I was driving my new 997 turbo only (400 miles) and took an on ramp this morning and slightly accelerated and the rear end went out from me and did a 360. I the proceeded to jump the curb and slid in the dirt taking with me rocks, debris and 2 pine trees 1 of which was wedged under the car.
Fortunately I walked away. I am not new to 911's as this was my 5th. 3 996's and 1 '85, I also drive a Cayenne Turbo. The experiene was like the old 911's when you let up and the torque takes over and spins you. Nothing kicked in for me, no PASM, ABS etc. Has anyone heard of any failures of these safety devices on the 997's?

 

What were the conditions of the road and what were the temps outside?

 

Sounds like cold tires.

 

chris could be right. if you live in a cold part of the country, your hi performance rubber will be rock hard in the cold temperatures. if that's the case, put some pirelli winter tires on your turbo-that will give you rubber that will remain softer and help give you traction in the cold. a contributing factor could have been having the sport button on, thereby allowing the car to get more upset before the traction control and other electronics kick in. i am happy that you are okay and i hope that your damage was minor.

 

diesel or oil on a slightly damp tarmac will do just that but PSM should kick in (although worthless).

 

pasm is not a replacement for common sense

 

brad-some acceleration around a curve seems like he had common sense. surely, a turbo with proper rubber should be able to tolerate that, unless as the previous poster said, it was oil covered.

 

400 on a new 500 hp sports car

first mistake pushing a car you have very little seat time in and dont know how it will respond

we also dont know what his intial speed into the turn was, what his defination of slightly pressed the throttle is, what the road condtions were ect.

997 turbos are very fast and very powerfull cars and way to much car for most of the people that own them.

pasm is a help full feature but itsnt autopilot and it cant stop you from doing something stupid
I vote driver error.

 

I think you mean PSM and I believe you're right -- it should be practically impossible to lose the 997 Turbo on anything short of ice with a totally unskilled right foot. It might be impossible to win the argument, but it does sound like the car somehow failed. Is there any chance you had turned off the PSM? (It should still have kicked in long before the car rotated so much that it was unrecoverable.) The police report will determine your approximate speed, which again, might not win the argument with the factory but should show that your "super car" just crashed at "mini-van" speeds.
Well, I'm sorry you've got a lot of time-sink work ahead of you to get all this straightened out, I'm curious to know how things go.

Adam

 

A small clarification: PSM is what you meant, not PASM. PASM has nothing to do with stability control, it is active suspension management.
PSM is the one that might save you in a similar situation up to certain limits as we can see.
I also agree with both theories: cold tires and excessive throttle.

 

you are correct-pasm won't save you, where psm will try to.

 

Road was dry, temp was about 30 degrees, I walked the road while waiting for the tow truck, no sand, no oil etc

 

I do live in cold part of country, suburb of Boston. I'll go with the rock hard tire theory but I drive this on ramp everyday, and have done so at speeds much greater in my 02 C4S, and never a problem. As far as the sport button goes I have had it on only 1-2 times trying to behave with a proper break-in, keeping the rpms down etc. And this was not one of those times.

 

probably, as you say, it was the rock hard rubber that slid as you gave it the juice on the on ramp. all the traction management software will do nothing if your tires give you no traction, and if your tires were not yet warmed up, those summer hi performance tires will not give you the proper traction to handle the kind of power that the turbo gives you. call the tire rack, get yourself 4 winter tires, and you should be good to go. i have 4 winters on my 997tt, and it handles great

 

Granted I've had little seat time in this car, and yes it is ridiculously fast, and powerful, but I am not a new driver to Porsche. I have about 75k miles in 911's. and 40K in Cayennes. Yes I drive fast but at 46 my common sense is one of my better traits. I put in some time in a 996 turbo (no comparison) and recently went to Skip Barber in August, and I tell you this car handled like one of the Vipers with no stability management. Maybe I should have taken it to an empty parking lot and pushed it to get a better feel for it. Anyways the body shop will be taking it to the dealer to see if the can get any fault codes out of the computer. In the meantime I'm thinking about an electric golf cart with a wing on the back as my replacement.