SFZ GT3

Been searching for a while for the "right" CR and found a great candidate. Nicely optioned 32K mile car in excellent overall condition. Third owner (no knowledge of the first 2) is an enthusiast (especially DE) and says he has put around 4-6K miles on track at VIR during his ownership over the past 8 years. Does almost all of his maintenance and can document most of it. No crash damage, no body repairs, issues, etc. and no mechanical issues existing as of now.

So, my question for all you PDK fans (and non-believers!), how concerned should I be about PDK failure, issues, etc., in the future. My use will be 3-4K street miles per year and maybe 2-3 DE events max each year. He says he has done 2 PDK services and has done many oil/fiter services. Fresh plugs, AF, not sure about the belt.

Since it can be a $20K roll of the dice at worst, I'm wrestling with how much to reduce an offer to him to cover some risk. IMO, he is asking strong money for a nice car, but with a big future exposure if the PDK goes south. Checked on 3rd party warranty (6/60 for $5500 with $100 deductible as an offset to the PDK risk, but then the cost is getting much closer to a low miles, 6MT car.or even a higher miles GT4.

Any thoughts on how concerned to be, actual experiences of PDK failure for a car with this amount of track miles, or warnings to look at others would be helpful ( but not without some regret if I decide to pass).

TIA for any and all comments, feedback, donations LOL would be great!

andy7777

Can't help you as my Cayman R is a 6speed, but it has been bulletproof through several DE seasons.

Real reason I chimed in is I have a white Carrera T like yours, a 2019 with 10K miles, and love that car. Having that for everyday and a CR for the track is a great combo!

cstyles

In PCA club racing, it is not uncommon to see GTB1-P 987.2 cayman race cars with replaced PDK boxes. I personally know of one racer on his 3rd PDK box, the 2nd and 3rd being new from Porsche. It's well known in racing that the 6mt, while slower in the average racer's hands, is a more robust transmission (and $6k to replace instead of $20k when you grenade it). The 987.2 PDK needs a significant amount of cooling upgrades to stay reliable in a racing setting, and even with all the right cooling mods they can still fail.

All that said, DE is NOT racing. Most DE enthusiasts are not pushing the pace or stressing the hardware like racing (although some certainly do). You may not have a way to determine this, but I'd want to know what kind of pace the fella was doing over those track miles. If he's your average DE enthusiast running 5 to 10 seconds off the pace that GTB1 or SPC racers are doing, I wouldn't be concerned at all. If he's setting race pace or close to it, running r-comps or slicks etc, your risk increases IMO.

Without a warranty, there's always going to be risk involved when dealing with expensive, non-serviceable components like a PDK gear box. Track car or not.

Good luck with your search and decision 👍 Great cars

SFZ GT3

Thanks for that excellent reply. Couldn’t agree more. Seller is a top group DE participant, but on street rubber (200 compound) tires. Drives to and from the track and is there for fun, more than best lap time. That said, I do think the deal is a non starter without a warranty. Will keep you posted.

SFZ GT3

Haha! Great minds, and all that! The T is a keeper, and I want to use it as an all around fun car for trips, events, C&C, etc. The Cayman would be the DE and autoX tool.

SFZ GT3

Wow, just saw your post re your Cayman R! Outstanding, why are you and your car not here in FL?? LOL. Will PM you about yours.

Zach L

Being that you're in Florida, I'd absolutely go with extra cooling capacity for the transmission, even for a DE car. The PDK cars got the center front radiator from the factory (6-speed cars did not), but that's not enough on its own to make-up for the PDK's extra cooling needs. Some options would be going with a larger oil-coolant heat exchanger on the engine, upgrading to larger CSF front radiators, and/or adding extra auxiliary coolers for the trans at the rear of the car. All are good on their own, but more effective together.

If you end up keeping the trans cooling tied in with the engine cooling, you may consider a deep sump oil pan. RR Racing and BRS both have options there.

SFZ GT3

Thanks, Zach! Great advice. My goals are 2-3 events per season, no summers. Maybe October to mid-April. Probably limited to Sebring, Roebling, and Daytona. Looking for max fun, not the fastest lap! LOL. If I could only do one of the 3 solutions you proposed which would it be under those conditions.

Thanks fr your helo!

Zach L

Auxiliary cooler

A432

An added ref. of experience, mine is a 6sp. but the two guys running fast laps on NT01's (SPC pace) with 987.2 PDK's I know
both had occasional warnings/limp mode when the OAT > ~90F and running Sport Plus in 20+ minute sessions. (without added cooling)
Neither had failures but that might have been a combination of backing it down and eventually retiring the cars because of the $20K concern.
Like the poster said above, cooling helps but occasionally people will still get failures. Possibly read up on the latest in the stuck repair thread.
Because it really sucks to prepare for track days and have to be concerned about the heat issues,
I'd do both the added trans. coolers and larger CSF radiators. (6sp. at a fast pace needs the CSF's too in the 100F SoCal desert summers)
As a quirky warning of note, if your smog laws require reading the car's DME history during the check, don't do the motorsport low temp thermostat.
It will cause a flag (and CEL) that the engine isn't warming up quickly enough and it will fail the smog inspection.

clib

I would agree w your thoughts OP. Mine failed with not that much track (DE only) use. It was several attemped trouble shootings and repairs and finally replace. Was intermittent at first and porsche provides the shops apparently relatively little in the way of internal pdk diagnostics. Eventually assuming it must be internal then replaced. That was as frustrating as paying for it - no definite answer and trailering home after 2 events after a full eval and hopefully fix before the replace.
i have decided i wont buy another pdk for a track use car. Honestly though faster its also not nearly as fun or engagibg for me. Iknow others feel different but I am not racing. So my vote is find an MT or have 15k squirreled away for when needed.
in our region which is not a huge number of cars i know of 3 other pdk failures in similar scenarios.
good luck. All that aside Great driving cars

CaymanR99

I have a CR w/pdk. And replaced the transmission 2 years ago, after 8 years and 20k of track miles, all DE. No racing. And yes I was pushing it pretty much all the time.

Heat is the enemy of the pdk. But the weak point with these transmissions is the electronics. Failure point in mine was a shift rod position sensor. It said the rod was in an impossible position, rendering the transmission inoperable. Probably a $20 part at most. But at that time you couldn’t buy or find someone to replace just that part. Either replace the entire valve body or replace the transmission. I did the latter for $13k at a Porsche dealer.

Since then I heard BGB is the US rebuilder of PDKs. I have no experience with BGB, just passing along what I have heard.

The pdk is very efficient on track, eliminates the possibility of making the money shift and damaging the engine thru over revs. But it’s not as engaging as a manual. To each their own.