K Man GTS

Hi Folks-
I'm new to the forum and new to Porsche - and to high end cars in general.
I've never even been a car person for that matter. I've always been very happy with modestly priced cars (Honda Pilot, etc) which I take good care of and drive for many years.
My older son is very much into cars. Knowing that he'll be heading off to college in a few years after much thought I decided to purchase a car which we could enjoy together. My goal was to hopefully make some great father-son memories with both of my sons much like I have of my rides with my dad on his on his motorcycle.
After considerable research and some discussion with a few serious car guys I settled on a MT Cayman GTS. My goal was to get the nicest, most fun to drive car that I could for less than $100K which would retain it's value to the greatest extent possible as I plan to sell in a few years. When my local dealer called and told me that an 11 month old white Porsche Certified used 2016 Cayman GTS w/an MT, many upgrades w/only 3K miles had arrived I jumped on it knowing how fast the others that I've seen have sold. It's the car in my Avitar.
My GTS is strictly a fun car which I intend to keep in the garage and drive only on weekends in nice weather, etc. Given that I know very little about driving these cars and that I have no experience with performance cars I joined this forum in the hopes of learning more and to seek advice. Specifically, any advice that anyone feels would be useful for a new, novice owner in terms of driving, maintainence or anything else would be most appreciated.
Thanks for reading this and thanks for any advice!
Best, R

Dan.iel

Well, the advice that I would give to you is the regular maintenance. Nothing can beat that practice. To ensure the condition of the car, you must have regular maintenance on it

K Man GTS

Is there a best way to slow down in an MT - putting into neutral while at speed, coasting and then breaking vs leaving in gear and allowing the transmission to assist with slowing down?
Thanks!

extanker

i will have to share this

zedcat

If you are in the USA consider joining PCA. Most regions have events that can help you learn about the cars and meet others. Generally members are very helpful. You can also find driving events like auto-x, hpde, car control school. Another more expensive option is the Porsche center in Atlanta or the Porsche driving school at Barber motorsports park in Birmingham Al. Best of luck and congrats on the car.

Macster

No way in a few paragraphs can I help you become proficient driving a manual car.

But I can maybe answer to some level some of your questions.

Leave the transmission in gear and if the need to lose speed not critical engine braking will slow the car down.

If you need more braking of course apply the brakes. And of course primarily the brakes are used to slow the car unless traffic conditions allow you to let engine braking slow the car to near 0mph.

As the car slows down if necessary down shift to keep the engine speed above idle. I mean obviously you don't want to let the car's speed drop with the transmission in gear to the point the speed of the car is causing the engine to run below its idle speed.

As for the questions you raised in your first post, is to repeat what dan.iel said: Regular maintenance.

Periodic oil/filter services are very important to helping ensure long and trouble free engine life, but there is more to "regular" maintenance than oil/filter services.

For fluids, filters and some wear item hardware follow the Porsche servicing schedule which calls for fluid/filter changes based on miles and for some fluids (oil) and for some hardware (plugs) changes based on time.

Use Porsche fluids and filters. If you chose to deviate you don't know what you are getting. Maybe the fluids or filters are better. But maybe not. And why use your $100K car as a test bed to try to find suitable alternatives?

Buy a top tier gasoline of the proper octane grade and buy from a busy station to ensure you get the freshest gasoline.

Keep the car clean. Avoid parking under trees to avoid leaf litter and sap and bird mess.

If the car gets dirty wash it.

When you wash the car be sure to drive the car afterwards to use the brakes enough to dry them. Cast iron brakes rust up something fierce and this rust can cause problems under some circumstances.

Also, after you wash the car check the door bottoms for any signs of dampness. The doors have a membrane that keeps water out of of the dry side but if this membrane fails water gets in the dry side and moistens the carpet along the door bottom. This leaking membrane is most often an issue with older cars but you want to get into the habit of checking.

Check the body water drains. These are under the front trunk lid under the panels on either side of the battery box. These can collect leaf litter to the point water can back up and if it backs up too much water can overflow and get into the cabin. This is serious as the car's security system controller is located on the cabin floor and any water will ruin this controller.

