Embracing the midlife cliche - 991.1 C2S
Embracing the midlife cliche - 991.1 C2S
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KaraK

Original Poster:

13,453 posts

226 months

Wednesday 20th August
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As seen here the time had finally arrived to put my RS5 out to pasture. I'd been planning a change for a while once a house sale went through and I had a bit of spare cash to chuck at it and I was primarily looking at Panameras and the like, something a bit special but also practical enough to serve as our only transport since Mrs K doesn't drive.

Contrary to established stereotypes however Mrs K was having none of it, she wholeheartedly urged me to sod practicality and everyone else's needs and get something that I truly wanted instead (Best. Wife. Ever.)

Which is how I found myself shopping for a Porsche 911, as this was to be a daily and I cover a fair amount of miles on a daily basis (see: the RS5's odometer) I wanted to make sure the car had a decent level of quality of life kit; PDK, cruise, heated seats, climate control, and parking sensors were pretty much must-haves and Power Steering Plus was a nice to have. I wasn't prepared to take too much of a hit on power so that ruled out the base model and higher-tier models like the GTS were prohibitively expensive so a Carrera S was the logical choice. Colour-wise I actually think they look good in pretty much every colour other than red so I was flexible there.

Perhaps naively I didn't think that my desired car would be too much of a unicorn and I'd be able to find one fairly easily. Which turned out to be wrong. We live in an area that is not economically well-endowed (as it were) and most likely-looking candidates were the other end of the country and 4-5 hours drive away. I'm not averse to going the distance for the right car mind you, but a 10 hour round trip just to try one out seemed a bit excessive even for me.

Eventually one turned up a mere 2 hours drive away, and while it was over-budget by about £3k the spec was, barring a lack of PSP, pretty much bang on what I wanted and trying it out would give me the confidence to buy one that was a bit further afield. So one Saturday me and the missus hopped in the RS5 and went for a look-see. The car in question turned out to be fabulous, Mrs K's first reaction upon seeing it was "that's one sexy car!" and even on a brief test drive it was everything I'd hoped the 911 experience would be and more. Still, it was over budget and a bit of negotiation had only closed that gap to about £2k so I said I'd think about it and headed home.

You can probably tell where this is going.

Yep, an encouraging wife and a healthy dose of man-maths later and I'm giving a deposit over the phone to hold the car while I sort the funds. I didn't much like the idea of having to try and juggle my schedule to get a free Saturday and then driving another 4 hour round trip to pick it up but fortunately the garage offered delivery at a rate that would barely be any more than the fuel cost of going there myself. The added bonus being they could deliver it during the week and do the swap over at my work (which is about 30 miles closer to them then home!) and I could therefore get the car sooner.

The day arrived and I was like a kid on Christmas morning badgering his parents to get up so he can open his presents, I didn't get much work done that day if I'm honest. Time's ticking away and we're approaching the two and half hour mark from when the guy was setting off. At this point I was starting to get worried, visions of some numpty delivery guy enjoying his unsupervised jaunt in a Porsche a little too much and stacking it started to fill my mind. Just as I was about to ring the dealer and enquire whether disaster had struck my phone rang. "I'm outside!" said the driver, I looked out the office window "No you're not!" I reply, he promptly reels off my home address. Oops. Despite me being clear on where I was (and the invoice showing delivery to my office address) the sales guy had given him the wrong instructions, for extra hilarity he'd have driven essentially past my work to get to my house banghead Nevermind, he jumps back in the car and forty minutes later rocked up at work and we do the handover.


Enough waffling, here's the car:







As for the gory details the car is a '63-plate Carrera 2S PDK with (at purchase) ~73k on the clock, in Agate Grey Metallic paint over black leather interior (not actually as dark inside as I expected - perhaps the years in black Audi interiors have given me Stockholm syndrome or something).

The spec includes

  • Cruise control
  • Dual zone climate control
  • Slide/tilt sunroof
  • Heated seats
  • Rear wiper (who even knew they did those for 911s?)
  • Front/Rear parking sensors
  • Auto xenons
  • Auto wipers
  • Auto-dimming mirrors
  • PASM (standard on the S I believe)
  • PTV+ (standard on the PDK cars I think)
  • Alcantara headlining
Additionally at some point in its' life it's been fitted with the Sport Design steering wheel so at the cost of the steering wheel controls and wheel-heating it has the proper PDK paddles rather than the stupid buttons that were standard on the 991 PDK cars, an aftermarket reversing camera, and the previous owner (who I've actually been in touch with over Rennlist - top bloke!) had swapped the PCM unit for an Android touchscreen one with Carplay/Andoid Auto, added TPMS units that pair to the headunit, a battery monitor that does likewise and a RaceChip XLR throttle controller.

