348SStb

Many people just don’t know how to drive a manual transmission; clutches and gears are abused everywhere.

If you’re confident in your ability, then don’t sweat it and buy what you like. You’ve got four years of Porsche warranty behind you if there are any defects, which I doubt there’d be. The warranty wouldn’t cover normal wear on the clutch; but if something goes wrong (like slippage that shouldn’t be there) and after taking apart they see the thing wasn’t abused and was operated correctly, it would be a warranty job. All this applies even more firmly if you’re not planning to track your car.

What are the statistics on this? I haven’t seen many of these incidents, but I could be wrong.

With all this being said, I’ll share one small snippet of my own experience. Owned many manual Porsches — never experienced a problem. Recently there have been 981 Spyder, 991.1 GTS, 991.2 manual GT3, and 991.2 Carrera S. In particular, I have a fairly early 981 Spyder (October 2015 build). I haven’t had any of the gearbox issues that were known to this variant run (Spyder and GT4) and in particular many GT4 guys. When I dropped my 8k-mile transmission this past September and sent it off to be re-geared, the guys who opened it up said the gears and synchros looked like they were never used compared to what they have seen opening up many, many gearboxes over the last several years they’ve been doing this regear. Part of what they do is replace worn parts since the thing is open, but there was nothing to replace on mine. And I don’t baby the thing: I drive it fairly hard whenever the occasion to do so is available. What I do is not crank on the synchromesh on downshifts — I do double clutch downshifts: every time. I don’t abuse the thing. Slamming the thing into third gear or second gear down from fifth or sixth is the wrong way to operate a manual transmission: a double clutch downshift is the proper way to skip multiple gears. It’s also better to double clutch on downshift all the time and not just some of the time. Some guys even double clutch on upshifts.

Keep in mind the gear ratios on manual are not favorable and the PDK gear ratios are more favorable. You can go to <<automobile catalog dot com >> to review gear ratios and see if this influences you.

PDK
<https://www.automobile-catalog.com/auta_details1.php#gsc.tab=0>

Manual
<https://www.automobile-catalog.com/auta_details1.php#gsc.tab=0>

Lastly, keep in mind that if you change from manual to PDK even before your lock, you could risk going to the bottom of the pile and having your production moved out a month or more. How do I know? My PDK 2022 Boxster GTS (which I still own) was an April, 2022 build. In late February, a few weeks before lock, I changed it from manual to PDK. The day after I did that, the car came a June build for July delivery. Not saying that would happen to you, but tinkering with a major content like transmission can be tricky.

Why did I switch to PDK? I was thinking it’d be nice if my girlfriend could have at least one opportunity to drive a fun a car that I own when we do our road trips (and provide me some relief). At the time, I didn’t know about the re-gear stuff (was just totally oblivious to this topic for some reason). Knowing what I know now, I would have done the manual and would simply have spent the extra cash to regear the thing. (Be advised it’s not cheap and well north of $10k but in my opinion worth every penny). She hardly ever says yes when I offer her to drive the thing, and I end up driving all the time anyway on our road trips.

Good luck.

AnandN

5K for a new clutch is not all that bad if it happened once during the lifetime of the car with me. My friend, a few years back, bought a used 996 with a manual and it still had the originial clutch after >15 years. Eventuallly he had to get a new clutch which cost him 5k at an independent shop in NH. It was a fun car to drive. As long as my engine stays healthy, I am fine. I know sooner or later I will pay for some repairs none of which are likely to be cheap.

jfpell

PDK is not without its faults either. 981 PDKs are seeing failures; many of which are associated to failures of some internal sensors. There are only a few indy shops, like Atlanta Speedwerks, who are willing to dig into the PDK and replace the sensors and other internals. The dealerships swap out entire PDK transmissions. Many aftermarket vendors are selling dedicated PDK clutch and gearbox fluid coolers, deeper PDK pans with cooling fins, etc for those that are tracking regularly to mitigate some of these issues with harder than street usage.

That said, I have had both transmissions across multiple cars and currently track a 981 PDK Cayman S....so far, so good.

Does anyone know if there have been updates and upgrades made by Porsche as they've gone from the 981 into the 718 generation? I expect there have been, I just don't know what those may be.

