Hi,

After a few months of owning an 2007 997Turbo I am getting to know my car, and I also realized the Mezger engined little car has some things that sets it apart from most cars I ever had. So I thought I ask for more info on the personality of this car from this forum (where I so far gotten answers to every question I ever had). So anyone has anything else that fits here please tell me! (I am not looking for normal failures or errors more of things that is "normal" for the car but could confuse a new owner like myself).

So this is my current list describing her...

Engine:
Yes at cold start it sounds like some one threw bolts and nuts in a metal bucket in the rear, dont worry be happy you have a race derived engine in your daily driver! This can also be part of a heat up cycle for the catalytic converters trying to raise EGT's to heat up the environmental shields.

At start-up if sitting for a while (hours-days) it will burn off oil collected in the cylinders (its a boxer engine) it smokes in a way that sometimes would have made my drive any previous car straight to the dealer. Could be made worse by short trips (oil sucks up some water), I plan on doing more often oil changes to be sure I am nice to the engine After driving for a little while both goes away.

Brakes:
If cold or sitting in the parking for a few days your parking brakes might get "stuck", gives in with a loud "chunk" when driving away, considered normal.

Cabin:
Seems that ventilation isnt the 911's strong side (either) in the winter it helps driving around with the roof-hatch or a window slightly open to help the fans defrost the windows (you can hear the change in fan rpm when opening the windows). My biggest "complaint" is lack of ventilation once you leave the car, I meet a wall of ice not all different from the one seen in Game of Thornes on my windscreen inside every morning in the winter. (I am in Stockholm, Sweden so if you dont live where -20deg celsius is considered normal you probably wont see this).

Key fob being very sensitive, as mentioned in this thread, the key fob can easily open your trunk when you have the key in your pocket close to the car. There is supposed to be coding fix for this, one can ask the dealer to add delay on the trunk opening.

 

OP, I have had my 997.1 TT since September 12' and all of the above has been true for me as well. It is quite learning curve for us guys that bought the car pre-owned because we don't know the exact norms and tend to be a bit over pre-cautious.

Thanks for all the patience from the people that have owned this car since 07' and respond with helpful advice.

My newest learning experience with the 997 is how sensitive the key is. While covering the car a week ago, the key must have pressed against my leg and popped the trunk. This sunday when I decided to take the car out for a quick ride, my battery was dead. I wish there was lock/unlock button. Even after locking, I end up manually lifting the door handle to make sure its locked.

-Vin

 

The only thing I would change about my car is a lock/unlock chirp... every other car I own has one and it is a pain in the daytime to make sure it is locked .. cant see the lights flashing in bright sunlight...

 

The key buttons are sensitive and there is a DIY fix on the forum somewhere - search and see if you can find it. I'll look too. Also, the trunk light being on because the hood popped will not drain a good battery. There's a power save feature that would shut it off after 2 hours. The fact that your battery was dead tells me you need a new battery. From the manual:

If the ignition key is removed, loads which are switched on or are in standby mode (such as the luggage compartment light, interior light and radio) are automatically switched off after approx. 2 hours.

 

Wow thank you. I will replace the battery. It did seem odd to me that the open lid drained the battery. I just thought it was normal because I've heard people say that Porsche's are known for the slightest things killing the battery.

 

Here are a couple more....

Tough shift from second to third on 6MT. Very common.

Clunk noise backing up after car sits for a while: If you back out from a parking spot and turn the wheel almost to lock, there will be a clunk from the front suspension. It then doesn't do it again until cold.

 

Couple of things..

The noise at cold engine start is as much maybe more so a factor of the VarioCam Plus and its low lift feature than the race engine derived pedigree of the engine.

At cold engine start combustion is limited on purpose to feed some unburned fuel to the converters where it gets burned and thus heats up the converters quicker.

With my 996 Turbo with the same engine I just let the engine idle a moment or two until the rpms drop and the engine smooths out.

Anther contributing factor to cold start engine clatter is the freshness of the oil. As the engine is run the oil collects water and unburned gasoline. This dilutes the oil and one side effect is the engine is just more noisy. The only way to remove this accumulation of fluids is to drain the oil and replace it with fresh oil.

Even though I follow a 5K mile oil/filter service interval with my cars after an oil change the engine is always quieter.

Since your car is new to you unless you know the oil/filter was done just before you bought the car (and the right type/viscosity of oil was used) maybe you should do an oil/filter service?

