Nicoli35

A year ago, I tried very hard to explain to people how my '09 PDK wasn't an "automatic".

They were respectful enough not to laugh about it in my face, but even I had to admit to myself finally: I was driving an automatic transmission. A great one, but it was an automatic.

Precision Auto

Next evolution will include ALL ELECTRIC! Add a "simulated" exhaust note to your PDK!!! Even the fibration from an "exhaust" will have to be simulated.

Did you ever ask yourself why your digital SLR camera makes a shutter sound??

barihunk

Not to be a smart ***, but you do know that most Digital SLRs still have shutters that actually move and make the sound.

toplabels

Carrera Pete I agree with you 100%. Unfortunately some people have the need to impose their likes and dislikes on others. I say drive what you like and its all good. It does not hurt me one bit either way if you like one or the other.

The point is not weather one is old, or faster, or easier, or harder or whatever...it is a matter of personal choice and let there be freedom of choice.

David

SB

Manual is on its last legs.....surely, manual steering and pedals are well under way of being obsolete. Just check out google autonomous Prius or a 3 series BMW lapping Laguna Seca. Soon enough that BMW will be lapping faster than a human driver. It will be another two "habits" we're attached to gone out the window. After that, it would leave a driver with the only habit of getting into a car on the street or on the track and just program the NAVI.

My point is that I want to be in control over as many aspects of driving as I can. Am I slower and less efficient with a manual? Sure. But shifting, and especially executing a perfect rev-match on a downshift just feels so good......and if I cared that much about being faster or more efficient, there are several better choices in the same price range.

I love computers for the safety margin they give me (ie Rev Limiter, and PSM, and ABS), and for making Porsche less of a compromise between track and road car (PASM). But leave the driving, shifting, and pedaling to myself please.

MaxLTV

This discussion reminds me of my grandpa who used to say that transmission with synchros are cheating and are only for young nancies who cannot drive. He used to say that real men do not need synchros, and that synchros are evil that makes the transmission break more often and more expensive to repair (kind of true at the time). He also used to say that women should not drive, and a lot of other nonsense. But the world moved on. I bet many people in this forum never drove or even saw anything with a non-synchro transmission.

chuckbdc

Mine is automatic for weekday commutes, manual for weekend joyrides, automatic for long trips and and for maximum performance anywhere. Some will think I have given up the essential pure technology of high performance driving. Keeping in mind that is in a car that it tightens its engine mounts when I tighten what connects me to the seat bottom in hight speed cornering, that leads to one conclusion: some are clueless.

ScorpionT

Exactly. The PDK is simply an evolution of the automatic transmission, just as the electronic power steering is evolved from hydraulic power steering, the electric car is evolved from the gasoline powered car, and so on. If it can shift automatically, its an automatic transmission.

The PDK is no more a manual transmission than the "auto-stick" is.

Alan Smithee

The dual-clutch automated manual has been on the market for a decade now. Most people do not understand how it works, just as most people do not know how a torque converter works. Anybody "trying to have people understand..." is only trying to make themselves feel better about their choice.

Both are automatic transmissions, and typically both have the ability for gears to be selected by the driver.

toplabels

We always go back to the same argument wether this or that transmission is better and why one or the other doesn't deserve to exist because of xyz......

People that swear by manuals or PDKs feel the need to defend them as if their life depended on it.

Again it's a personal choice which does not deserve criticism.

kosmo

just wait until we have the autonomous cars! yeah

chuck911

Its easy to accept the average guy not getting it, or even the average Porsche owner. A straightforward engineering explanation is just going to make a lot of peoples eyes glaze over. For a driver though the difference is everything and ought to be super easy to understand.

The great Bob Bondurant, in his Guide to High Performance Driving says that the key to driving is to control weight transfer in order to maximize traction for the basic functions of acceleration, braking and cornering. Just to repeat, the key is controlling weight transfer. This is so because the car only moves at all thanks to traction, and the more pressure the tires have on the road the more traction you get and the more the car can move. The typical person thinks its the steering wheel that makes the car go where it does. The skilled driver knows that only works to a point, beyond which the car responds to weight transfer.