Now, two and a bit months later I've covered about three and an a half thousand miles and it's time for the first report on daily-driving a 991.1:

The Good

  • The handling - it's pretty much a cliche given how much the motoring press as gushed over the way 911s drive over the years it really does live up to the hype, the steering is very direct and feelsome and the car goes exactly where I point it. The car soaks up bumps well without ever feeling wallow-y and you get feedback without any teeth-rattling. No surprise really but it would run rings around the RS5 on the twisties
  • The power - straight-line speed and brute-force power were never the 911's party piece outside of the very top-end cars and while it lacks the effortless shove of the RS5 in the midrange it's got plenty and it weighs several hundred kilos less. Once the revs climb above about 4k it's like someone pressed the 1.5x playback button on the world and it just piles on the speed extremely rapidly
  • The sound! Losing the V8 rumble feels like no loss at all, that flat six howl really kicks in about about 3000rpm and while it's different it's no less enjoyable. Yes there's more road noise than the fairly cosseted Audi but it's not unpleasant and cruising at motorway speeds you can easily converse normally.
  • The practicality - yes you read that right this is in the "Good" section. It's no family wagon to be sure but those back "seats", coupled with the parcel shelf and the frunk offer up a surprising amount of space. Plenty for weekend tip runs or luggage for trips. The clever people at Stuttgart have made good use of the interior space so there's good storage options and you never feel cramped in it, the seats might not reach the comfort levels of the Audi but there's comfortable enough and offer plenty of support when you're pressing on. I really do feel the reduction in size when doing tight manoeuvring and parking too.
  • Comfort - I've done any really long trips yet but it accomplishes the commute with aplomb, the sound from the Android unit and standard speakers isn't quite up to the levels of the Audi's B&O setup but it's good enough and the big screen offers a great Android Auto experience while looking very OEM.
  • Economy - I swear I'm not trolling here, and it wasn't the reason for the switch but the 911 kicks the RS5's arse for economy, long-term average in that was 22mpg and change, doing the same driving over the last couple of thousand miles has seen the Porsche return a 30.7mpg average - I regularly see 34-35 on a run! That's phenomenal, so you heard it here folks, if you need to save fuel, buy a Porsche!
  • People love it - I fully expected everyone would look at the car and go "Ugh! Flash git in his Porsche" but the opposite has been true, people are falling over themselves to let me out of junctions, kids stare at it as you go by, even the non-car people I know are always asking me excited questions about it
The Bad

Not a lot really!

  • I'm reaching here but the front's a little twitchy on the motorway when there's strong sidewinds. Storm Floris (?) was the first time I slightly missed the big, heavy Audi with it's casual disdain for puny things like "weather"
  • The back seats really are a no-go for adult passengers, I'm not a big guy (about 5'8") and I can fit in there, just, but I can't sit upright, a spry person about my size could cope for a very short trip but that's about it. This wasn't exactly unexpected, if anything I'm pleasantly surprised at the functionality they do have.
Since I've had the car not a lot has gone wrong - while nipping to the shops the other week my washer jets decided to stop working. You could hear the pump working but there was no fluid coming out. I investigated when I got home to find that the hose running from the car into the bonnet for the jets had neatly broken off at the hinge point. For some unearthly reason using normal rubber hosing would have been too simple for Porsche, instead they had used a weird flexy plastic instead. This is of course far stiffer and more brittle than rubber and as it was being asked to bend and flex quite tightly when you open/close the frunk it gives up there - really common problem apparently. I joined the two severed pieces using a right-angle hose connector and some loctite and it's working fine right now - I've got a replacement hose (£23 from design911) and it looks pretty simple to fit but given the current bodge is working well and the fact that the new hose would probably suffer the same fate eventually I might just leave it as is.



