Julian Thompson

So I think I need a bit of guidance. I've had my PDK gts for about three weeks or so now, and largely I'm enjoying it. There are some huge positives and some negatives that I have found too, but for now I want to ask you experienced PDK lovers for a little help.

Now first off I'm not a staunch "manual" man that was never going to enjoy the PDK. I do like to manual shift but I also love progress and technology and who couldn't fail to be impressed with the machine gun upshifts that this gearbox offers the driver.

However, I am finding the experience of running the box to be emotionally difficult to rationalise.

Let me make an example so that you can relate back. In film photography you take the photo and because you have no screen on the camera you have to visualise your work as you shoot - you stay in the moment and the process of seeing your picture is a later event. With modern digital photography there exists an almost impossible temptation to continually shoot and then right away look at the little screen to "check" your work. This is called "chimping" in photography if you didn't know - and it can be corrosive because you can spend too long looking down and not enough time looking at the next shot opportunity. The temptation to chimp is so strong that premier camera manufacturer Leica actually recently built a digital camera with no rear screen. So it's like a film shooting experience but with digital technology.

Moving to my Porsche, for a moment, we have a car that has a plethora of automatic modes. First of all, in automatic mode around town obviously it's great - super easy to drive and perfect if you're lost, in a strange place or whatever. But out on the road I find the automatic mode totally nauseating. The car is so powerful that the resultant kick down from me putting the throttle down a little too far ruins fluid progress. So I searched through the modes and ended up in manual.

Now manual is good but now when I hard charge the car still wants to upshift at the rpm limit, without me. And, more annoyingly, it also wants to downshift if I press the throttle too hard and engage the microswitch at the limit of travel.

So I find my driving is less fluid than I would like - I feel like
I'm honestly driving an automatic with a manual mode rather than a racing sequential gearbox.

If the manual gearbox driver is expected to manually drive the car why can't the sequential gearbox driver also be expected to drive that car - however that is supposed to be done? I do feel at present like I'm not totally happy with it. It's almost like Porsche gave me every option but in doing so made it hard to emotionally bond with the car. It's like they were trying to make the car all things to all people rather than saying look - we built an incredible transmission that out shifts the fastest manual driver. And all you have to do is flip these paddles. Instead they did that and said ah well we can also do stick, and let's do auto, and let's have sport and sport plus and neither and let's have a lockdown microswitch to confuse it all more!

Strangely in my Ferrari 360 F1 I don't find anywhere near the same problem. The car defaults to manual mode first off, which for me is a huge plus - the driver has to make a conscious effort to put the car into auto rather than the other way around. Obviously the 360 is ancient now and the shifting speed is no match for the Porsche but it does feel like an automated manual box (which is what it is in the 360!) rather than a computer that is allowing me (under duress) some intervention.

So my question is really - what buttons and modes (god it's crazy isn't it having to programme the damned car!) do you use to give you the most manual experience in your PDK car? Is there anything I can do to my car to remove a lot of these functions and have it just like I like it, soon as I start to drive? Aftermarket? Does anyone else kind of love the PDK but also kind of hate it / can't make up their mind? (But also not really want to back track to manual?)

My dream setup would be just park, reverse and manual mode on the gate and then totally manual up and down with the paddles. Pull both for neutral. No microswitch. No upshifts at the red line. And if you drop below 1k rpm it engages neutral. I actually have a motorcycle powered racing car with an electric paddle shift system that is much like this and it's incredible to drive!

Be interested to hear. And sorry for the long post.

Cristophosphorus

Julian, you're opening Pandora's PDK Box again!

It's all a matter of personal preference. I absolutely love and adore technology and consider myself an early adopter for most things out there. For example, I was dead set on an SMG-equipped E46 M3 when that was the newest feature; and as we all know, SMG isn't an auto gearbox with flappy paddles.

With PDK, you're given the best of both worlds. Your wife can get into the car, put it into Drive, and drive without worrying about anything. But, you can also hop into the car and use the paddles to shift manually up and down. As you've stated, though, it isn't perfect and it doesn't get close to the feeling you have with your 360 F1 (or an SMG M3, IMO).

If one of your issues is having to switch to manual mode, er, manually, then I suggest you try your best to look past that and enjoy the car and transmission for what it is. I test drove so many 911s and half of them were PDK. But, for me, nothing beats the feeling of clutching in, moving the shifter into a neutral zone, and turning the key before I slot into 1st to drive off. It's that manual, do-it-yourself feeling that gets me going. I can only assume that it's a very, very similar feeling you have with your 360.

I'm not sure if tuners may be able to cure some of what you're looking for, but part of the reason you're probably missing the manual-esque feel is because PDK shifts so_damn_fast. It truly does feel like an automatic, whereas with older F1/SMG-type transmissions, you had that pause and bang into gear feeling.

Tl;dr - Put the car into Sport Plus and drive the hell out of it. Look into tuners who may be able to reprogram PDK to avoid shifting down on full throttle (does PDK do this? That sucks!) or shifting for you at redline (does PDK do this, too? I didn't think it did).

AF330i

Sorry I don't have an answer as I have a manual 911 though I can relate to your experience with the 360 as I have an R8 with a single clutch automated manual ... But I have a question, when you hit red line you don't like that it will shift to the next gear ... What would be ideal for you. The reason I'm asking is I would think this is a good feature. My R8 has it in non sport mode and I like it, in sport mode it doesn't upshift automatically at red line and I wish it did.

