Interesting Take on the .2 Turbo...
 

JayEmm on Cars (James) drives a 997.2 Turbo PDK for the first time....and was non-plussed. By comparison his video on the .1 Turbo Manual was positively glowing. Interesting take. I can't say that any of his observations are incorrect. Not sure I arrive at the same conclusion but I feel like he did get a pretty true feel for the car.

Thoughts?

I watched that video earlier today, despite not really being a fan of his take on cars. My opinion hasn't changed after watching this one, but hey, it's content on my favorite car. Turns out that the vehicle that he drove was out of alignment; this was revealed at the very end of the video, and may explain his distaste for the front end feel. The owner spoke up in the comments on YT and said even he noticed a marked improvement after the front toe was adjusted to spec.

I've subbed to Jay for years and was a little surprised by his conclusion to be honest. Pete Stout has talked about the .2 Turbos like they're far and away better than the .1s in every metric. I wonder how much of a difference the corrected front-end alignment would have made in Jay's assessment. I'd love to drive a .2 Turbo or Turbo S to compare to my .1 firsthand.

I recently had an alignment done on mine and also put on new PS4S. It helped. But the front of the car still doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence to me.

a few weeks ago I did a tour with a local group and we bombed some back roads. The 991.1 in front of me seemed far more composed through the turns and over the bumps than my car was feeling. I’ve got a DSC controller in its OTS configuration. Perhaps that is to blame? Although I would have thought it would improve things.

Have you played much with tire pressures? I felt the car had too much float in the front end, but after much trial and error and tires, determined 31 PSI cold is my sweet spot. Was out this early this morning (3:00 am) with a friend on a secondary feeder road and he couldn't believe that I took my hands off the wheel at 125 and the car was just planted; no float or bounce. The mountain sweepers and switchbacks last weekend were effortless fun. 102,000 miles, stock suspension, DSC controller, alignment every 6 months / 6,000 miles, Bridgestone Potenza RE050A tires.

YMMV

He should have stopped the review the moment he realized that the suspension was out of whack.

Comparing a PDK experience with a manual is the same as the comparison of turntables vs streaming Pandora… ultimately one is faster and easier but it doesn’t mean the experience is better.

he should do a .1 manual vs. .2 manual with factory specced tire pressures and go from there.

Interesting take on the 997.2 Turbo...

You're right, he should never have published the review until the car was checked, aligned, and he had a chance to drive it again. That way he'd know if it was the alignment or the car, as would the viewers.

I’m really surprised that he isn’t more knowledgeable about the differences in the cars as it is really significant except for the front end! And that was what he was complaining about… like a .2 car wouldn’t handle or be less responsive to a .1? Cmon… so what is the point of putting the review up whereas it will always be up on YouTube and for some taken at face value.

Ultimately, I think YouTube 'creators' are slaves to the calendar and some feel pressure to put content out at a regular clip or they move down in YT's monetization algorithm. The fact that the subject car had a discernible (and easily rectified) flaw was secondary to keeping up with his flow of fresh content. In other words, JayEmm put quantity over quality.

Why is everyone stating he knew the front end was off? How would he know? The owner chimes in later in the comments that he had an alignment done but perhaps the video was already up?

same situation for me. My .1 has 50,000 miles and “the front end doesn’t inspire confidence” is exactly how I would describe my car. I feel more confident in my 335i daily driver honestly. I had the car aligned and got new tires and it is still the same. I’m thinking about replacing shocks and/or maybe front end bushing since the car is approaching 15 years old now.

My car is a .2 with GT2Wheels and Cup tires on it. I also have a DSC module with a sportier "tune" on the module. My issues were more in the rear of the car whereas it felt like the car was "over" tired (rubber) and wasn't able to cope with the added traction... like the tires had different amounts of traction between them. I added the OEM GT2 sway bar (the OEM version cannot be used on a PDK car). The sway bar really helped the back in as it feels much more planted and flat around the turns. I went a step further with an alignment that was as close to GT2 spec as possible (the OEM front camber plates are the the limiting factor here but I didn't want to veer off not using OEM parts).

The alignment really made the difference. The car is lively and can easily be rotated around corners with a flat and smooth control. Albeit all of my driving is country road and street basically below 65MPH.

My beef with the article is that he is basically saying that the .1 manual car was much better handling than the .2 PDK car that he drove and I think that just isn't accurate.
Reading over the article in the December 2009 Excellence Magazine.. they talk about PTV Porsche Torque Vectoring as being something that makes a huge difference.. kinda like today we wouldn't even compare two 911s with and without rear steering. It mentions how the cars have different sway bars depending on if they have PTV or not... they talk about how with a .1 car that the front differential had "absolute" responses to the sensors and software whereas the .2 cars have software (and a different diff) that mimics a viscous clutch which progressively and seamlessly apportions exactly the torque required to the front axle. It goes on from there with the changes but I won't bore you.

Have both. Noticing more and more that the .1 MT is more responsive and just seems more nimble.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...42ed1c9c5.jpeg

Don't you think that you are being led to feel that way because of the manual shifting involvement over the PDK? When I bought my car I was choosing between a 2012 PDK S vs the 2010 MT that has every performance option available (basically an S without the PDK. I drove both cars extensively on back roads the exact same day... At that time two things stood out to me.. one the PDK was light years faster and aggressive as far as speed was concerned. But the MT was way more involved and fun.. you "drive" the MT and for me simply "held on" with the PDK.

I'm in NYC and Long Island... could make a trip to CT... I'd love to put two MT cars side by side to see. PM me.