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I travel frequently for work, still do, and never drive and park. Especially for any trip over 2 days it’s always cheaper to Uber/Lyft than to pay for parking. To say nothing of the convenience.
There are three airports where I live, and if I go to the closest one, then yes, I take Uber/Lyft. But the other two, depending on the hour of the day, can take 1-2 hours...then I prefer to drive myself. If its not bad traffic, then I actually enjoy driving myself. Once, in bad weather, it took me 3 hours driving home from the one furthest from my house.
To quote Murphy;’s Law, “If something can go wrong, it probably will”. I try to live my life by looking at the probabilities of something happening, I try to mitigate, or lower the probability, by planning for the worst.
There are three airports where I live, and if I go to the closest one, then yes, I take Uber/Lyft. But the other two, depending on the hour of the day, can take 1-2 hours...then I prefer to drive myself. If its not bad traffic, then I actually enjoy driving myself. Once, in bad weather, it took me 3 hours driving home from the one furthest from my house.
Well, if you are parking your car at the airport for weeks on end (or even more than a month), I would imagine the airport parking would be more expensive than even a 1-2 hour Uber/Lyft ride.
Plus, I would never feel comfortable leaving my car at the airport for days, much less weeks or even months.
Well, if you are parking your car at the airport for weeks on end (or even more than a month), I would imagine the airport parking would be more expensive than even a 1-2 hour Uber/Lyft ride.
Plus, I would never feel comfortable leaving my car at the airport for days, much less weeks or even months.
Back in simpler normal times, I would drive to airport and park in the garage. My trips were usually on the order of 3-4 days totaling about 125-130k frequent flyer miles per year. As a regular traveler, I knew where to park and for most people that's the key pain/fear point.
The airport is about an hour away from the house. While I have tried taking Turo/Lyft from home to the airport on a few occasions, I strongly prefer driving myself. Stepping off of a red eye and waiting for a ride share home sucks. With your own car, you just hop in and go. Plus, it's always great to get a fresh reminder of how fast our cars actually are on the ride home, especially after spending the week in a rental car. LOL
Well, if you are parking your car at the airport for weeks on end (or even more than a month), I would imagine the airport parking would be more expensive than even a 1-2 hour Uber/Lyft ride.
Plus, I would never feel comfortable leaving my car at the airport for days, much less weeks or even months.
The longest I left my car at the airport was two weeks. But that was long enough for the battery to go dead on one of my trips. It’s simply personal preference, and not necessarily about which method saves me the most money. Sometimes, I just like to drive. I would add that going forward, until this pandemic thing shows signs of going away, I’ll drive myself.
So, on Friday I contacted the Porsche dealership regarding the Li battery, and how best to “jump start” the battery should it become depleted enough that I cant start the car? Here is what he told me (I do not know if this is accurate, but this is what he told me....keep in mind, he’s trying to sell me the rear wheel steering option, so I don’t have any reason to think he would lie about this):
”Don't think you can jump the Li Ion battery, it's just got to be recovered, I believe it's a longer process that probably should be done by the dealer.”
If that us true, then I am cancelling this option, as I don’t need another complication...and given the few times I plan to track this car, I doubt I will be pressing the car hard enough to benefit from the 1.5 degree turn from the rear wheels. For some, I understand the performance benefit, but for me, if it comes with the disclaimer (so to speak) that you can;t jump start the car....then the negative outweighs the positive.
I had a 2013 911S w/o RAS and a 2019 Touring with RAS and drove the heck out of both. I could NOT ever tell the difference between the two as far as RAS is concerned but for "serious" turn-in-anticipation on a track. What I mean by that: your mind's eye has an anticipated turn in and achievable radius based on expereience with the track and car for each turn - with RAS, and quite magically, in the turn it gets even tighter as you almost imperceptibly feel the back come around and tighten things up even more. It always freaked me out a little as I thought maybe I was breaking loose but I know it allowed me to brake a little later and hit the gas sooner, hustling around the track at top speed. You just learn to have faith in the car and RAS. If that was important to me, I would order RAS. Otherwise, I would not.
