Hammer911

Sorry - having some funky things going on when I try to post/reply today. I have no idea how my replies got to the top of this post. Any ideas how to delete posts so it doesn't look like I hijacked the thread?

Hammer911

Great looking ride! I'm getting close to the end of break-in period and am anxious to really let it run!

btw, I believe there is a setting for volume of internal notifications (like turn signal.)

have fun!

ww007

Update: new pics added! scroll to post #15 for the link!

Hello everyone,

First off, I just wanted to thank everyone for their sage advice in the process of ordering my car (including the late Gary Sims, whose presence will definitely be missed). The wait seemed like forever (ordered the car back in December, got the car about 2 days ago), but it was well worth it! Sorry I've included only 1 pic of the actual car (and a cell phone one at that), but I've been too busy driving the thing

Some background: I came from a 2011 BMW 335i convertible with the M-sport package, which I loved but was unfortunately totaled in an accident. Before that, a 2006 Acura TSX. I am a total amateur and have not taken any driving courses at all, but I plan to after I break this baby in, and take her to the track every now and then. She will pretty much be my daily driver.

First off, here is my options list; I got a little carried away...

911 Carrera S
Basalt Black Metallic
Carrera Red natural lthr int
Ornamental Porsche Crest
Multi-Func. steering wheel Carbon
20-inch SportTechno wheel
Sport Exhaust System
Porsche Doppelkupplung (PDK)
Sport Chrono Package
Sunroof in glass
Natural leather interior
Porsche Crest on headrests
Std. carpeting deviating color (black)
Online Services
Voice Control
Center console trim Carbon
Door entry guards in carbon
Steering column casing leather
Smoking package
Instrument Dials in Black
Porsche Dynamic Chassis Cntrl
Electric folding ext. mirrors
Park Assist (front and rear)
Deletion of Model Designation
Window trim, high gloss Alum
Rear center tunnel in leather
Carbon pkg. (leather/PDK)
Carbon Gearbox Trim
PDK gear Selector CARBON
Adaptive Sport Seats Plus
Burmester® Audio Package
Burmester(R) Sound System
Sirius/XM(R) & HD Radio(R) rcvr.
6 disc CD/DVD changer
Prem. Pkg. Plus w 18-way seats
Automatically dimming mirrors
Seat heating (front)
Seat ventilation (front)
Porsche Dynamic Light System
Porsche Entry & Drive
Int Light Pkg for Rear Compartment

The pic is from right before I picked up the car from the dealer. He gifted me with clear side markers after I took the pic. I'll post more after I've installed some tints as well!


Anyway I just wanted to give my initial impressions of some things:

Power
Still breaking her in, so I'm trying to keep below the recommended limit of 4200 rpms. At lower rpms, she definitely feels less powerful than the turbo in my 335i, which had oodles of torque basically throughout the rpm range. In fact, I could easily do highway passing without even downshifting in that car, whereas my C2S will need to downshift if I try to pass someone. Open her up above 3000 rpms, however, and you can definitely feel the power coming on. I can't wait till the break-in period finishes so I can really let her rip!

Ride and handling
What can I say, she rides and handles like a dream! The second pic is of the peak G-forces after a "spirited" midnight canyon run I dared not push her too hard as I'm not yet familiar with her limits nor of the road I was driving on, but the steering was sharp and precise and it didn't feel like I was approaching anywhere near her limits. The PDCC seemed to help with the feeling of composure, as I could not detect any body roll at all (and this was with the regular, not sport, PASM). The PDK seemed smart enough to realize that I was doing a spirited drive, as it kept revs between 2k-3k, even without activating any of the sport modes (I was going about 30-45 mph max). This road was on an incline, going up one way and then driving down the same way coming back.

On city streets, the suspension absorbs bumps pretty well. It is definitely on the stiffer side, being a sports car and all, but also definitely livable on a daily basis. You can still feel the bumps, but they feel like they have been dampened. It is a lot more compliant than in my 335i with the M-sport suspension, where you could feel every little bump coursing up your spine (the run-flat tires certainly didn't help with that), while at the same time being at least as composed in the twisties thanks to the PDCC. It really is the best of both worlds.

