Jabs1542

I finally took delivery of a 2013 C2S 7MT, thisinvolved flying to South Carolina and driving back to the DC Metro area – a goodtrip to learn about the car.


I’ve had a C4 996 for 12 years and reallygot to know that car, tracking it quite a bit helps learn the car as well. Somy driving impressions are relative to the 996. At first I thought the 991 feltlarger and heavier, then I realized what I was feeling was the fact that it isbetter planted to the road – far better planted. To get the 996 to perform youhad to “drive the car”; to land in the next gear at the bottom of the powerband you had to upshift at the top of the current gear, there was no slop.Balance and cornering were delicately controlled by brakes and throttle. The991 was a bit different, gear shifts could be a little sloppy and you werecertain to hit the power band (it’s a much larger power band). I’m sure thatbrakes and throttle will get you through a turn better but the overall speed ofthe turn is so much higher than in the 996. Basically knowing my 996 well Icould take certain turns at certain speeds if I kept everything optimized, nowin the 991 I am matching those same speeds without even knowing the car yet! I’malmost scared to see what this car will do. It took close to a year of trackingto learn my 996, I see it taking at least that long on this car because thecapabilities are so much further along.


Here are some of the things I learned on my991:


Removing the Key Fob worked exactly asposted here on RL. That is, try the Fob without the key being anywhere nearby,and I had to do this twice (as described in the post) to get it correct, gotthe error messages, turn the Fob left, and it popped out. Thank you RL J


The downshift blip requires Sport Plus to beengaged, and it can be disengaged (with Sport Plus) if you disable PSM. Onceagain, this was described here at RL and it worked perfectly. Thank you RL J


The hill hold function worked as advertisedand if I released the clutch slowly (slower than normal) it disengagedproperly, as described here on RL. Thank you RL J


The E-Brake took a little while to get usedto but the recommendations here on RL made this adjustment quite easy. Unfortunatelythe days of a fast rotation due to hand braking are gone. Anyway, the E-Brakewas easy to deal with. Thank you RL J


There were several posts about navigationissues, I found the navigation system to work quite well and was very easy tooperate, including the incorporation of way points.


Warning – Other than first and second gear,all other gears can get you into 3 digits very quickly. This car is a bit of amonster – can’t wait to get her on the track and learn where the edge is.


Something cool – when going past 75 (for mycar it’s actually 78 on the digital speedo) with the car in normal mode I cansee the wing in the rear view mirror push up slightly higher than the rear brakelight, however if I cross 75 while in Sport Plus the wing lifts considerablyhigher. It was mentioned in the threads that it went higher but I wasn’t surethat a single car could have different wing deployment heights based on the car’ssetup when it crossed the magic 75 mph threshold – way cool.


Now the problems:


Has anyone noticed that the digital gauges don’texactly line up with the analog gauges. I’m not positive about this, because it’shard to read carefully while at speed, but 75 mph on cruise control doesn’t looklike it’s exactly at 75 on the analog gauge – of course this could be due tothe angle I’m reading the analog gauge at.


However the Oil Pressure is definitely wayoff, I suspect that the analog gauge is measuring bars while the digital gaugeis clearly reading psi. Is this correct, is the analog gauge displayed in bars?


The shape of the mirrors chops off most ofthe area you need in the mirror. The triangular shape does a good job ofshowing the lines of the car but it clips off the main view of whatever is inthe next lane. Of course I could care less about this on the open road but youcan’t get very far in a big city without dealing with a multi-lane interstate (forme it’s I495). Rant over, I’ll deal with it.


I find the gauges rather difficult to read,particularly when wearing polarized sunglasses. Even when parked it is hard tosee where the tach redlines. However the Shift Assistant took care of thatproblem. I haven’t seen many people talk about that feature (it’s on the MFD) butit is quite handy. I played with it a bit and noticed that the countdown isbased on the speed at which you are approaching the redline, very cool. Thisallows me to focus on the road and see this in my peripheral vision for proper shifts.I’m sure that once I get used to the car I’ll know this by sound but I’m notquite there yet.


The PCM will not play FLAC files (nor DSDbut then I didn’t have my hopes up) but it will play WAV files. This means Ihad to convert everything from FLAC to WAV, no big deal with a batch fileconverter. Here’s a slick trick. I inserted a 128 GB flash drive into the USB portand my system wanted to catalog all of that as 1 genre with 1 artist and over2000 tracks – yuck! However, if I select Track Listing and then back out(return button) it will put me into a folder view, which is how my music is cataloged.So now I can sort by Genre > then Artist > then Album > and get theproper Track Listing.

Pavegeno928

Great review...enjoy

Analog vs. Digital Gauges
I use the analog only...why see things twice and then get ticked off over the difference? For me in the color display I use:

Top of Display: Compass as the North Arrow in the PCM screen is too hard to read.

Four Fields in middle of display
1. Fuel Range Remaining
2. GPS Height - cause it's cool and not displayed anywhere else
3. Time/Dist to Next stopover waypoint in your route - I like knowing when i am getting to the next stop. The final distance and ETA is displayed on the PCM screen
4. Voltage - not displayed on any analog gauge and I think this is very important. I believe all of the other important readouts are analog except his one.

Bottom Field
Can't remember!

Bose System gripe - I can't play the Audio portion of DVDs. Think this is because I am in Europe and the DVD Region can not be adjusted by us, but only the dealer. Just discovered that RTFM last night and not able to play a RUSH in Rio or R30.

Good luck with your car!

fastdiablo

I originally thought the rear view mirrors were a bit odd in terms of field of view, but I must have gotten used to them because they both show me everything I need to see and also do a great job of showing the curb area while parallel parking even without tilt-down in reverse. minor neck craning -non issue.

Polarized glasses are useless in a modern world. I can't get my head around why these exist other than creating more margin for luxotica etc. Can't see navi or smart phone screens.. what, are we out on the water trying to see fish under the surface? lol.

BradB

What I don't like in the Nav system is that when you put in a destination and it gives you three options to choose from...you really can't tell any details about the routes the Nav is suggesting. I wish you could easily see a detailed view or a turn-by-turn listing.

Jabs1542

Pavegeno928 - thanks, I'll try adding "other" information to the MFD. BTW, I did have the Height in there when I was driving back through the mountains - pretty cool. I already have the voltage in the MFD, the Dist to next Stopover is also a good idea.


Fastdiablo - Is it even possible to buy non-polarized sunglasses anymore? And hey, when I cross a bridge and look down I want to see fish!

Jabs1542

Learned a few more things today

- I initially misspoke about the tail rising higher in Sport Plus, actually it rises higher anytime the sunroof is fully open or tilted open.

- If you raise the tail manually (using the button) it will raise to the lower position regardless of the sunroof position. This was a little surprising. I guess the logic is such that when it reaches the increasing threshold (75 mph) it checks the sunroof position and then raises the tail accordingly. Manual button presses skips this logic path.

- I noticed when I got to triple digits with the sunroof open the air flowing over the car got much louder. After a spirited drive winding out 3rd gear (which we all know means triple digits) I heard the loud rush of air. I then placed my hand on the air screen at the front of the sunroof and as I slowed down I felt it lift higher once I dropped below 100 mph. I can't study the air screen while driving but it seems like it goes up about 2" while in double digits and then drops down to 1" once you hit triple digits.