NEW 981 BOXSTER OWNERS - PROSPECTIVE PURCHASERS FORUM
Discussion
I've already been told that I won't be taking this near the track (I have a dedicated track car for that I was told) but I may sneak in a cheeky Bedford evening one day!
The options were getting out of hand. Would have loved full leather. PTV I don't think I would have got full benefit from on the road and was quite expensive
I have a new everyday car coming in Sept/oct. I have a place booked but not specced. Where I think it will be c£65k others are suggesting it will be more like £70k so I need to save some for that ! It has a form of ptv as std though so won't have that problem!
The options were getting out of hand. Would have loved full leather. PTV I don't think I would have got full benefit from on the road and was quite expensive
I have a new everyday car coming in Sept/oct. I have a place booked but not specced. Where I think it will be c£65k others are suggesting it will be more like £70k so I need to save some for that ! It has a form of ptv as std though so won't have that problem!
went to the OPC yesterday to confirm spec and get my test drive.
spec ended up at 65k.....sod it !
the test drive was everything i hoped it would be in the new Boxster S.....just brought an instant smile to my face
one thing that I was a little confused about was the PASM....salesman told me that PASM in normal mode is the same as the standard suspension....and only comes into play when you put it into sport mode, where it stiffens up.
the ride in normal on 20's on country bumpy b roads was noticeably better than that off my other halfs gen 2 09 cayman on 19's !!
turn the PASM on into sport and it gets bumpier and more direct but nothing drastic.
spec ended up at 65k.....sod it !
the test drive was everything i hoped it would be in the new Boxster S.....just brought an instant smile to my face
one thing that I was a little confused about was the PASM....salesman told me that PASM in normal mode is the same as the standard suspension....and only comes into play when you put it into sport mode, where it stiffens up.
the ride in normal on 20's on country bumpy b roads was noticeably better than that off my other halfs gen 2 09 cayman on 19's !!
turn the PASM on into sport and it gets bumpier and more direct but nothing drastic.
jonjo83 said:
one thing that I was a little confused about was the PASM....salesman told me that PASM in normal mode is the same as the standard suspension....and only comes into play when you put it into sport mode, where it stiffens up.
So in normal mode, the only difference is that the car sits 10mm lower than without PASM. Hmm, scrub PASM from wish list?asplandg said:
So in normal mode, the only difference is that the car sits 10mm lower than without PASM. Hmm, scrub PASM from wish list?
No, that's just not true. The suspension is ACTIVE, it reacts to the road surface, your throttle inputs, brake inputs etc. It then varies the suspension settings based on these inputs.Whether you "need" (my quotes) or not is up to you. Passive setups can be very good, they can also be very fidgety. All demo cars I have seen have a) had 20" wheels and b) PASM. I know Porsche are trying to sell us stuff, but at the same time I can't help but feel there is something to be read from that.
Mutt said:
No, that's just not true. The suspension is ACTIVE, it reacts to the road surface, your throttle inputs, brake inputs etc. It then varies the suspension settings based on these inputs.
Whether you "need" (my quotes) or not is up to you. Passive setups can be very good, they can also be very fidgety. All demo cars I have seen have a) had 20" wheels and b) PASM. I know Porsche are trying to sell us stuff, but at the same time I can't help but feel there is something to be read from that.
Yes, is definitely on/active all the time assuming it is the same set-up as the 987. The button just adjusts the underlying level of firmenss in the ride (although I think even that is overrideden by the processor if it feels necessary). FWIW I have owned two 987Ss, first without and second with PASM. Over time I have come to appreciate just how clever it is at damping things out. That said the non-PASM car still felt great so hard to say whether I would spec it or not. Versus some options I think it represents fair value for money (if that can ever be said of Porsche prices!) Whether you "need" (my quotes) or not is up to you. Passive setups can be very good, they can also be very fidgety. All demo cars I have seen have a) had 20" wheels and b) PASM. I know Porsche are trying to sell us stuff, but at the same time I can't help but feel there is something to be read from that.
In process of speccing up a Boxter S. Specced PASM , what about the dynamic engine mounts and tourque vectoring ? Difficult to know how important they are unless you have driven one with and without . The EVO test car had all of them fitted , would they have liked it as much without these options ?
Also anybody got a picture of a car with the Orange and Grey leather ? Thought it would look a bit wild with White , but not sure how brave i am !
Also anybody got a picture of a car with the Orange and Grey leather ? Thought it would look a bit wild with White , but not sure how brave i am !
Advan said:
In process of speccing up a Boxter S. Specced PASM , what about the dynamic engine mounts and tourque vectoring ? Difficult to know how important they are unless you have driven one with and without . The EVO test car had all of them fitted , would they have liked it as much without these options ?