The only other things to go wrong are decidedly not the car's fault - a cabbie in Manchester got a bit too close for comfort the other week and clipped the driver's side front corner. The side-repeater took the brunt of the blow and is cracked, a replacement is on order from design911 (only £42!) and last I hear should be with me sometime in September. There was some light scuffs on the paintwork on the bumper but I've managed to polish out most of them and there's only a very small scuff remaining - it's hard to see unless you get very close and IMO not worth painting on it's own. Maybe in a year or two if I pick up some stone chips I'll get it done at the same time, excuse the pic it was rather sunny:



The final thing is a new one for me - I had an un-opened can of Coke sat in the cupholder one day while I was at work, when I came back to the car to drive home I found that said can had literally exploded - showering the entire passenger side of the interior in sticky brown nastiness; the seat, the door card, the window, the windscreen, everything! Fortunately an hour or so of graft with some leather cleaner, glass cleaner and finishing up with some leather conditioner deal with the worst of it. There's still some marks on the speaker grille but they aren't super obvious and I'm hoping some APC and a microfibre will deal with them.

Other things I've done - the one thing on my wish list this car didn't have was Power Steering Plus - which is basically Porsche's way of giving you extra steering-assist as low speeds for parking etc. but that disappears above about 15 mph for handling purposes. It wasn't a deal-breaker when it came to buying the car but my noodle arms did mean that low speed driving one-handed was difficult. Fortunately the change is just software (that's electromechanical steering for you!) and an OPC will retrofit it for £200. I had decided I was going to book it in when while I was researching diagnostic tools I found that you can use a ThinkDiag+ to code it in yourself, £70 on a ThinkDiag and about 5 mins to change a 0 to a 1 and presto! PSP enabled on my car. Take that Porsche-tax!

Still to do - There is a chip on the windscreen, it's not an MOT issue but it is annoying and I don't fancy it getting worse and having to go through the pain of a full replacement so I'm going to try get that repaired before winter. I need to check how much I've used on them but I think my rear tyres might be coming up in another few thousand miles so that will probably need doing before winter too. Given they're not only 20" rims but also super wide and apparently there's Porsche-specific fitments/compounds I'm expecting that's going to be fun! I want to get around to fitting a SIM to the headunit at some point, just so it can have it's own data connection and I can play around with what it can do outside of just AA, but that's just for fun really - AA does exactly what I need it to do.

So overall verdict? It's subjective but I have to say this car gives me joy in a way no car has since I bought my first scooby over 20 years ago - I get genuinely excited getting in it, and often turn around for a look as I walk away. As a car-mad twenty-something many years ago I'd never have expected to be in a position to buy one of these and I'm loving every minute of it! I'm normally deeply sceptical of things that are massively hyped but I have to say in this instance it's deserved, a 911 really is a very special car.

Benmac

1,585 posts

233 months

Wednesday 20th August
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Lovely, they're great things. In terms of spec yours is very similar to mine apart from mine not being an S and being metallic navy. Otherwise pretty much identical (on mine the stuff like the wheels, PASM, sport steering wheel, extended leather etc would have taken it above the base price of an S at the time)............even down to having a small whack recently by a third party on the front right corner!

On mine it definitely does need paint but that's not the end of the world. I got away without the light unit being damaged but the bumper wouldn't quite click back properly into place along the underside of the light. Fixed that myself by dropping the bumper off (very easy to do as is the rear one) which allowed me to get the clip to engage. Paint can be done in a couple of weeks.

KaraK

Original Poster:

13,453 posts

226 months

Wednesday 20th August
quotequote all
Benmac said:
Lovely, they're great things. In terms of spec yours is very similar to mine apart from mine not being an S and being metallic navy. Otherwise pretty much identical (on mine the stuff like the wheels, PASM, sport steering wheel, extended leather etc would have taken it above the base price of an S at the time)............even down to having a small whack recently by a third party on the front right corner!

On mine it definitely does need paint but that's not the end of the world. I got away without the light unit being damaged but the bumper wouldn't quite click back properly into place along the underside of the light. Fixed that myself by dropping the bumper off (very easy to do as is the rear one) which allowed me to get the clip to engage. Paint can be done in a couple of weeks.
Ooh.. I bet metallic navy looks very nice! Sorry yours got dinged too! All things considered I think I got off pretty lightly with mine, I actually expected the light to cost me far more than it did in the end and from a quick look at some videos it seems a simple enough job to change and a quick 5 minute swap of a side repeater beats mucking around getting the car to a body shop etc any day of the week, probably cheaper too!

keo

2,570 posts

187 months

Wednesday 20th August
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Enjoyed reading that. Nice to see someone enjoying their new car. Shame about the ding! Car looks great.

