I have a 2013 Panamara GTS. I love the car and take very good car of my vehicles. Most of my vehicles I buy new and keep for ten years, although I bought this used with 12k miles on it. It now have 20k miles. I am really a detail guy with all of my cars. When a neighbour asked why I fuss so much over my 2007 Honda minivan I told him that they are all Porches to me.

The biggest concern that I have about keeping this car a long time is the PDK.

Questions:

Is there any reason that placing the PDK in neutral when the car is coasting will damage the transmission? Eg. coming up to a stop light in Comfort Mode and the car is in sixth gear, I see no reason that the car has to downshift through all the gears. I know that "proper" drivers do this but since I know that I will not need to accelerate at any point, I see no safety issues here. Also I recognize that the foot needs to be on the brake to place it back into gear. This can be counterintuitive but it is easy to learn. Note: if I am at 10MPH and the car is in neutral, I can still place the PDK into gear and it will seamlessly select the correct gear for the speed, eg. 3rd.

When I back this up into my one garage there is an odd angle to the driveway and an eight foot wide garage foot. (Note to all readers, don't let a house designer stick you with 8 foot wide garage doors.) The PDK has to do a lot of clutch work. Does this wear out the clutch? Would this be more or less the same as the clutch wear on an manual car doing the same thing?

When I am on the highway in traffic at 60MPH and (roughly 1200RPM) in 7th, the car will drop a gear at the slightest bit of acceleration. Since in many cases I don't need to go much faster there is no need to drop this gear. Admittedly the GTS can be "sluggish" in seventh, if you will allow me to say that. But I often just cruise around on highways 60MPH to 70MPH with the car in manual, 7th gear. I see no need for this extra wear and tear bumping up and down 7 - 6 - 7 - 6 etc. Thoughts?

Any other thoughts on the life of a PDK? All that mechanical stuff in there scares me. And I am used to Honda reliability... VAG is a different breed even if Porsche do a good job.

 

Let the PDK do what it's meant to do and don't over think it so much.

You're not enjoying the car if you're always thinking about wear and tear on the PDK.

You have 2 years left on factory warranty and you can extend that for years to come. Quit worrying and enjoy the ride

I've heard these transmissions are meant to go atleast 200,000 miles before it needs a new clutch.

 

I'm with Goonie... Enjoy that baby.. Drive it in sport mode more too haha..

 

Drive it like you stole it. =)

 

 

A couple of observations:

• You are way overthinking this. Porsche knows what they are doing. You admit that what you are doing may be count-intuitive. It may also be counter-productive. If there was an advantage to it, the manual might suggest it, no?
• You may think that coasting into a stop light is saving wear and tear on the clutch. You may or may not. But you will definitely increase your wear and tear on brake pads and rotors. Routinely stopping a rolling 4500 pound car only with the brakes may be not smart. Someone here recently got a quote for over $5,000 for new pads & rotors.
• Porsche has used PDKs as early as the mid-80's in the 958 and 962 race cars. Since 2009 they've sold them in their road cars beginning with the 997.2 Carreras and 987.2 Boxsters/Caymans and all variants since then. Also the Panamera beginning in 2010. Have you heard or read of large amounts of PDK failures in these cars that would suggest they are not reliable?

 

I remember the first time I drove a F1 Ferrari (I ended up owning a 360 & 575 so equipped never got used to than tranny) and I always made a habit of pulling back both paddles which put the car in neutral. I was later told that the constant engagement of the clutch would cause it to wear faster (I never really thought that to be true and did not keep either of those F1 cars more than a year and half so I have no idea if it did), but I still never stopped doing it. When I got my Panamera and had the Paddles put on it, I figured it would do the same thing but pulling both paddles would not put it into neutral (granted the F1 cars did not have gear lever just a button for reverse), you had to use the gear lever to accomplish that. That told me that it was not something the car was designed to do. I do not know if what you are doing will help the longevity of the PDK but if the same principle applies to the PDK (and they were right about the F1) than you might be doing exactly what you are trying not to do.

 

I used to coast (put selector in nuetral). The thought was to reduce rear tire wear and maybe use less gas but noticed the start-stop function would not engage when I came to a stop although I engaged the transmission before coming to a stop. I don't know if this has something to do with engine cooling or something else. There are very few roads in my area without rolling hills. So I gave up on coasting. I also rarely use the start-stop feature anymore. This feature will likely shorten engine bearing life.

 

I had a Maserati Cambio Corsa, similar gearbox to the F360. Yes, pulling both paddles put it in neutral.

But I don't think those are double clutch electro-mechanical gearboxes like PDK.

 

I had one of those as well it was a 03 coupe. I wanted a manual but the 6 speed was terrible and the shifter was positioned wrong for me.

 

Other Porsche cars will go into neutral when pulling both paddles including my old '14 Cayman S and '15 Macan Turbo (when auto on/off is enabled). I'm sure it has to do with programming - the "coast" feature of the newer PDK is exactly that - disengage the PDK to neutral allowing coasting.

 

Neither my 2013 991S, my 2015 Macan Turbo, nor my 2015 Panameramera GTS will shift into neutral when both paddles are pulled.

 

For your Macan - assuming you have the latest updates - you have to have auto start/stop off and not be accelerating - you can force it to disengage.

This feature is documented for Cayman and 991

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...r-neutral.html

 

I'm doing full pads and rotors on my PTT this week. It's going to run me about $3200. Front rotors are a grip!

 

ummm... are you doing your brakes at the dealer?

I sourced rotors and pads and came up around a $1000. Not oem but reputable brands.