Also anybody got a picture of a car with the Orange and Grey leather ? Thought it would look a bit wild with White , but not sure how brave i am !
I asked the dealer about the PTV and dynamic transmission mounts. His feeling was very much it depends on how you drive or, I suppose, where you drive. Day to day driving then PTV and the dynamic mounts won't make that much difference. Track driving, or driving like you're on a track (!), will yield benefits. Resale, he doubted they'd make much difference.Also anybody got a picture of a car with the Orange and Grey leather ? Thought it would look a bit wild with White , but not sure how brave i am !
Advan said:
Specced PASM
PASM in normal mode is not the same as normal suspension, as said it is active and varies as your driving and the road surface varies. On a poor road surface or when driving in a relaxed manner it will be more compliant than normal suspension, on a smooth road surface and when driving aggressively it will be firmer than normal. Sport mode biases it towards firmer, but on poor road surfaces it will still soften the damping. I have read explanations that say PASM varies damping from 1-10, with normal mode using 1-7 and sport mode using 3-10, so in the right conditions normal mode may be firmer than sport mode in poorer conditions.I expect I will leave mine in normal apart from if I do any track days, but still expect to benefit from a more comfortable ride on rubbish roads. Of course it is possible for the active system to make poor choices, but well programmed it is more likely to suit the changing driving conditions than a fixed passive system, which must select a single compromise between handling and comfort.
Advan said:
what about the dynamic engine mounts and tourque vectoring ? Difficult to know how important they are unless you have driven one with and without . The EVO test car had all of them fitted , would they have liked it as much without these options ?
Exactly, no doubt they help, but is it 1% or 100% better? It seems impossible to judge whether they are worth the money so you just have to decide emotionally. I am sure the standard car handles fine and is comfortable enough, but feel better about my purchase with these features.Many people with PDK seem to be choosing the Sport Chrono even though on the 981 the need for it is much reduced by the standard SPORT button. This seems to be partly a desire for the toys, such as Launch Control and the G-force meter, even though in reality these features will be used once or twice, and probably just to show to friends, then forgotten about. In the end I kept SC in my spec partly for the transmission mounts, as I wanted them to help the PASM to give a comfortable ride on poor roads around my house, and partly just because I preferred the look of the SC clock filling the gap between the air vents on the dash. Very poor reasons for such an expensive option, I am sure, but then a £60K two seater sports car is not really a sensible purchase in any case.
I have seen very few people choose the torque vectoring, and quite a bit of apparently uninformed comment and frankly scare mongering about brake wear. Equally, a few comments that a sports car should have an LSD and here I tend to agree. In the end I decided to include it but it was 50/50 and I could have just as easily chosen not to. I am sure that Comments about brake wear are much exaggerated, as the small extra wear on one rear brake will be dwarfed by the hard braking into the corner in the first place, not to mention the straight line braking in traffic. Impossible to come up with an accurate estimate, but something like 5% seems likely. Equally, you might argue that the LSD will save tyre wear on the rears by ensuring better traction?
I took the decision that money spent on options that made the car more comfortable or better handling meant I was more likely to drive it and get some value from it. I was tempted by painted roll over bars, silver seat belts and more leather but it very quickly added up!
Advan said:
Also anybody got a picture of a car with the Orange and Grey leather ? Thought it would look a bit wild with White , but not sure how brave i am !
Everyone says spec your car how you want it and don't worry about resale, which I largely agree with as you are going to get killed on trade in anyway, but some colour combinations just seem like financial suicide ...Cheers,
Geoff
gbrownzen said:
535dBoy said:
Yes pretty much everything ticked but not leather on dashboard. The mrs would go nuts if she knew how much, and it is her car!
10th may completion.
What no PTV? You're not really trying to get the price up ... 10th may completion.
Not many people seem to have gone with the PTV/LSD!
I must confess I had a spec panic earlier in the week wondereding if I should have gone with full leather rather than the LSD, but the car was in production and it was far too late! So many options and such a long time to wait for the car means lots of time to worry about what you have specced and especially what you haven't!
I set myself a limit of £60K (after dropping the 3rd year warranty) and in the end I got to within a few pounds, so the choice was full leather and drop LSD and Auto aircon or PDLS. As I'm keen on a straight black interior I felt the dash would be fine.
GT Silver and full leather would have been the nicest, but that would have added another £2.5K ...
Looks like a bunch of us have cars completing within a few days and probably sharing a boat across. I'm expecting 2-3 weeks for delivery, unless some unusual delay, so I'll be happy if I can collect on or before 1st June.
Let's just hope it's stopped raining by then!
Cheers,
Geoff
I have it on mine but I understand why it is not standard as it makes the car wiggle. I do not like the sound of PTV as it sounds like the brakes are electronically engaged to stop tail-out action, which is why i specced my LSD in the first place.
