Wayne Smith - Amazing!
What is your driving style - Do you drive mostly in manual / auto mode?
How often do you replace a Clutch fluid? Did you feel the change of gear shift after the fluid change?
Thanks

 

It would be great if some Rennlist member with OCD (and there's a few of them here and that's not a knock) would create a spreadsheet or a poll for members to input more expensive repairs and at what miles they occurred. Then we could get a better idea of how often certain repairs happen and see just how much it costs to own a Porsche 997. The data could be skewed somewhat by those that do their own repairs.

The data would be super helpful especially to the guys just trying to fulfill their dream of owning a Porsche on a budget where they cannot afford the downside. From what I see from a distance major engine repairs can start to increase in likelihood once we go over 80k miles. I mean START to increase. I think Fidelity warranties start to get more expensive once they get up there too.

 

Doug, Wayne's car is a .2 with PDK so not usually one where you go looking to scope bores unless there's evidence of something, like Bronz had.

My car will be a nice experiment on how long a scuffed (not yet scored) bore will last in a car that's driven hard using oil with higher film strength and 3,000 mile change intervals. The supercharged also probably adds additional stress, so that's another variable. But, I'm not going to rebuild it until I have obvious signs that things are getting substantially worse, like higher aluminum in the UOA or other signs. I've just replaced all the tensioners, the AOS, and the variocam solenoids, so anything that can prolong it, other than driving it like A Granny has been done. However, since it only sees about 5,000 miles per year, hardly anyone currently in the 997 forum will be around to see the report in 10 or 12 years when / if it fails, or maybe it will fail sooner - who knows. Currently, it's running flawlessly.

 

It's difficult to talk about driving style without sounding pompous. When alone I drive in what I consider to be a quick manner. I slow down if anyone is in the car with me or when traveling with a group. I slow down more and tend toward 7th gear when commuting or highway driving.

When spirited in Sport+ I'll switch to manual shifting. Otherwise I'll drive in auto but frequently resort to the switches on the steering wheel for both up and down shifts.

I see stable oil temps of 170F during winter rain commutes and 275F on summer spirited drives.

In other words, my car sees a wide range of use although no track time.

Roads north of the Golden Gate Bridge can be rough and the car gets air born and shaken. But things remain solid.

Potholes attack the wheels although they are original and still round.

I continue to drain 7.5 quarts and add 7.5 at each 5K mile oil change (Mobil One 0-40) indicating equal replacement of burned oil with gas and water. Oil analysis indicates minimal dilution so virtually no oil use is occurring. So I haven't been concerned with bore scoring.

I do avoid backing uphill because the clutches do seem to slip under these conditions. But they are wet clutches.

I do drive off just after starting and warm up gently. But that's just common sense.

I do maintenance per Porsche recommended scheduling (60K and 120K miles for the PDK and gear services) but change the motor oil more frequently. I saw no difference after the PDK services were done. I implored that no software updates be performed.

I can't take credit for how good this specific car has been. I guess I got lucky and got a car that fell on the right spot of the reliability bell curve. Or maybe these cars (and that bell curve) really are a lot better than we understand.

That doesn't exclude potential failures. Anything that works will break. We'll always hear failure reports of one part or another. Mine will break at some point. That's life. But when you consider how these cars are treated ... Mine owes me nothing. Beware of Forum flu!!!

Back on topic, PDK failures IMHO are primarily electronic. Luck of the draw. You can't do much to encourage or discourage these failures. I don't see a driving style that will either increase or decrease MTBF.

Now if only we could come up with a flow chart for repairing these PDKs ...

 

Thanks. Like I said - amazing.
Keep enjoying your Porsche. I definitely want to believe that we have special and reliable cars.

 

Yes, but it looks as if we should start checking these as well now that they are hitting 10 years old . . . unfortunately. I, however, have the mindset that a lot of people have been persuaded into paying for rebuilds on perfectly great running engines that did not really need. I do believe there are a ton of these engines scored out and always have been, but until a few started dying and someone convinced us to look for it wasn't really a big deal.