348SStb

Not sure if you’re asking about PDK specifically, but I know in the manual the clutch assembly is different and possibly the flywheel also from 981 to 718. Check further reading or consult the experts on this but I know for sure that there were changes.

Larson E. Rapp

You're behind the times. There are now aftermarket parts and multiple shops that can install them. No one replaces a PDK for $25K anymore, unless they just want to.

TRZ06

You are correct, the 981 PDK's did have sensor issues.

I do know Porsche fixed the PDK issues with the 718. My race shop (who sees a TON of Porsches, a lot of them track cars) has not seen a single 982 PDK issue so far. I am keeping my fingers crossed it remains that way.

I just did a fluid flush and filter change at my 30K service. I plan to do that every 30K since I want/plan to keep mine well into 100k+ miles.

348SStb

Thanks for mentioning this.

Can you share some details about your PDK clutch fluid change? Which year and model do you have? How many miles were on your car? (I do not assume you have 30k). Age of car from in-service? How did the pdk fluid look? Number of labor hours for the job? Thank you!

I see my 2022 718 GTS service manual says to change the PDK clutch fluid at 12 years or 120k miles!

Xxyion

I have one of the super small Ridge wallets and i generally wear cargo pants so it all just stays there. But even when i dont and wear jeans, my phone and wallet takes up very little space in my front pockets. I have no issues with hip and back. Unless you are one of those people that keep your wallet in your back pocket then i totally get where thats coming from.

If i do find that my phone gets in the way then i'll move it to a jacket pocket or my hoodie pocket so its never in the way

TRZ06

2022 718 GT4, yes 30K miles

No clue on the fluid condition, I didn't think to ask.

They flushed the fluid and replaced the external filter.

DER951

Does Blackstone do analysis of PDK fluid?

slilley

I'm pretty sure you are wrong about this. I keep up with this RL thread, and there are not a lot of success stories when it comes to repairing PDK transmissions by anyone but a very small handful of experts.

Atlanta Speedwerks has done over 100 PDK repairs according to their website, so even that's not a large number - but I'd 100% trust them based on what I've read so far.

PDKs have been around for 15 years now, and I suspect (but don't have hard data) that each dealership has done at least 1 full PDK replacement per year. With ~200 dealerships nationwide, that's 3,000 PDK replacements in the US alone.

But I'm sure the PDK failure rate is well under 1%, so keeping my fingers crossed! Plus, I got the Porsche extended warranty, simply as insurance against a PDK or engine failure out of the factory warranty period.

mwar99

It's probably more than that given the number of cars with PDK over the 15 years, and the larger dealerships I'm sure have done more than 1 per year. It's an unfortunate situation that they won't let the dealerships repair it. I had to replace the PDK in my 991.1 GT3 last summer as they wouldn't service it. And I'm not sure if I would have saved money sending it out for repair. It's not exactly practical to get a PDK to an out of state shop for repair and then once they get into it what will they find? You could spend a lot of money for removal, shipping, etc. and then find out you need a new one. If you live by one of the shops then the decision could slide towards a repair, but with no good shops to rely on nearby it's a much tougher choice to go for a repair.

tigerhonaker

That was an interesting Long-Term-Test by Car & Driver.

It's also interesting that the 4.0 GTS required a new clutch from what ??? ............... ABUSE !!!

Also, it's interesting that a Authorized Porsche "Service-Department" didn't have immediately on hand the Correct {Spark-Plug-Tool}.
Personally, given the above ^^^ that Porsche Dealership would be the LAST I would be taking my GT4 to, ever.

Goes to show all of us how testers actually treat even a new Porsche 4.0 GTS !!!

Terry
USA

Xxyion

It seems like they were attempting to cram minimum 4 years of driving into one year of ownership so i wouldnt be surprised if they abused the hell out of the car. I mean 40k miles in one year is actually so much driving. Even at my peak when i was traveling an hour each way for work i still only put about 15k miles on my car (at the time) per year. Then imagine how many people knowing that the car isnt theres and the point is to just drive the hell out of the thing, im sure many of the people would just abuse it every chance they get. Which in a way i think is also valuable information. Basically it looks like you can really drive these hard and the car can handle it. Which is a good thing in my book.

mikedee

what is this elusive plug tool that Porsche did not even have ?