And living in LA, I'm kind of glad I went with the regular instead of sport PASM. I'll admit the front spoiler on the SPASM looks badass, and the stance is slightly more aggressive, but I've already had some minor scrapes despite having "only" the regular PASM. I think the regular PASM with PDCC is a good compromise between daily drivability and performance if you live in a city with bad streets and parking lot/road dips like LA. If you're already getting the PDCC, I'd say skip the SPASM unless you want the looks and can deal with living in fear of scraping, or are planning to hard core track the car.

BTW, my tires came way overinflated, even for the max speed and full load settings. There's another thread with this issue floating around right now, so I won't get into too much detail, but instead of the 36 F / 44 R recommended pressures, they were set to something like 41 F / 49 R. This despite the fact that "comfort pressure" was set in the PCM! I reduced them each to +3 psi over the recommended comfort and partial load settings (31 F / 34 R as stated in the manual) and the ride quality has been much better. I recommend everyone to check your tire pressures right after you get your cars (after the tires have cooled down, of course) to make sure you have the pressure settings that you want.

All of the above was done without any sports modes activated; I'll have to test those out next!

Seats
The 18-way adaptive seats are excellent. They have side bolsters for your thighs and love handles, which my dealer told me are adjusted by actually inflating and deflating with air (as opposed to my 335i with the M-sport seats, which only had the love handle bolsters and seemed to physically move when you adjusted them). They are a little on the tight side, however (I'm a little chunky at 5'10" and 180 lbs), so if you have similar or greater dimensions, make sure you try them before you order.

Burmester
The sound quality is awesome. The bass is tight and the mids and highs are clean, even at high volumes. I turn off all the signal processing except for the for the adaptive sound, which is supposed to take into account cabin noise. I also add +2 to bass and +1 to treble. It's not quite as good as the $2000 Aperion surround sound system I have at home, but very good for a car stereo. My friends who have heard it are impressed as well. Worth $5000? Well I commute 30 minutes to an hour each way to work while listening to music almost all of that time, I can't stand crappy speakers, and I don't consider Bose to be a "high-end" audio company, so it was worth it to me. I can't say I'd blame you if you balk at the price tag, however.

PCM
This is a fantastic and very powerful system, but it definitely has a relatively steep learning curve. I consider myself to be a huge "techie" and lover of gadgets (computers are kind of my hobby and I can build one myself), but I'm still trying to get the hang of things with the PCM. It's basically two independent systems: the main large LCD screen and the smaller circular one next to the tachometer. Of course, changing certain settings will affect both (changing the radio station, for example), but you can view two totally separate things on each, and they are controlled separately: the smaller LCD screen is controlled with the MF steering wheel controls (or stalk if you don't have that) and the larger LCD with the control **** below it or just with touch. This takes a while to get used to and you definitely have to RTFM to get the most out of this system. The larger NAV screen in particular is highly customizable and you can even choose such things as satellite imagery, what kind of split screen views you want, and even weather superimposed on the zoomed out views. I think my favorite "hidden" option so far is the "Map menu" option which adds a small icon to the screen that you can touch to quickly access several different options (MAP --> OPTION --> Map menu, or something like that).

Sunroof in glass
Coming from a convertible, I'm glad I got this option. The cabin feels a bit tight and this helps to make things feel more "open." One thing to note if you're considering this option is that the sunroof shade is not completely opaque, so a tiny bit of direct sunlight filters through even with everything closed. Not enough to be blinding or even really distracting, but I thought it was a bit odd that they didn't make it completely opaque. Also, that shade is electrically operated, but I think I would have preferred it to be manual as it would've been much quicker. And the buttons for sunroof and shade work in opposite directions: you pull to open one and push to open the other (I still have a hard time remembering which is which).

