Rubik

I am doing some research on PDK transmissions' reliability and the reality is that it is a relatively new technology/option to the mass-marketed Porsches. Which means there isn't that much information out there. So I figured I start this poll since you 997 guys had first dibs on the PDK.

Please reply to one of the poll questions.

If you have experienced problems, it would help if you can give a brief overview and your typical driving style including any tracking.

Thanks!

Bijan

Poll

Rubik

Darnet! Fixed it.

ogun228

Purpose?

Rubik

Knowledge gain. That's all.

Rubik

Can I ask that whoever marked that they've had issues, they give a brief summary of what it was? Thanks.

Rubik

More votes?

gasongasoff

1 episode only: PDK would hit high rpm and refuse to upshift, then went into limp mode. Restarted the car and it went away. Took it to the dealer, they reprogrammed it, and no issues since.

Rubik

I anticipate that most issues will be related to electronic system management vs. mechanical issues.

Bijan

Low battery charge is also known as an issue

Team Plutonium

Under 50... hard pulls, no issue.

Rubik

Nice!

stevepow

I got the dash warning once - "got to workshop!" - that was funny other than it freaked me out. It still drove fine and I took it in - they re-booted it or something but couldn't find any issues - that was only the one time. Probably happened around 20K and I'm at 23K now. I also felt it was gutsy going with a 1st gen PDK car, but I really have enjoyed the heck out if it so far. Extended warranty now that I'm out of cover - you bet.

johnireland

For all of PDKs amazing performance, I'm glad I got Tiptronic. Imagine having to replace a transmission because of some modest fluid seepage...and sending it back to Germany. Such is the nature of PDK. I think a totally mechanical sequential gearbox would have been cheaper to make, easier to fix, and more fun to use.

StormRune

Just to note: A sequential gearbox still falls far short of a dual-clutch tranny in performance due to at least three factors.
- The clutch still has to move the friction surface away then back into place during the shift and the time physically needed to do this change of direction is always going to be longer than the time to move in only one direction for each shift.
- In a normal tranny including a sequential one there is still time required to move and synchronize the gears to the new selection when the shift is occurring. The PDK uses two driveline paths through the tranny, one for the even gears and one for the odd gears. As soon as the cars shifts into a gear, the ECU shifts the other non-currently-active path to the next gear so that it is ready to receive the power instantly when the wet clutch flips power to it.
- The multiplate wet clutch in the PDK dissipates heat far more effectively than a normal clutch, the ECU even varies the pumping rate of the fluid to improve cooling based upon the aggressive of your driving.

Granted that the complexity of this approach is more complicated and thus more prone to technical difficulties but if provides far superior performance along with reasonable reliability then it seems appropriate for our cars. It is certainly reasonable that there are those of us who weigh performance vs near 100% reliability differently and either opinion is valid depending on your point of view.

BTW, I had BMW's SMG (sequential manual gearbox) in my 2001 M3 and while it performed reasonably well the general drivability of it was quite horrible. I'm certain that they've improved it quite a bit, but for now a PDK is still the fastest and most drivable tranny out there.