the paddle
to shift up in manual, or you push the stick. For me that works fine. But since
I haven´t tried the old system I cant really compare them.
Right now I´m really looking forward to taking
it to the tracks and try it out properly on the dry roads. Hopefully first a
couple of times here in Norway, and in May I will be going to Nurburgring a
couple of times. First to participate at the Scuderia Hanseat course, later in
the month at Performance training with the Porsche Sport Driving School. I need
to get to know the new car on this track, but I know that the PDK is more
efficient for track driving and that the car has a very good laptime on the Nurburgring
(7:50 in Sport Autos supertest, the 997 Turbo has 7,54), so my expectations to
the car are very high. I don’t think I will be bored driving there in the
automatic mode. I´m expecting the PDK to do an excellent job and that I then
will be able to concentrate even more on getting perfect braking points,
cornering etc.
But that’s my expectations based on my
experiences so far, I´m looking forward to seeing if the car lives up to them,
but I hope I will be just as pleased at the end of the summer.
--
Anne
'09 997 Carrera S, GT Silver
x '08 Porsche Cayman S Design Edition 1