Online services
Haven't really had a chance to play around with this too much, but it seems interesting. You download the AHA app to your smartphone, connect your smartphone through the USB, then launch the app on your phone. You also have to select AHA as the source in the PCM. The car will sync with the app in your phone and you can operate everything through the PCM instead of the phone, which is nice. It has such services as online music (though not Pandora I think) that you can stream through your car's speakers and even Yelp and Facebook. Haven't had a chance to test out Facebook yet but for Yelp, it will automatically scroll through individual restaurants nearby and read each one of them out loud, stating their name, general location, and star rating. You can press a button on the screen to either call or navigate there. The problem is you don't really know where all of these restaurants are relative to you, and I haven't found a way to have it list everything out or search by category like in the actual Yelp app. If these are not possible, I guess it was for safety reasons (they don't want you to look at the screen for prolonged periods of time while driving).


Some tips:

1. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND downloading the Good to Know app to your smartphone, which can essentially replace your user manuals.

2. I remember that some people were having issues with settings that wouldn't stick after they exited the vehicle (such as A/C not staying on or off, or the auto start/stop setting). If you don't want to worry about that again, make sure you activate this setting: in the multifunction display (the small circular one), go to the Vehicle screen --> hit the settings button on your MF wheel or stalk --> locking --> make sure auto memory is checked. This will save any changes you've made to your key fob when you lock the car. Otherwise I think you have to manually save every time you make changes by pressing Set and the corresponding number and/or 3 to save it to your key fob. If you activate this setting, just be careful that you don't share the same key fob with someone else, since if they change, say, the seat positions, that will overwrite the settings you had when they lock the vehicle (although if you saved those settings to number 1, you might be able to recall them by pressing that number, and then have everything saved to the fob again when YOU lock the car, thereby essentially restoring your settings; I'm not sure how that would work).

3. If you plan on using the NAV a lot, get the voice command option. The voice recognition is excellent, and it beats dealing with the "QWERTZ" keyboard (see my rant below). You can speak the entire address naturally instead of one field at a time. For example, it will recognize "123 East Main Street, Los Angeles." You can even train it so that it recognizes your speech better, though I haven't tried this option because I haven't needed to. You do have to follow a certain list of commands, though, so you'll have to memorize those. Admittedly, I haven't really used it for much other than entering addresses, but that alone is worth the relatively low price of this admission.

4. If you have the electric mirrors, you can choose if the passenger side's tilts down to see the curb when you put the car in reverse. What I didn't realize (although I did read a thread about it) was that you can adjust the degree of tilt (I thought it wasn't tilting at all initially). It's in the manual so I won't go through it in detail unless someones asks.


Some gripes and complaints:

1. The rotary dial below the screen operates in the WRONG DIRECTION. When you turn it clockwise, it should go down a list, and when you turn it counter-clockwise, it should go up. Instead, it is backwards. I say this not only because it operated the correct way in my BMW i-Drive, but also because it feels natural this way (at least to me). At least you can pretty much avoid it altogether and just use the touch screen. It would be nice if Porsche came out with an update that at least gives you the option of which direction you want to scroll, but I won't be holding my breath.

2. "QWERTZ" keyboard in the PCM?? Are you kidding me??? How did this get past testing? Although maybe this was intentional, as it is actually referenced as a "QWERTZ/QWERTY" keyboard in the manual, though I can't imagine why. My dealer seems to think this was a mistake too. Fortunately, the voice recognition is so good that I rarely use the keyboard. Still, this reeks of amateur hour.

3. The rear center tunneling with stitching is way overpriced at almost $1200, at least if you already have the full leather. I think it also makes the center front console into leather if it isn't already, but if you already have the full leather, I think it just adds the stitching on the console and rear tunnel. I mean it looks nice, but it seems like it's standard on just about every other luxury car maker so it doesn't really stick out. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably just get the model logotype on the center console for a lot cheaper.

4. The glove compartment is probably the worst place to place the USB port (OK, I guess inside the frunk would be worse, but you get the idea). Seems like it was in the right place in the previous generation (inside the center console) and in every other Porsche model, so I don't know why they chose the glove compartment in the 991. To top it off, it's poorly lit in there so you won't be able to see the USB port in the dark. If you're an iPhone user like me, the best thing to do would be to just have a dedicated iPhone cable plugged in there all the time, though this does not eliminate the awkward reaching for the glove compartment to plug in the phone every time you get in the car. Yes you can do bluetooth audio streaming of your songs, but the sound quality is inferior, you only get to see one track at a time on the PCM instead of your entire playlist, and I don't believe the AHA app works through bluetooth (though I haven't really tried).

