DGH-Fahren

Within the last week, our 2011 Cayman S has experienced random shifting problems. The car is still under warranty with 21,500 miles on the clock.

On occasion the PDK transmission gets stuck in a single gear. Some times using the paddles frees it, and some times not. When it does shift, it is rough and grinding. So far, turning the car off (a reboot of sorts) has been the only solution. After which, it runs fine for a few days.

One trip to the Porsche dealer has failed to find any faults. The car goes back to the local Porsche dealer tomorrow for round 2.

Any and all suggestions on how to fix this are appreciated.

Thanks mucho !

jcastle

By your description, this seems mechanical. There are no fixes. When pdk goes bad, must replace the entire box and send it to Porsche for study.

KWP1911

This is my fear for the PDK.

How many miles are expected before the clutches go bad and the tranny has to be pulled?

I put a new clutch and flywheel in my '02 M5 in '05 at 33,000 miles. It now has 124,xxx miles and has been to the track and driven hard and still on that clutch.

Macster

In this case the PDK is probably suffering from infant death. This is what warranties are for.

I would expect the clutches to be "lifetime". (Even though I hate that word.) There are 2. They are multi-plate. They run in hydraulic fluid. They split the clutch duties. Also, larger/heavier vehicles with PDK have not manifested any clutch issues that I'm aware of.

Sure, there are going to be exceptions, there always are, but I would buy a PDK equipped car in a NY second (and I would consider if the car came with PCCB's a bonus) with no worries about PDK (or PCCB) longevity.

There are owners of the traditional manual transmission who think nothing of at least advising a clutch change at so many miles. (Thank god with over 282K miles on my car's original clutch I didn't listen to them. Saved a ton, make that 2 tons, of money.) And there is this: Whether they practice what they preach I am not sure.

Regardless, it wouldn't take too many of these traditional manual clutch jobs to match (or even surpass) what a PDK clutch refresh would cost if one was ever needed to begin with.

Buy a PDK equipped car. Unless forbidden by the owners manual where it my car I'd treat the PDK to an early fluid/filter service between 5K and 15K miles though probably closer to 5K than 15K miles then again every 50K/60K miles thereafter.

jcastle

I've got a pdk with 72k miles. still going strong.