Have heard and witnessed through motoman's review on youtube of the base Panamera that there is a very noticeable delay in the throttle response when you floor it from a stop. I'd say the delay is just a smidge under 2 seconds before the car gets moving which is quite a bit. If I were to always drive the acr in sport mode, would this cause the delay to mostly disappear and go back to what a "normal" throttle response should be? Specifically trying to learn more about the 4s model here.

 

You've got 3 things going on there: The throttle calibration is set up to where you really have to give it a shot of throttle to get anything to happen, the transmission algorithms are clearly pushing toward economy with a stubborn insistence on shifting up too soon, actual turbo lag. Combined in normal mode the car responds very poorly at low RPM to a request to move out; it's among the worst I've ever driven for that. I first drove a Panamera as a rental car and it was a base car with few options. I loved the car in general which led me to buy in but I hated the throttle response in normal mode. Move it to sport and it's a lot better but it requires a lot of switching back and forth between sport and normal because you get the car cruising along in between lights at 30 miles an hour at far too high an RPM because you're in sport so you have to switch it back to normal to get it to shift up and put the car at a more appropriate RPM. Then back to sport when you want it to move. Then back to normal... I shifted it quite a bit in manual mode and then just put it in auto when I got up to speed which is another way to drive around it. I would not buy the base car; the 4S and particularly the hybrid are much better in this regard and don't cost a whole lot more. In the former case you get a lot more power and lose much of the lag, the latter is lag free due to the electric but runs out of steam as you get up in the band and it's heavy enough to make a real difference when you're doing a backroad. That said most people probably don't flog their cars enough to notice the weight very often making it a non issue. As you move up the line things just get better, the V8s have more displacement which means more low end power and the Turbo S has the V8 and the electric which makes it fairly beastly. Or at least that's the tale, I've never driven the Turbo S butt the reports are convincing.

 

Interesting. I’ve driven the base Cayenne a few times and it is quite responsive. Is the base Panamera using a different engine? Not sure why it’s so different.

 

Throttle tip-in lag is a real problem, even in the Turbo. The good news is that the MPG I get in my 2018 Turbo can be pretty astonishing. But, it comes at a cost in pull-away responsiveness.

I bought a Sprint Booster ($300) and it goes a very long way toward solving this issue. It's not perfect in that what it does in terms of throttle response at low RPMs isn't always what I'd want at higher RPMs. But, driving with the SB set to Sport 3/4/5 (it has settings for 1 - 9 in two modes - Sport and Race, the latter of which I find completely impractical) reminds me of "the good old days" of a mechanical linkage between the go pedal and the throttle valve. Every once in a while I turn the SB off to remind myself off what it's doing. I immediately turn it back on.

 

I considered the sprint booster. How exactly has it helped? Does it minimize the throttle response time by at least a second you would say? Also, would the sprint booster void warranty? I was told by my sales guy "no", but i do realize that ultimately it is up to corporate porsche that approves warranty claims for very expensive parts like the engine. They could technically void warranty for the simplest of alterations that "could" be perceived by them as affecting the car's mechanical characteristics

 

This video shows very clearly what it's doing. But in essence, an old-school physical linkage had a linear relationship between the pedal and the throttle valve. Modern drive-by-wire systems are programmable, non-linear, and in the case of the Panamera at least very much programmed for mileage/EPA considerations. The SB reprograms the response.

It's very easy to install and remove. Hard to imagine it impacting the warranty. I'd be surprised if it even left some sort of imprint that could be noted or proven (though I do understand that modern cars are quite sophisticated in this regard).

 

Ultimately I just want to make sure the car is very safe to drive. My only other concern is the Sprint Booster somehow damaging the electronic systems in the Panamera.

 

If you are buying new the e-Hybrid is a great choice, especially compared with the base model. Assuming you want four wheel drive, Sport Chrono and air suspension options (which are all standard on the e-Hybrid) and factoring in the Fed rebate, the cost differential between the base model and the e-Hybrid is negligible. No turbo lag and considerably more horsepower. I find the handling on mountain roads to be excellent and this is my fourth Porsche including a 911 that I "tracked" for five years.

 

If by "safe" you mean better responsiveness when trying to, say, make a left turn across oncoming traffic at an intersection, then yes absolutely. As for damage, not really sure what to say. SB has been around for a while now. I would think that if it was breaking cars we'd know about it. No affiliation with them btw, just a happy customer.