5. When you turn off the ignition, it seems that power to the windows and sunroof is cut off. Therefore, after you park, you have two options: a) leave the ignition on and close any open windows or sunroof, thereby wasting a bit of gas for no reason. b) Turn off the ignition, then turn on the accessory power so you can close said windows. If you leave your headlights in auto mode and park in a dark area (like your garage), this has the effect of turning off your Xenon headlights and then turning them back on when you turn on the accessory power. From what I've heard, Xenon headlights have a limited number of on/off cycles, so this would reduce their life (not to mention is very annoying). The ideal solution (and was present in my BMW at least) is to give you a few seconds of power even after you turn off the ignition, so you can close any windows. Weird how Porsche missed the mark on this small yet important detail.

6. On a similar note as #5, if you have the Porsche entry and drive option, I hate how it turns off the radio as soon as you open the door to exit the vehicle (if you've already turned off the ignition of course). In my BMW, the radio would stay on until you locked the doors. This would give me a few extra seconds to enjoy a good song that was playing on the radio as I, say, was gathering things from the trunk. Again, these small touches matter.

7. The turn signal sound seems to be very low, at least compared to every other car I've been in. I guess this can be considered a plus, but I don't want to end up looking like an old fuddy duddy with his left turn blinker on while cruising down the highway, making people wonder, "Is this idiot gonna change lanes or what?" (I'm 32 btw, no offense to anyone who might be older)

8. There seems to be a very thin wire running down the middle of the windshield. It is most noticeable against a bright background, such as the sky. It seems to originate near where the rear view mirror mounts to the windshield. Has anyone noticed this before or know what it is? I'll try to take some picture of it if I can.


Sorry for the overly long post.

Overall, however, the positives obviously greatly outweigh the negatives and I look forward to getting to know the car better. Please feel free to add any comments, questions, or corrections! Here's to many more fun and safe miles!

theporscheguy

Congrats on your purchase. Great color combination. Enjoy.

chuckbdc

Beautiful car. I think the wire in the windshield is the radio antenna.

2wheels4me

The red interior with the deviating black carpet and leather steering column casing is to die for, and I know, because that's what my C2S has and I love it. Beautiful car, and nicely optioned; the red looks great with the black. Great comments on operation with nits plusses and minuses. I too have a 335i and agree on those convenience items. However dynamically, as I have said elsewhere, the Pcar makes the '12 335i Sport feel like a Camry. The latest generation was a nice upgrade in comfort and efficiency, but a serious downgrade in terms of fun.

jlanka

Excellent post, thanks very much for writing it. I ordered my C4S yesterday. I'm going to file this post for future reference.

carsrmyvice

love the red interior. I also lament those lines in the windshield.

Eric - Plug Guy

Congrats on the new ride, and that is one stunner of a color combo. Looks great.

If you need clear sidemarkers, or other goodies for the interior/exterior, come into my office anytime.

chuck911

Only .37g? Feel free to start using the brakes any time now!

fester

Nice write up! Agree with everything you said. Enjoy the beauty/beast!

Precision Auto

Great build! Enjoy the car!

John's 991

Really pretty car! The wire in the windshield I think is the radio antenna, and I stopped noticing it pretty soon. I did get the satellite radio antenna replaced as I was having a problem with reception. You have lots of room on that G-meter to go too!

Precision Auto

That's an expensive windshield! Protect it with Clearplex!

ww007

Well I was finally able to clean her up after I had a scratch fixed. As promised, here are some more pics. She's washed, clayed, and waxed.

This was the first time I've clayed and waxed a car myself, so hopefully she came out OK.

I've had her for just about 2 weeks now and already have > 1000 miles.

It was an overcast day, so the quality isn't the greatest:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...N_tDUXMfLXM0Eo