Porsche911GTS'16

I enjoy the PDK because it offers me a comfortable ride in LA's notorious bumper to bumper traffic yet I can take control of the gear shifting when I feel like it. I, for one, have not noticed that the car automatically shifts into the next gear at the red line (perhaps in normal mode it does? I only use the paddles in sport and sport plus). In the two or three times that I have gone into the red line (usually in first gear, by accident) the gear box makes this unsettling duh-duh-duh-duh noise - as if it is telling me to upshift, which I always do upon hearing the noise. The noise is the same sound that the car makes at the beginning of a launch control. Anyway, count me in as a huge PDK fan. I definitely see where a manual would be a lot of fun but for my purposes (daily driver, living in LA, enjoy "vegging out" as I drive sometimes) PDK is a perfect automatic/manual hybrid for me.

Cristophosphorus

It's an uncomfortable feeling when you're paying attention and ready to shift at redline, only to have the car upshift for you. It's yet another way of feeling disconnected when you're in manual mode. Our Jaguar XK wouldn't upshift by itself in manual mode, which was great.

Interesting. Maybe it's different based on the mode(s) selected?

Noah Fect

Everybody will have their own preferences, but I'd just say give it some more time. Try to drive the car, and not the transmission. What seems awkward or poorly-designed at first may be surprisingly easy to get used to. For instance, if you're accidentally hitting the microswitch at the end of the throttle travel (which isn't actually a microswitch, just a stiff buckling spring), spend some time getting used to the pedal travel with the car turned off.

As an aside, my 2013 981BS has the same throttle pedal as the 991s did. I don't know if it's still true in later model years, but in the 2013s, the pedal actually has three discrete levels of resistance. I disliked the high pedal resistance in the secondary range from day 1. It was clear that this was an objectively stupid design decision on Porsche's part that I wasn't going to get used to, so I yanked the secondary spring out. As a result, because I no longer have to press down so hard in normal driving, I never accidentally trigger the kickdown. This mod obviously isn't for everyone, but if you're mechanically inclined it's something to think about. 25,000 miles later I certainly wouldn't go back.

I drive in Sport mode almost exclusively, but when stuck in traffic I often use auto non-Sport mode for smoother throttle progression. I use manual non-Sport mode on long road trips for the same reason, and because I prefer to downshift manually for passing. Consider adding T-Design's button memory mod if you object to having to configure all this stuff every time you start the car (as I do.)

Most of all, work on that throttle control. Accidentally hitting the kickdown button suggests you could benefit by focusing more on smoothness and less on speed. (Who couldn't, right?) Even your choice of shoes can make a difference. Notwithstanding the goofy throttle spring, the overall package was engineered by people who knew and cared a lot about what they were doing, so try to work with the controls and not against them.

Julian Thompson

Evening gents - thanks so much - so to be clear I don't hate that the car upshifts at the red line - like you say it's technically excellent -
But conceptually the manual car does not manually upshift for you at the redline - you get used to the sound of the car and the Rev counter in your peripheral vision and you learn to shift at the best point. With the PDK it should just replace the outdated action of clutch in, shift, clutch out with a flip of the paddle. When I, the driver, decides that now is the time. If I'm close to the red line in a tight corner I don't want the chance that the car will decide to upshift. And rather like the photography thing I don't want to get used to the car doing the upshifts. I want to feel the limiter kick in this time so that next time
I can learn when maximum is maximum. I won't learn that without the car just doing its bit - the shift itself - and let me worry about when. I mean it doesn't steer for me so why should it choose a gear ratio for me!

Julian Thompson

Thanks Noah I was wondering if the throttle could be altered and that's some good advice. I'm not actually triggering the micro switches I'm managing to stay smooth but I just don't like the idea that they are there. For me there is no purpose to having a switch under the throttle that engages a lower gear when I have the same action available to me by flipping my index finger 3mm... It's a bad concept as far as I can see?

Julian Thompson

So the t design memory thing remembers everything? Like sport, dampers, exhaust etc? If so that's amazing!

Noah Fect

My guess is that they are doing it for safety purposes, where you need to get out of somebody/something's way in a hurry and may not realize/remember that you're in manual mode.

This has happened to me more than once when I've taken an exit after a long stretch on the highway and forgotten that I was in manual mode. I haven't needed to hit the kickdown switch, but I can see how it could happen.

Yes, at least on US cars. (I don't have his particular module and have no affiliation with it, but I was one of the contributors to the open source project it's based on.)

Archimedes

Start car, press sport button, put it in manual mode. Not sure I follow what you're having issues with.

Archimedes

You'd rather the car either cut ignition when the limiter kicked in or ran into the red?

Archimedes

I drive my PDK cars hard and I've never once had them kick down when I'm in manual mode. I have in auto mode, but never in manual. If one is having that happen a lot, it probably means they're driving around in the wrong gear a lot.

ipse dixit

The PDK isn't a manual gearbox. Neither is a manual gearbox a PDK.

You can't really buy one transmission in the hopes or belief that it replicates the other.

Doing so would be akin to someone buying a cab and thinking it's just like the coupe, except the top is soft. Not exactly, right?

Neither transmission is better than the other. Each is suited for the different drivers out there with various preferences and uses for their cars.

Julian Thompson

Thanks for the input guys I'm going to keep at it and see if I can really get into it :-)

Ps an example of where i know I'm in the "wrong" gear is a slippy road surface using full power but short shifting up the box. easy in a manual and no danger but in the PDK car all it takes is a bit too much toe and you'll initiate kick down and break traction assuming you had the car balanced perfectly on the short shift.