Check the radiator ducts for trash build up. With the radiator fans running the car is just a hoover vacuum cleaner sucking in trash which collects and can lead to premature A/C condensor or radiator failure due to corrosion. To remove this trash the techs use compressed air and from under the car know where to aim the air blast to blow the stuff out but every so often the bumper cover has to come off and the condenser unbolted and swung out of the way to really do a thorough cleaning.

Become familar with how the car sounds and if you hear a new sound, a different sound, use that as a sign of the car trying to tell you something. Something like the water pump is bad, or an accessory drive idler/tensioner roller bearing is bad.

When the techs service a car they do a thorough check from under the car for any signs of any issues, like leaks, etc.

During one such service a tech spotted a leaking transmission seal on my low miles 2003 996 Turbo and the transmission was replaced under CPO warranty.

At other times a tech has spotted something in a tire, advises me regarding brake life, tire life, or any signs of engine leaks. If you and your sons do servicing you need to develop this habit of checking the car over to spot any issues before they become real serious.

Avoid high RPMs/high engine loads until the engine is fully up to temperature. This can take minutes of driving depending upon conditions. What I use is I consider the engine fully up to temperature if the coolant temp gage needle as been at its usual spot for some minutes of driving.

After spirited driving or extended running (like after a freeway drive) give the car a cool down "lap" by taking it easy on surface streets for a bit. You want to develop some empathy for the engine (and the car overall) to try to treat it in a manner that helps prolong its service life.

Last but not least, use the car. Often. These cars thrive on regular use. Long periods of inactivity over time take their toll.

rusnak

All very good advice.

Since this is a father son car, I'd recommend taking a few road trips. Research destinations, and points of interest.

Have him research car care such as wash and wax products. Buy a battery maintainer. You might tackle an oil change eventually. There are a lot of great You Tube channels from guys who do a lot of their own work, which your son may find interesting. Most important: go put some miles on it!

TexasRider

Mac ought to be a sticky.

Along with my Ultimate Answer Cayman Buying Guide.

Then extanker should get his own sticky too.

K Man GTS

Macster-
Thanks so much for the fantastic post and for the time which you spent writing it. Hopefully others will benefit from it as well. It is greatly appreciated.
I have driven an MT car for much of my life but never a high performance one.
I do plan to drive it at least weekly. However, here in Northern, VA we have some bad winters. During winter months I plan to keep it in the garage and use a trickle charger. It will always be garage kept.
I will definitely be sure to have it serviced by the major Porsche dealer from whom I purchased it as they recommend
A couple of questions...
I can understand avoiding high RPMs/high ending loads until the engine is fully upto temp. I was told by our dealer to not go to 5K RPMs until the oil temp is 200 deg. It sounds like you go by the coolant temp instead?
What is the purpose of the cool down? I have only had the car for two weeks and I've done this already by virtue of where I live (a few miles of slow speed limit, residential roads to my home) but I have not intentionally done so. I didn't know that this was necessary.
Again, thanks so much to you and to the others who very kindly replied.
Best, R

Jack-Porsche

Not a lot to add other than what has been said including regular maintenance, and commonsensical general care for your car. I just wanted to say good for you, great choice, and enjoy the car with your son.

DBH

Oil temp is a better indicator of engine warmup. Water temp gauge will always read ~194 degrees as a max. When it goes beyond this, it generally means trouble. Oil temp, on the other hand, will show actual temp of the oil. Generally a temp of 200 degrees +/- means the engine is fully warmed-up and ready for some performance driving.

Cooling the car down is akin to putting a horse away hot and sweaty. It's generally not a good thing to do for the health of the engine (or the horse!).

Toddster

I would join your local PCA and do a Drivers Ed session in it
There is no better way to experience what your car is capable of.
Simply amazing experience, enjoy the car, I have two sons, ages 15 and 16, its a great passion to share

Scooby921

Being a '16 Cayman GTS MT owner myself I would advise that you don't think too much about the little things and get out and enjoy the car. The truth is that modern cars are very well built. Yeah they might have the odd annoyance here and there (intake grill shifting / popping when I enter or exit my driveway, or BT aux audio only registering every 3rd time I start the car), but as a whole it's not really much to complain or worry about compared to cars of the '80s and '90s. Wash it, maintain it properly (your owner's manual will tell you the standard schedule), and it'll carry on just as well or better than your moderately priced economy cars.