AC43

12,818 posts

225 months

Wednesday 20th August
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keo said:
Enjoyed reading that. Nice to see someone enjoying their new car. Shame about the ding! Car looks great.
Yeah good thread. I enjoy reading about real-world experiences of cars like these.

Mr Tidy

27,355 posts

144 months

Wednesday 20th August
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Congratulations on your acquisition, and your choice of wife! laugh

Your car looks great, but it's a shame about the ding so early on. Still it sounds like you are loving it and that's what really matters.

KaraK

Original Poster:

13,453 posts

226 months

Thursday 21st August
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Mr Tidy said:
Congratulations on your acquisition, and your choice of wife! laugh

Your car looks great, but it's a shame about the ding so early on. Still it sounds like you are loving it and that's what really matters.
Yeah she's a keeper cloud9 It's been quite funny when various people at work (and even my mother!) have been "Oh I hope Mrs K didn't mind/give you grief for buying it" and I'm like Hell no! She was the one talking me into it!

The ding is annoying for sure, but at least it isn't as bad as the one I got on the RS5 about 6 months into ownership when someone crashed into the driver's door in a car park and promptly scarpered!

I'm planning on giving the car a full machine polish and wax coat before winter if I can - the paint doesn't need much in the way of correction but it'll be nice to keep it looking its' best. To this end I picked up a Dodo Juice Buff Daddy DAS8 polisher and appropriate pads & polishes, obviously I'll post results here!

NDA

23,417 posts

242 months

Thursday 21st August
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Yay! That was a great writeup.

I bought my first Porsche last year (a 991.1 C4S) and was encouraged by Mrs NDA to do so. She says it's 'the sexiest looking car' I've owned - not sure about that, but it's a good looking thing.

I can 100% confirm that they're super comfortable on the long cruise - I took mine across France this year, down to the southern med... a brilliant trip and the car swallows luggage. Unfortunately the French have had a bit of a sense of humour failure about speed, so I've yet to really push the car beyond 100, but it feels willing and able. I love the 3.8 - quite peaceful below 4,000 rpm, starts to go a bit mad after that.

911's feel very 'evolved' somehow, everything is done exceptionally well - nothing superfluous, and it all works. I've had a lot of quick cars over the years, but the 911 seems to be the perfect GT, which is just what I need.

Congratulations on yours, sorry about the ding and I hope you have very many happy miles. smile

ETA: mine is a PDK - what a great gearbox! It's always in the right gear, a clever thing and enjoyable to use.

KaraK

Original Poster:

13,453 posts

226 months

Thursday 21st August
quotequote all
NDA said:
Yay! That was a great writeup.

I bought my first Porsche last year (a 991.1 C4S) and was encouraged by Mrs NDA to do so. She says it's 'the sexiest looking car' I've owned - not sure about that, but it's a good looking thing.

I can 100% confirm that they're super comfortable on the long cruise - I took mine across France this year, down to the southern med... a brilliant trip and the car swallows luggage. Unfortunately the French have had a bit of a sense of humour failure about speed, so I've yet to really push the car beyond 100, but it feels willing and able. I love the 3.8 - quite peaceful below 4,000 rpm, starts to go a bit mad after that.

911's feel very 'evolved' somehow, everything is done exceptionally well - nothing superfluous, and it all works. I've had a lot of quick cars over the years, but the 911 seems to be the perfect GT, which is just what I need.

Congratulations on yours, sorry about the ding and I hope you have very many happy miles. smile

ETA: mine is a PDK - what a great gearbox! It's always in the right gear, a clever thing and enjoyable to use.
"Evolved" is a good way of putting it actually, yes it's something of a running gag that boring old Porsche have just been making the same car for the last six decades, and it's true to an extent, but the flipside of that is that they've been refining that same car for six decades, and practice anything for six decades and you're probably going to get pretty good at it. I'm sure there's been the odd missteps over the years but the 991 certainly feels like a mature product. I don't have much in the way of comparison to make as I've only sat in (not driven) other 911s but comparing it to other cars of the same era I feel like I encounter far fewer schoolboy design and engineering errors (washer jet hose aside!).

