I'm looking to purchase a new 2014 cayman s. I'm on the fence about the transmission PDk or manual. This would be my first Porsche purchase. I never purchased a sport car without a manual transmission . It will not be a daily driver and I am leaning toward PDk with sport steering wheel, sport exhaust, & sport chrono just to name a few. I did test drive both PDk & manual. I like that the PDk seems faster however I'm concerned of getting bored with the PDk and regretting not getting the manual. Anybody who has been in this situation before & decided on PDk care to share any insight or feelings on the matter please let me know what your opinion is. thanks.
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get the pdk

 

I've only driven the PDK in a 2014 Cayman S (on the track!) and if you get bored with that, you would either be dead or just crazy.

Get the PDK, don't look back and get that stupid smile on your face knowing that you have one of the finest P-cars ever hatched.

FWIW, I've been looking to add a 997.2 4S to my garage and I'm seriously considering altering strategies...I found everything perfect about the new Cayman S and I'm envious for your good wisdom.

 

PDK is a great tranny but in my opinion I think manual. Even though I could never shift as fast as the PDK or DCT in the M, there is no feeling like a Manual. I believe you get the full driving experience with a manual transmission.

 

The PDK shifts better than any of us ever could dream of, however very few if any of us will ever drive a factory Porsche race car in real competition. The idea of not being able to heel and toe or left foot brake with a manual tranmission would really bumb me out. The satisfaction of making that down shift from fifth to third with all four wheels working closely together, is one of the satifactions of track and racing days, especially when it finally becomes "automatic" with your limbs doing all of the work.
PDK is near perfect, so are many of the new Porsches, but the human should drive and the computers second. IMHO

 

If not having to drive in stop and go traffic like daily commuting I would go 6MT.

 

I don't know. I was a die hard manual guy, but after driving the PDK with sport design steering wheel ( paddles on the wheel) it was a blast, and very engaging. Might not have been faster than leaving it in sport plus auto, but I felt like I was in control, and it was a lot of fun. Still light years faster than I could shift manually.

 

Get the manual so that the 991 GT3 guys can be jealous!

 

if the car is not a daily driver then why go automatic? A stick for your occassional sporting car is fun and soon to be a rare thing with porsche pulling manual trannys from their top cars....

If you were using it as a daily in traffic id say PDK.
If you were to say 90% track id say PDK.

 

I went PDK on my new Cayman S for the obvious reasons; daily driver, shifts faster and smarter than me and the paddles still allow you to 'feel' connected.

You need to drive both of them and decide for yourself.

Good Luck . . . .

 

Manual won't be around much longer, so get it while you can!

 

PDK drives you; You drive the manual.

 

It depends. Would you buy a player piano?

 

Check the gear rations on the six speed manual and the PDK and it is easy to see why a PDK has better perfromance figures. (Though they can shift gears faster than any human) Porsche stacked the deck to sell more expensive automatics. Player piano, you drive it or it drives you and manual transmissions going away. Why not one of the future cars that just drive themselves so a person can text, do crossword puzzles, play solitare, take a nap or whatever while going to watch a Justin Bieber concert?

 

I've driven a 981 PDK for a few track sessions and for several days on the street as a service loaner. I liked PDK on the track and found the shift map to clearly outperform me. Maybe that would change with practice, but my conclusion was there's little/no need (at least on my home track) to manually shift it. I've no doubt my lap times with PDK would be lower.

As much as I liked PDK on the track, I did not like it on the street. Mind you, I really wanted to like it, but after I played with it for a while, I got bored with what I felt was artificial, strained, and unneeded interaction and just left it in auto, albeit "sport." Yes, you can manually shift to make yourself think you're accomplishing something, but it's just mental masturbation. I did manually shift to listen to the automated rev matching blips. Very cool, but likely noobie entertainment.

So, street or track, I concluded that the PDK technology and maps are amazing and hard for a mere mortal to beat, so I think if one wants PDK, embrace it and let it do its thing. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up my stick