Given your comment about the smoking upon startup I suspect you are treating the car to short trips and the engine does not get fully up to temp. As an aside these engines are cold blooded and it can take minutes (15 or more) running around -- not just idling -- before they are up to operating temp.

Thus your car's engine oil is a candidate to have a goodly amount of water/unburned fuel in it.

The only time I've had any issue with the brakes "sticking" is when I pick up the car after having it serviced and the car has sat in dealer's service parking area after being washed and parked up with the brakes wet.

If you drive the car in the rain or wash it drive the car and use the brakes to get them hot enough to dry them out. 'course depending upon where you live high humidity might play a role too. Where I live humidity is not that high that often and even though my cars are parked outside the brakes are not stuck when I go to drive either car.

As for cabin ventilation your experience is contrary to mine. Both of my cars have superior cabin ventilation.

Now my cars both have auto climate control. I believe your car should have ths system too.

Even if not in auto mode (the A/C compressor is not on -- the snowflake symbol is not visible and the system is not in "Manuell" mode) when I start the car cold the vent fan's speed is automatically adjusted to a slower speed and the air vent control flaps are changed to keep from blowing a blast of air in my face through the center/dash vents. The bulk of the air is directed to the floor and windscreen vents.

Once the engine coolant temp starts to climb both fan speed and the cabin vents are adjusted to direct more air into the cabin's center.

Only under severe weather conditions do I have to turn on the defrost mode. This turns on the A/C compressor and selects the highest fan speed and directs almost all air to the windscreen vents to demist or deice the windscreen.

Under less extreme temp conditions the climate control -- in auto mode either with the A/C on or off but "Manuell" not showing on the fan speed display -- cabin ventilation is superb. The cabin remains at 72F (which is the temp I select) and the cabin receives plenty of fresh air and without the hurricane winds lesser A/C/heater systems are prone to generate.

If the cabin ventilation is truly compromised maybe you need to change, or at least inspect, the cabin air filter. Depending upon where you live these can get quite loaded with the stuff they filter from the incoming air. Enough possibly to restrict air flow into the cabin.

 

my n54 bmw had a "heat up" program for the catts as well, it basically changed the ignition timing to raise EGT's, and made a cold start sound like I had a old 4-cyl diesel.

It got service just before I got it, and hasnt done much milage since, I am scheduled to do the next according to the service plan but that is almost 1,5y out.

Yes my normal trip is to work and its only 5km so I assume I need to tend to the poor engine a little more often than just based on milage.

I dont know where you live, but here in Stockholm humidity is high unless temps drops (like today) to -18deg Celsius over night, and every metal surface is covered in ice (including brakes etc). When the sun comes up my car being parked outside in a relatively protected south facing parking, it usually will melt the ice away and next night the cycle starts again, I assume it ends up collecting water and ice in weird places both inside and outside the car. Me and the wife is in the process of buying a larger house and I made an garage a P1 in that process.

My issue isnt with the fans bringing in air through the filter (replaced before purchase in september 2012) but with getting warm humid air out of the cabin once I leave the car, since snow and ice collected inside the car melts and goes into the air of the cabin it must be ventilated out after leaving the car or it ends up as ice (quite a lot) on the inside of the windscreen. My beemers has been great at this, the 911 is more air-tight than I like...

Thanks for the added info, this is exactly why I started the thread to collect more info on the "why is my car behaving this way"

 

thanks, will try those, never had issues with the gear change from 2nd to 3rd (or thought about it) but when the gearbox is properly cold going from 2nd to 1st can be a little more challenging for me. Same goes for the turn-to-lock, will test this as well.

 

+1 on the sensitivity of the key, it easily opens the trunk lid for me too

 

I wont have to deal with sunlight until maybe May so there is some benefits living up here after all

 

if your daily commute is 5km then you're likely not even getting the engine oil above 100C. I recommend taking the car out once a week for a 30 minute drive and get the engine oil nice and hot to vaporize any dissolved water and burn off any build up in the cylinders etc, otherwise you are doing the engine a disservice

 

updated first post with some added insight from fellow 6speeders...thanks everyone!

 

The only good thing is I need the car to heat up some before driving away (to get rid of all ice on the windows), but yes it prob never reach 100C driving to work.

Could you talk to my wife about that I really have to drive the car hard for 30min every week

 

well, theres the dreaded occassional rev at start up.