‘Everyday Supercar:’ Behind the Wheel of a 2018 911 Turbo S

By Joe Kucinski - March 28, 2022

From road trips, to rallies, to picking up the groceries a 2018 911 Turbo S excels at everything I have thrown at it.

Last September I picked up a new to me 2018 911 Turbo S. It was a dream fulfilled to land a Turbo 911, but I wanted to see if it really could be that everyday supercar that I kept reading about. The only way to find out was to buy the car and put it into service as my daily. It has been some of the most enjoyable ‘research’ that I have ever done. Now that I have put a couple thousand miles on the car, I thought it was a good time to offer up a progress report.

In this update I will cover what I have done with the car so far including any modifications. I will list any problems that I have experienced as well as any features I don’t like or wish I had. Is there a car in this price range that I would rather have? I am going to cover that as well. Can this car really do everything? And finally, I will share what I have planned next for this wonderful Porsche.

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

It is probably best to start this update by sharing where the car has been while in my possession. About a month after taking possession of the Turbo S it took me and the President of our PCA region on a 450-mile road trip. We were headed to Winchester, Virginia for the Zone 2 PCA Presidents meeting. We left Pennsylvania, and crossed Maryland, West Virginia and then into Virginia. The car was supremely comfortable the whole time. I was not racing or at all interested in getting a speeding ticket in the state of Virginia. So, this was just a relaxed drive. The car averaged about 27 mpg on the trip. We could have easily driven for several hundred more miles without fatigue. To think that this car is also capable of going 205 mph is hard to believe.

Slowest Turbo Driver

The downside to this relaxed comfort is that my road trip passenger now calls me the slowest Turbo driver ever. Again, I was not trying to set any land speed records and kept my cruising speed to right around 80 mph most of the way. The problem is that in this car 80 mph feels like 8 mph. There is no drama, no screaming engine, no crazy wind noise, or super stiff suspension to give you a sense of speed when you are under triple digits. Unless you stand on the accelerator there is really no indication of what this car can do. I did need to use the Sport Response button a time or two just to keep my passenger on his toes.

Attention

This might rank as my biggest surprise so far with this car. It gets a lot more attention than I expected. It is a 4-year-old 911 painted white so not a bold color by any stretch. And it doesn’t have the big wings like the GT cars do. So, I thought most folks would just see a white 911 and not even raise an eyebrow. That has not been my experience so far. I run to WAWA to grab a hoagie and people stop me in the parking lot and want to take pictures of the car and ask me about it. Half the time I gas up people ask me questions while I am at the pumps. When I wash it in my driveway and people walk by and comment on it. It has all been positive so far, but it is about all the attention I want.

I am not an attention guy and the Turbo S gets more than I thought. People say the Turbo S is not a real exotic car, and maybe that is true, but it is not a wallflower either. I would not be comfortable with anything that got more attention. My neighbor had a white Lamborghini Aventador for a couple years and I saw people constantly driving into our cul-de-sac off the main road simply to snap pictures of that car. I don’t want anything to do with that. If you are like me, just be warned that while the Turbo S does not attract folks like an Aventador, you will be drawing attention.

Modifications

As of now, I have not really done much to the car. If you knew me, you would know that is quite unusual. But I did grab a set of wheels and tires to use during the cold winter months here in the northeast. The previous owner of the car had a set of Sport Classic wheels that he wanted to get rid of. So, I grabbed them and had a set of Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 Plus tires mounted. I thought about dedicated winter tires, but I almost never drive in the snow. I really just need something that can handle the cold temps. Also, a set of DWS 06 Plus tires cost about half what a set of winter tires goes for. So far, I have no regrets with the decision as these tires have been great.

Cargo Capacity

You can’t consider a car an everyday driver if it can’t do the mundane things like picking up the groceries. There is enough room in this car to pick up enough groceries for a month. In the fall I took the car to our local food drive event called Phil-a-Trunk. My 2018 911 Turbo S was loaded up with over 200 pounds of food donations with room to spare. This is not the car to pick up sheets of plywood at Home Depot, but it can handle most daily tasks with ease.