Hey folks, I recently got a manual transmission Boxster 2014. Are there any recommended speed ranges for the gear shifts? I was reading that staying at 5-6K RPM is the best for the engine. Any thoughts on that? Btw when I do drive at 5-6K RPM fuel economy is horrible at around 15mpg.

Thanks in advance,
Chandan

 

It all depends on what you are doing at the time......

If you are on the race track or need to do heavy acceleration, then by all means run it all the way to red line. Why stop at 5-6K? You can feel the car get into the power band above 4K. So between 4K and red line you get the best performance, and the sound is amazing! As you noted this will kill your gas mileage.

If you are putting around town, I have noticed that my upshift indicator tells me to upshift around 1600 - and this is for only one thing - gas mileage. If you are stuck in traffic or going from red light to red light, shift early and keep the revs down. Its not as much fun, but then again, how much fun are you having stuck in traffic.

There is a definite inverse correlation between gas mileage and the engagement of the sport exhaust and/or sport plus mode (however there is a direct correlation to smiles per gallon in these modes!).

IMHO the car is meant to be driven and driven hard. Screw the gas mileage. If you can afford the car, you can afford the gas!

 

For daily driving I shift around 2500-3000 rpm. During spirited driving I run up to 5500-Redline, this however is not good for the engines longevity (if done regularly). You are not suppose to rev the engine high all the time.

 

All sorts of opinions on this.

However, staying at 5K to 6K is just crazy.

The best advice I can offer is keep RPMs below 4K and preferably a bit less than 4K until engine is warmed up fully.

At the low RPM range avoid very low RPM usage in any gear other than 1st gear. Generally in 1st I don't run the engine below 1K and 2nd I stay at 1500 or higher and higher still in higher gears. 4th and higher I seldom allow the RPMs to get below 3K.

As for higher RPMs you can take the engine to the upper reaches of its rev band provided the engine is fully warmed up. Occasionally -- and this during say my work commute of 60 miles (round trip) my Porsche engines see 5K or higher. I try to avoid red line/hitting the rev limiter but when the road/traffic and speed limit permits they both see higher RPMs just not all the time.

While gas mileage may suffer a tad from my usage it does not suffer that much. And both engines have lots of miles and are still very healthy. Id' much rather spend a bit more on gas than have to fund an engine rebuild or replacement. I can buy a lot of gasoline for what even a new Boxster engine costs. And the Turbo's engine cost? You want to be laying down when this quote comes across the parts department counter.

My style of driving works pretty good for me. The Turbo has covered 145K miles and the Boxster has covered over 300K miles with no engine issues.

As I covered above having some mechanical empathy for the engines (and in fact the entire car). That combined with 5K mile oil/filter changes is a large part in getting good and long service life from a car.