Nothing pompous about saying your drive the snot out of your sports car and you and Petza brought up running costs. My philosophy is why own one if not banging off the limiter and chewing through tires.

I put 36,000 miles on my GTS cab in 15 months, averaged 11/12 mpg since purchase (never reset tracker) and my rear tires last 9kish miles with factory settings except rear toe close to neutral.. My cars are maintained perfectly with open check book according to factory specs. I drive all my cars this way, but my GTS has had ZERO TRACK time which really increase running costs.

My running costs may be more than you guys. I believe Petza has said his wife's tires last more than 2x longer than mine so that car has to be granny driven based on tear wear alone. Does that explain the low running costs and reliability yo and Petza professed? I dunno, but I have generally seen a rapid increase in things needing to be addressed or replaced as these things age.

RE: PDK

I agree about the distance sensor being electronic, but that was only about half of the failures Pv997 documented. Perhaps clutch/mechanical are causing other malfunctions as some of those codes were clutch related problems.

I am still wondering if these pdk clutches will last forever? Like I said in the other thread, I could burn one of the clutches up quickly and people backing out of steep driveways may very well be doing the same without realizing it by way of one example. Faulty clutch could cause the pdk to get stuck in a gear (given one clutch for odd and one for even). I am really curious if these pdk clutches are really intended to last 150k miles or forever.

I tend to be careful with clutches having had to replace a few in several Italians where they actually do not last that long. Maybe some are not.

 

My wife definitely Granny drives it, but I'll end up taking it occasionally just to make sure all is well, so 98% granny driven and 2% properly driven.

 

I agree with this but the PDK failures we've heard about don't seem to have that many miles on them and there are several cars out there beyond 100K. With that said, I won't discount your concern here. What this really says is avoid driving below 5 mph. I do that, waiting for space in stop and go situations to reach speed in between stops. And after backing into my driveway one time I vowed to never do that again!!! This is subconscious behavior based on mechanical knowledge. Maybe that has added to my luck.

 

And what happens in traffic jams? :-/
Can you please explain what you mean?

 

Let about 5 spaces accumulate in front of you. Then make up the distance. Yeah, this may **** off the guy behind you. But this is what you always did when you were driving a manual transmission so you didn't need to ride the clutch.

 

I absolutely believe this statement to be a fact. Numerous guys most likely had unneeded rebuilds while they could have probably driven years with the little scoring they had until they had no choice to rebuild given the little mileage they drive each year. Internet hype and the constant resurfacing of rebuilders totalling feed that fright. One would think that if they're half as busy as they claim to be, they wouldn't need to feed the hype, now would they.

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Yes, I hate getting stuck in stop and go traffic going up long hills with DCTs. It is very bad on it.

The worst is backing out of driveways going up semi steep hills where you have to stop close to the end to check for traffic. I have 4 investment properties with just this that I am at everyday and I started backing in as this is murder on the DCT clutch. I could perhaps do that 5 to 10 times and completely eliminate 50% of the F1 or egear reserve/1st/3rd/5th clutch.

 

If you're backing in and going down a driveway or slope, can't you put the PDK in neutral by pulling both paddles simultaneously,. That would completely disengage the clutches so you could back down the driveway as slowly as you'd like with no clutch wear? I know the race cars have this feature to select neutral..

 

In general, I don't like them either having one close the doors overnight costing me the coverage and about $1,200 as I recall it. Never had a problem with Fidelity though and the service advisor at my dealership says they're easy to deal with and rarely if ever deny coverage as long as it's a legitimate claim. Wouldn't get anything but the Platinum plan though for reasons that's been discussed at length.

 

Right. But it exists in the PDK-s version in gt3 991.1.
In a PDK that exists at 997.2 it is not recommended to insert into N.
From what I read it is recommended to press the brakes and not let the PDK roll at low speed.