My longest run in the 911 is probably only about an hour and a half thus far, which isn't a lot, but add in that I'm driving the car for at least an hour a day and the signs are very good that it will handle the longer road trips superbly well, we've got vague plans for a Euro-trip next year so will be fun to really give it a chance to stretch its' legs. That said as a pure GT I actually think the RS5 just edges it - but it's not by a massive amount, and as a sports car it's not even a competition, and that's not to insult the RS5, which was a very competent car in that respect. The 911 just blows it away.

I'm with you on the PDK front - I much prefer an autobox for daily duties anyway but I have to say even when I'm going for a "fun" drive I don't think I'd prefer having the manual in this (I'm sure the purists are gathering their torches and pitchforks as I type), leave it in auto and it always feels like it is working with you rather than against and put it in manual and you get nice, crisp changes as and when you want them.



Maxus

1,136 posts

198 months

Thursday 21st August
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Congratulations and nice write up. Car looks great and I hope it brings you many years of pleasure.

You can understand why 911s are so ubiquitous as they are such competent cars. The specialist I bought mine from described it as the sensible silly choice. I know what he means. It is a frivolous and often expensive purchase, but what you end up with is a premium sports car that is also very useable, comfortable and surprisingly economical. I get over 30 mpg out of mine locally and then towards 35 MPG on a run.

However, venture beyond 3k and that's where the fun begins. Worth the entry price for that yowl cool

Have fun.


bgunn

1,771 posts

148 months

Thursday 21st August
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That washer hose looks like it belongs the other side of the frunk strut, in order to slide and move as the lid closes.

JagYouAre

558 posts

187 months

Thursday 21st August
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That's a lovely thing OP, reminds me of the feeling of getting my first a couple of years ago (997.2 in my case, so a couple of years older). I daily drive mine too and it's such an amazingly versatile car (drive to work, do the shopping, ferry the (small) family around, cruise across Europe, track days - all handled easily) I can imagine I'll keep it till it dies now, whenever that might be.

If you haven't already done so I'd recommend adding getting the geo done to your list at some point. In my case it changed what I thought was a great drive into something truly excellent. Might be one or two suspension parts need refreshing before too long at that sort of mileage too.

I've had a small crack in the windscreen since the week after I bought mine, but I'm kind of waiting for it to get worse so I can justify a full replacement, as a previous owner changed the original for cheap Chinese crap; it hasn't got any bigger in over 2 years now though laugh

Enjoy!

KaraK

Original Poster:

13,453 posts

226 months

Thursday 21st August
quotequote all
bgunn said:
That washer hose looks like it belongs the other side of the frunk strut, in order to slide and move as the lid closes.
It does, like an idiot while I was faffing around fixing it I somehow managed to get it the wrong side of the strut without noticing getmecoat Fortunately it does fit ok in the gap between the strut and the wing. It just looks a little untidy, since to get it back on the correct side will involve basically taking the hose out I just left it as when I do that I might as well swap the new hose in at the same time.

KaraK

Original Poster:

13,453 posts

226 months

Thursday 21st August
quotequote all
JagYouAre said:
That's a lovely thing OP, reminds me of the feeling of getting my first a couple of years ago (997.2 in my case, so a couple of years older). I daily drive mine too and it's such an amazingly versatile car (drive to work, do the shopping, ferry the (small) family around, cruise across Europe, track days - all handled easily) I can imagine I'll keep it till it dies now, whenever that might be.

If you haven't already done so I'd recommend adding getting the geo done to your list at some point. In my case it changed what I thought was a great drive into something truly excellent. Might be one or two suspension parts need refreshing before too long at that sort of mileage too.

I've had a small crack in the windscreen since the week after I bought mine, but I'm kind of waiting for it to get worse so I can justify a full replacement, as a previous owner changed the original for cheap Chinese crap; it hasn't got any bigger in over 2 years now though laugh

Enjoy!
Geo is definitely on my to do list at some point, it'll be a day off work job but I was thinking of making the trip down to Center Gravity in Atherstone at some point. They aren't the cheapest but everyone seems to rave about their geo work on Porsches in particular.

alscar

6,744 posts

230 months

Thursday 21st August
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Nice and well written write up - enjoyed reading it.
Congratulations and hope the bad luck incident is the last.