It's not a joke, and I did depress the accellerator correctly - I'm fully aware how to drive a tiptronic, as I have one in my Boxster S. I just said that it wasn't that much more impressive than the E500, which in itself has a very powerful V8. The 6-speed on the other hand, was in a world of its own.

 

I find that surprising, but okay, that's your experience and obviously you know how to use a tip.

my experience is quite different, I have a tip turbo, and have driven an E500 and found no comparison.

 

Just read your post, was falling on the floor - laughing hysterically.

I too just did something similar. Been driving my 996 Cab tip for 5 years. Usually end up with a stick loaner once in a while, so I can handle it fine, but wasn't sure about daily driving, city commute, etc.

Took a new C4S Cab 6-speed out two days ago.

Now I remember that permagrin feeling. I too said the exact same thing.....Holy **** comes to mind....as I let that puppy into 3rd and punched it on the highway.

Absolutely amazing. My next one is a stick, and I am psyched.

And yes, I can drive the crap out of my tip, and it is fun, but there was something magical the other day.

Enjoy.

 

I'm not saying they are the same car by any stretch, just that there wasn't as much difference as I had hoped. I went in there fully expecting to enjoy the tip as much as the 6-speed, as I've enjoyed my Boxster S tip immensely - it just didn't blow me away like I thought it would. The 6-speed, on the other hand, was even more than I anticipated.

I"m certainly not knocking tip, as I plan on keeping the Boxster as long as I can, and enjoying its tip-dom every day...

 

so what about prices - should I go for 105k or less on this one, or see if I can get a NEW '03 for a huge discount, and maybe get the color combo I want? What kind of discounts did all of you get for '03 TT's

 

Keep both--that's what I have (and I share the Boxster S with my wife). The Boxster's fun when you want to cruise around top down, but there are many times when I do miss the Turbo's power and torque, and I also track both cars, the Turbo more so because of it's power and also I like the hunkered down feeling you get through corners in the Turbo.

It's nice if you can have both--neither one should sit that much. Sort of like the old Mounds/Amond Joy commercial--sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. Only it is sometimes you feel like driving a Boxster, sometimes the Turbo. It's all good.

BTW, on the Tip, other than a stick being more "involving" you should not notice a performance drop off between the two short of using a stop watch.

Truthfully, out on the track when I'm running with other 996 TT's, who's fastest--me in my 996 TT Tip or them in their manuals--depends on the driver not the cars.

Gearing wise, the Tip has "taller" gears, since there's only 5 speeds to work with, and at first you do have to push a Tip car pretty hard to get them to perform (because the Tip in the 996 TT has many more shift maps--I've forgotten the number but it's more than 10 different patterns). In the automatic mode especially, there's a lot of interplay between throttle inputs and braking habits that factor into performance with the Tip.

If you can drive a stick and you like it better, than that's the way to go for you. Obviously the Tip wasn't fun for you but I'm not sure how you were driving at the time, in auto mode, in manual in which gear, and how (accelerating from a stop, rolling stop, accelerating from an established speed, whatever). I know that several DE instructors who are diehards have driven mine and come away very impressed with the experience.

If you were expecting max performance right off the bat in the auto mode, there are any number of situations where that may put you in a higher gear than you would want for a spirited drive.

I've come fully circle with mine--after almost 2 yrs. of using manual mode on the track and when I want to have "fun", I've learned how to drive so that the auto mode virtually always is in the gear I need it to be. It really requires the driver to attack corners and be either accelerating or braking. A driving style in between and it will up shift to 5th and you have to really hit the throttle to get it to shift down, and there is sometimes a little latency until it downshifts either manually or in the auto mode.

 

Oh, I fully plan on keeping the Boxster S as long as it remains practical (or at least semi-practical) to do so. The wife seems okay with it so far, so I'm in good shape. The problem is that one of those cars needs to be my 'freeway car', and neither is perfect for that, but certainly I'll be having fun no matter what the drive might be.