Nicoli35

Hehehe

parkerfe

For a DD, nothing beats a 7 speed manual. I have 31k+ miles on my 2012 991C2S w/7mt, mostly in Atlanta traffic and love it. For a track car, I would go with PDK.

pvr

My daily is a BMW X5, arm chair driving etc. For the fun times, my new 911 will be used. Part of the fun and involvement is the manual gearbox for me.

Getting it right is part of the experience for me, with pdk it would always be right.

If it was my daily, I would most likely have the pdk.

BlackBeauty

I traded my '12 Manual Cayenne for a Cayenne S - it's really nice and comfortable. Shifting everyday in traffic was getting to be a drag. My '14 C2S Coupe is a manual and I can't see myself going to PDK until there's no choice - when then happens, I'll be fine and will adapt.

Homeles

MT is the reason God gave you two feet!

StudGarden

As for launch control, that wouldn't even factor into my decision at all. In fact, I'd get the Sport Chrono package in a stick before I got one on an automatic to get the rev matching. I look at SC more as an engine mount option with the slight benefit of a more aggressive throttle map over sport. The throttle map is something they could offer for free anytime they wanted to of course. The dynamic mounts are certainlly a cost item though.

I actually liked the 6 speed Cayman transition slightly more than the 7MT. The 6 just had a slightly better feel to it, though I appreciate the "gas gear" #7 and understand why its there.

Although I suppose if the stuck clutch issue ever happened to me I'd probably go PDK and never look back. I'm not sure what rijowysock is trying to say about the default mode though. Yes, its one half inch flick of the wrist to the left, but I'd hardly call that a default mode. I mean in the time it takes to type that post you could literally have the time to "change the default" for like 6 months or more.

I always associated MT's with sports cars, but the PDK is so good I can't really say that I miss it. In fact I regularly "change the default" all the way to the manual position, but then I notice myself actually having to divert attention away from the driving to think about shifting. Yes, I know that is pure sacrilege to many, as it would have been to pre-PDK me. There's something about working the linkage and thinking about it all the time and all that, and that will never be a negative for me. But there's something about being able to take that element out and just focus on the line on the curves. A nice road in an MT is a satisfying pay day at the end of a hard day's work. The same road in a PDK is more of a zen like experience. Then again I never fell for the hype about hydraulic steering. It was never "feel" for me, it was always just third party mechanical feedback and cavitation that I learned to work with and tolerate, but it was never, ever a positive. And few things in the automotive world grind my gears more than feeling an engine work to divert energy to something like that. Power takeoffs belong to trucks and bulldozers, not sports cars.

Anyway, if I was ordering I would have gone MT. But I got a good deal on a CPO that had a PDK so that's what I have. Test drove both though. Now that I've spent time with it, I don't know that I'd go back to MT. "Back in my day" MT's were more reliable, faster and better gas mileage. Today the only variable is reliability. The jury is still out on PDK to some degree, but so far its proven to be the modern era "rock crusher" of automatics.

I voted MT just because. But honestly its a tough call. The OP said to disregard launch control (I don't care about it anyway) and cost. To me, 4 grand is one heck of a tie breaker. I think if I was ordering now, it would come down to that. Take cost out of the equation, and the dust settles in favor of PDK. Your mileage may vary (although you will get better mileage in a PDK)

Noah Fect

Well said. One criticism often heard in the high-end audio community goes like this: a "music lover" is someone who listens to music, while an "audiophile" is someone who listens to equipment. A similar zinger can be applied here. Die-hard stick shift advocates drive the gearbox, while the rest of us drive the car.

Nicoli35

It's true, not everyone has the coordination and connection to the car to meld everything in one amazing beautiful zen experience with a proper manual. For those, who've always struggled in their manual use (secretly or not), pdk is the obvious choice. Their resentment at having had to pretend they were comfortable all that time can be vetted through threads like this. And so it shall be.

Just J

Even those of us who do have "the coordination and connection to the car to meld everything in one amazing beautiful zen experience with a proper manual" can prefer the PDK for the performance, the dual-mode flexibility, the protection from expensive mistakes, and the smooth, flowing, uninterrupted delivery of thrust, which leads to a state of satori in which I do not look down on those with a difference of opinion, as so many of them do upon me, but understand that those so unenlightened are necessary and valuable threads in the fabric of the universe.

Team Plutonium

We really should find a way to combine the 'manual vs. automatic' discussion with the 'cash vs. leased/financed' discussion.

I wish though we'd find another polarizing topic so we can jerk each other off even better.

FORENN

Although it is mildly entertaining to watch certain members unwittingly expose their insecurities by taking shots at those who don't share their personal preferences, I have to agree. While we are consolidating, we can throw in the 911 vs. Vette, 911 vs. Boxster/Cayman and 991 base vs. 997 GTS discussions.

maxpowers

For me at least, "driving" a sports car means being in complete control of the gears. I get great amount of satisfaction changing gears and nailing a perfect downshift. When I combine these with the rest of driving it makes me very happy and is why I want to drive a sports car.

Automating something I enjoy (or flipping paddles) greatly detracts from the experience. In 90% of my driving I'm not "finding the line" or anything like that, I'm staying in my lane and keeping up with traffic. Just sitting there with my foot on the gas pedal while the computer decides the shifts or I flip a paddle becomes boring for me, not zen like.

When I do have an open road I'm very much "driving the car", not just the gearbox, but the gearbox really helps enhance the experience.

StudGarden

911

911

991

StudGarden

Well said. Also, which color silver is that in your avatar?

shaytun

Is there a reason they cannot have launch control on a manual. I thought I heard the upcoming higher performance C7's may have it. Curious how it will work? Obviously you'd have to shift the car, but the clutch uptake part...I don't know?