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. Smiley


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Anne Smile 
'09 997 Carrera S, GT Silver 
x '08 Porsche Cayman S Design Edition 1