Monkey's and Catchpoles reviews also indicated that you cannot switch the electronics off entirely, which means the PTV cannot be switched off - this concerns me. Monkey's video clearly shows the brakes automatically engaging during cornering.
I think all these options (apart from PSE and alcantara wheel, gear nob) can be done without and the 3.2 engine, it depends on who the car is intended for.
I stuck all the options onto mine, it drives and feels very different to one without, you need to drive half a dozen 981's in different config - doing it blind via forum's is a receipe for disaster.
All this talk of dynamic engine mounts and sports chrono being required, load of rubbish imo. Especially the sport button is now standard.
I would only go PASM if on 19s or 20s.
The best 981 drive will be the one in manual, 2.7, running the smallest 18inch wheels, the least tech, the cheap leather and the PSE. It will also be wearing one of the no cost colours - Black, White, Yellow or Red. That might be hard to believe for some but I will stick money on it.
Edited by Carl_Docklands on Monday 7th May 13:30
Chins said:
If you spec PDK the real reason to get Sports Chrono is the faster shifts, optimum shift points. Also looks like it adds throttle blips during downshifts. Oh and I forgot Launch Control
On a manual car I dont see the point.
I have them on my car, you don't need it. You will look like a right dick doing a launch control in a Boxster. Yes it is fun at Silverstone when the demonstrate it but that's it.On a manual car I dont see the point.
The faster shifts and downblips are not much quicker than sport mode, they are quicker and more agressive but they up-shift for each gear is 7,000 RPM.
Now Sport mode button is standard, I don't see the point.
You need to ask the question, "do i really want to be driving around changing gear only at 7,000rpm?". The only time I answer yes to that question is on track and in the height of summer in france/wales/scotland but you will switch on and off in short burst only.
Edited by Carl_Docklands on Monday 7th May 13:52
Carl_Docklands said:
Not many people specced the LSD on the Gen2 987 ('09 onwards).
I have it on mine but I understand why it is not standard as it makes the car wiggle. I do not like the sound of PTV as it sounds like the brakes are electronically engaged to stop tail-out action, which is why i specced my LSD in the first place.
Monkey's and Catchpoles reviews also indicated that you cannot switch the electronics off entirely, which means the PTV cannot be switched off - this concerns me. Monkey's video clearly shows the brakes automatically engaging during cornering.
I think all these options (apart from PSE and alcantara wheel, gear nob) can be done without and the 3.2 engine, it depends on who the car is intended for.
I stuck all the options onto mine, it drives and feels very different to one without, you need to drive half a dozen 981's in different config - doing it blind via forum's is a receipe for disaster.
All this talk of dynamic engine mounts and sports chrono being required, load of rubbish imo. Especially the sport button is now standard.
I would only go PASM if on 19s or 20s.
The best 981 drive will be the one in manual, 2.7, running the smallest 18inch wheels, the least tech, the cheap leather and the PSE. It will also be wearing one of the no cost colours - Black, White, Yellow or Red. That might be hard to believe for some but I will stick money on it.
When you say that these options can be done without, I am sure you are correct, and certainly in terms of value for money a minimally speced car will be best.I have it on mine but I understand why it is not standard as it makes the car wiggle. I do not like the sound of PTV as it sounds like the brakes are electronically engaged to stop tail-out action, which is why i specced my LSD in the first place.
Monkey's and Catchpoles reviews also indicated that you cannot switch the electronics off entirely, which means the PTV cannot be switched off - this concerns me. Monkey's video clearly shows the brakes automatically engaging during cornering.
I think all these options (apart from PSE and alcantara wheel, gear nob) can be done without and the 3.2 engine, it depends on who the car is intended for.
I stuck all the options onto mine, it drives and feels very different to one without, you need to drive half a dozen 981's in different config - doing it blind via forum's is a receipe for disaster.
All this talk of dynamic engine mounts and sports chrono being required, load of rubbish imo. Especially the sport button is now standard.
I would only go PASM if on 19s or 20s.
The best 981 drive will be the one in manual, 2.7, running the smallest 18inch wheels, the least tech, the cheap leather and the PSE. It will also be wearing one of the no cost colours - Black, White, Yellow or Red. That might be hard to believe for some but I will stick money on it.
Not sure about the PTV being responsible for stopping tail out action by engaging the brakes, I think this is actually the traction and stability management, which are standard. Also the car in "Monkey's" video did not have PTV, he actually says this just before throwing it sideways in a corner. He does say that the electronics seemed to interfere, but as PTV is not on his car I would expect this must be the Porsche Stability Management.
I agree you would only really know if you tried all combinations of these options back to back, but in reality this is not going to be done, not even by the journos.
Cheers,
Geoff
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