I had a 2013 911S w/o RAS and a 2019 Touring with RAS and drove the heck out of both. I could NOT ever tell the difference between the two as far as RAS is concerned but for "serious" turn-in-anticipation on a track. What I mean by that: your mind's eye has an anticipated turn in and achievable radius based on expereience with the track and car for each turn - with RAS, and quite magically, in the turn it gets even tighter as you almost imperceptibly feel the back come around and tighten things up even more. It always freaked me out a little as I thought maybe I was breaking loose but I know it allowed me to brake a little later and hit the gas sooner, hustling around the track at top speed. You just learn to have faith in the car and RAS. If that was important to me, I would order RAS. Otherwise, I would not.
And, on my 992, I did not.
Thanks. That sort of confirms what Nick Murray said about rear wheel steering. He had a funny comment in one of his YouTube VLOG’s, where he said he was at a Porsche track event with several other “longtime Porsche owners”. he said they were testing out 911’s that they were told all had rear wheel steering. After the event they all gathered and he said everyone was “praising the benefits” of rear wheel steering. Afterwards, he privately went up to the Porsche rep and said that he was sure these cars did not have rear wheel steering...to which the Porsche rep said, he was right, and that Porsche had sent them the wrong cars without that option. The moral of the story: If you think something will help your driving skills, even if it isn’t, and like a placebo, you will believe it’s helping you. People believe what they want to believe. For some, it may help...but I suspect only for those that are truly pushing the limits of what the car will do?
Truly, you will never know the difference unless you are a bit of a track rat, and even then, minor but beneficial to be sure. People always say stuff like, it "transforms the car" or "it makes the car feel smaller" or some similar BS. Its BS. 911s are small, agile, amazing cars with or without RAS. Its a cool option to be sure, especially if you are going with the "sporty" ethos of the Sport Package (SPASM, exhaust, Chrono, etc.), plus aero or carbon roof, or other go fast feely things.
I had a 2013 911S w/o RAS and a 2019 Touring with RAS and drove the heck out of both. I could NOT ever tell the difference between the two as far as RAS is concerned but for "serious" turn-in-anticipation on a track. What I mean by that: your mind's eye has an anticipated turn in and achievable radius based on expereience with the track and car for each turn - with RAS, and quite magically, in the turn it gets even tighter as you almost imperceptibly feel the back come around and tighten things up even more. It always freaked me out a little as I thought maybe I was breaking loose but I know it allowed me to brake a little later and hit the gas sooner, hustling around the track at top speed. You just learn to have faith in the car and RAS. If that was important to me, I would order RAS.
This is why I ordered RAS. Coming from an E30 M3 on the track, on turn in, the rear end would move out as you enter the turn without breaking the tires loose lining up the car for a better angle on track out allowing you to get on the gas quicker. One of the benefits of 50/50 weight distribution. I can see how Porsche owners would not be used to this since most of the weight is in the rear. With RAS, it makes the car feel more like a more balanced car which is what I am used to. For street driving, unless you are pushing it on a winding road, you would not feel the difference.
Yes, I know there are many Lithium jump starter batteries. These jump starter batteries are lithium batteries (to reduce weight and size). I recently bought a NOCO GB150, which is advertised as an “ultra-safe jump starter Li battery”. What they mean is - their battery is Li. However, when you look at the manual that came with the jumper battery, on the 2nd page of the instruction is says, “to be used ONLY on lead-based or NiMetalHydride batteries...use on other battery chemistries could present a serious fire hazard”. That’s their warning, not mine.
Furthermore, I got the following from my dealership:
”Spoke to the Tech, read the manual, you can jump start the car using the special posts, you just cant jump start the battery, complicated but the Li battery is isolated once it drops below a certain voltage. You can damage the battery if it is excessivly discharged but it should not be because it isolates itself.”
So, if I understand what he said correctly, once the Porsche Li battery is depleted below a certain level, a built in safety mechanism isolates the battery from the car’s electrical system, thus preventing any further drain to the battery, which ultimately, could destroy the battery. That’s all good. BUT, it sounds like once the battery is isolated/disconnected, that you may have to take it into the dealership to reactivate?? I do know that the people at Antigravity, who make lithium car batteries, tell you that their batteries have this feature, but that there is a button, or switch on the battery that you have to engage to re-connect the depleted battery to the car;’s electrical system. Bottom line - this is NOT as simple as with a traditional Nimetal hydride or lead based car batteries that we all grew up using. If you jump start the car, but the Lithium battery is not reconnected to the car’s electrical system, then you are running everything on the car from the alternator...
Last edited by CodyBigdog; 07-20-2020 at 02:22 PM.
07-19-2020, 05:45 PM