Now, what kind of conditions are we talking about here? Only conditions where the car and drier are likely to go spinning off into things in a flash, if the right actions aren't taken pronto, that's all.

So, the driver of any good manual transmission, be it PDK or otherwise, deftly modulates throttle accordingly, which finesses traction appropriately, and flies on down the road with aplomb.

The driver of an automatic transmission modulates the throttle and.... well.... not much happens. The link between throttle and drive wheels is so compromised its anyone's guess what if anything will happen. Throttle control is shot- and with it, the drivers ability to control the car.

Yes there are some automatic transmissions that do a much better job of providing throttle control than others. And yes when PDK is in normal mode the throttle response is damped enough and the shifts smooth enough it can feel just like an automatic. But the essential distinguishing features are always there even if sometimes just lurking in the background. Push it at all and it becomes quite clear that PDK is definitely not an automatic.

Lots of people still won't get it, because this all sounds like something that only matters to racers. In that case, try reminding them how easy it is for anyone even driving totally legally to find themselves driving at the limit. All it takes is one turn onto an unexpectedly oily/wet patch of road, a little show or ice, or even something like dirt or sand on the road. Suddenly then it may not matter what they try and do with the steering wheel- if they don't understand weight transfer and its effect on traction, therefore handling, they are gonna be toast. Then they usually get it!

IndyRob

I have owned 3 PDK cars. All were great, it's a wonderful piece of engineering, had near bullet proof dependability even with my abuse. Part of that is that it's an electronic request when you move the shifter, if the computer thinks it's okay and won't over rev or hurt one of the double clutches, it processes your request, sometimes much to your surprise.

Sometimes in showing others it's flawless operation, I would take it to speed, and flick it from 7th, to 6th, to 5th, to 4th, to 3rd, to 2nd, and all the way back to 7th, and it wouldn't as much as hiccup.

With Sport Chrno, the launch control is fun. In Sport Plus mode, it is another fun thing as it keeps downshifting to keep the revs up, won't upshift..you can use the paddles to just concentrate on one shift, the upshift. It is the exact opposite of the non sport mode that basically keeps the car at about 1200 rpm and puts it in 7th asap.

I highly, highly recommend it. You can manually hold each gear, quickly downshift, and get maximum burbbles and pops. Coming out of a tight corner, sometimes I would up shift, and then for no reason at all downshift two or three gears just to take it from 3rd, to 4th, back to 3rd and then to 2nd..just to try to fake it out, and to hear the wonderful symphony of sound.

You can't do that with the MT.

But what you can do with the MT, is be in the wrong gear, miss a shift...feel the shift gate, try to think is the 5th or 7th. You can request a gear it doesn't and won't want to go in. You can feel in your palm when it goes in. I will probably drive it at a higher rev range almost all the time, then the PDK would do even in sport mode. I will be in 2nd a lot. I will have the sport exhaust on a lot. from 20 mph to 60, 2nd and maybe 3rd will be the gears of choice...only when I am distracted and want to view more of the country side will I use the taller gears. I probably won't shift as much even as I did in playing with the PDK. But I do know this. After 3 PDK's I really missed the MT.

Pre PDK it was about 90% manuals and 10% Tiptronics...mostly to accomodate the wives of the owner.

First year PDK, it caught on quickly...and by 2nd year was almost 50%/50%.

By 2012 it was 90% PDK, and 10% manuals.

I think given that the PDK is superior in every way, PDK stays majority. But also feel MT starts to crawl back maybe to 20% take rate, given what I am reading on this board.

I like shifting and making a mistake. The PDK NEVER made a mistake.

Either way, I don't think you can't make a bad choice.

991guy

My sales guy at the Porsche dealer says it will be a very long time before the manual dies. Now that have released the the 991 and Boxster w/manual shift, my dealer has trouble moving PDK. Partially because of the uptick, but most importantly because guys like to shift! It has more to do with that than outright performance. Who cares if the PDK is a tenth to 60 faster? I don't. I just like rowing the gears!!!

Jastx

That's my feeling exactly.