Don't baby it because it's a Porsche. Enjoy it because it's a Porsche.

Macster

The 1st two years of my 2002 Boxster ownership were in mid Missouri just east 30 miles from KC Mo. While the winters were bad at times there were days when the roads were clear and I was able to drive the Boxster. I kept its summer tires on. Really if I wasn't so cheap and had bought a set of winter wheels/tires I could have driven the Boxster in the worse of the winter. (I actually did even with summer tires but I was very lucky nothing bad happened.)

In my defense about buying set of winter wheels/tires for the Boxster I had a 2nd car a new 2002 VW Golf TDi (which I bought 2 months after the Boxster) which was a great car in the winter so the Boxster could stay in the garage and only come out on nice days.

Neither my Boxster or my 996 Turbo have oil temperature available. With the Boxster all I have it the coolant temperature gage and it gives no actual numbers just has the needle. But I know from monitoring the coolant temperature with an OBD2 code reader/data viewer/logger that when the coolant needle has reached a spot at or above the 180 hash mark the coolant is up to temperature. I continue though to take it a bit easy as I know the oil takes longer to get up to temperature.

With the Turbo there is an oil pressure gage and I can also use it to know the oil is up to temperature. When the hot idle oil pressure gets down to 2 bar I know the oil is fully warmed up.

With the my Turbo the owners manual advises a 2 minute idle time after extended or hard running to give the turbos time to shed some heat. They do this primarily at idle by the realtively cool exhaust gases flowing past the turbine wheels and the oil that is pumped to the turbo bearings.

Shutting off the engine with hot turbos invites turbo damage as the heat in the exhaust turbine wheel can "cook" the oil in the bearings and over time this damages the bearings and the seals.

For N/A engines after extended or hard running while there are no turbos to cool down various parts of the engine are very hot. Exhaust valves can run near a red heat and the exhaust manifolds are very hot, too.

Easy driving, a "cool down lap" so to speak, gives the exhaust valves and the other hotter parts of the engine time to shed some heat and for the overall heat load of the engine to moderate and even out. The exhaust valves will not ever get cool but they'll be cooler than they would be otherwise.

With the engine running the exhaust valves spend considerable time on their seat and this is when the valve gives up considerable heat.

But when the engine is shut down some exhaust valves end up open. The only way these valves cool down is to radiate heat from the valve head but in a hot combustion chamber this is a slow cool down. The only other path available for the heat to leave the valve is up the valve stem.

The heat travels up the valve stem and heats the stem, the oil between the stem and the guide, and the seal up at the top of the guide. This tends to -- similar to the turbo bearings/seals -- cause degradation of the very critical bearing -- the sliding bearing the valve stem and guide have -- and the valve guide seal.

My work commute -- especially the work to home commute -- has me driving down the freeway (sometimes at a pretty good clip) then once off the freeway just less than a mile's drive to my house.

This mile is not sufficient to give the Boxster time to shed some heat.

Often with the Boxster the radiator fans are running -- the coolant is 212F (or hotter) and on hotter days even the engine compartment fan is running. So when I pull into the parking space and if the radiator fans or the engine compartment fan is running I let the engine idle until these fans shut off.

In your case the couple of miles of surface driving suffices for a cool down.

eurobahnm

You bought your Porsche for the excellent performance and luxury and there’s no reason it should be compromised in terms of regular maintenance and inspection.
Here are few regular maintenance tips for Porsche Cayman GTS:

Do regular checking of dusty areas and if required replace the air filter elements.

If you drive on dirty roads, the radiators and cooling-air inlets in the front should be checked and cleaned regularly.

Tire, clutch, pad, brake disc wear, engine oil, transmission fluids, brake fluids are all vastly depends on driving habits and are also affected by adverse operating conditions, this could reduce intervals between servicing and replacement.

Now if your mileage for scheduled maintenance is not reached,intermediate maintenance must be performed after 2, 6, 10 years at the latest. And maintenance must be performed after 4, 8, 12 years at the latest.

Hence proper care and maintenance will help you to preserve the value of Porsche and safeguard its functional capability. This will also protect your right to make warranty claims.

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