I'm looking at a 2009 Carrera S PDK and wanted to know what to look out for. Is this generation of PDK prone to issues? The car has under 30k miles. What other things should I be considering. It was supposedly at a dealer for PPI recently and came out flawlessly, but looking for future potential issues. Thanks in advance for the help.
-C

 

The PDK on my -09 C4S failed and was replaced under an extended warranty policy. Tab came to just under $13,000 which they paid in full. Not sure exactly what went wrong with it but the dealer said the fault codes indicated some kind of electronic issue rather than mechanical. US dealerships are only allowed very limited repairs on PDK units so for the most part failed ones are sent to Germany for disassembly.

 

Did they mention if it was a common problem?

 

I'm sorry to see that sandwedge had problems, but from what I've seen on the forums is that PDKs are considered very robust and are generally expected to last the life of the car (I've seen a 200,000 mile number thrown out).

I have a PDK and am very happy with it. The only slightly odd thing is the last downshift to 1st in Sport Mode is a little hard just before you stop but I've learned to deal with it by either manually selecting the downshift a bit earlier when I want it or by just using normal non-sport mode when I'm in traffic. It kind of makes sense it does this since the tranny in sport mode is trying to stay ready for aggressive driving and there is little slipping of the clutch.

Overall, the PDKs are considered very robust. It uses multiple plates bathed in oil similar to many sport bike clutches I've had but on a bigger scale of course. Shifts are virtually instantaneous due to there being two drive paths in the transmission, one for even gears and one for odd gears. Each time you shift into a gear, the other "half" of the transmission goes ahead and shifts to the next gear so that there is no shift delay when it receives power. The clutch simply has to engage in the opposite direction to move power to the preselected gears (hence the dual clutch). Shifts are measured in the milliseconds.

A testament to the PDK can be found on the Web where some guy took a Turbo with PDK (a similar but beefier unit to handle the extra power) and did 50+ back-to-back "launches" (full throttle takeoffs using launch mode) with no problems whatsoever. Look for it.

The big thing you want with a PDK is Sport Chrono so that you can get the Sport Mode button (and many also have the Sport Plus button). Without it, the car will tend to keep its RPMs very low unless it decides that you are driving aggressively. It does't feel as sporty as you'd normally wish. If you find a PDK you love without sport mode, you can add it for around a thousand bucks or so, the only thing you don't get is the stopwatch on the dash that way. In general, I like the feel of Sport Mode better as it keeps the RPMs in a more responsive state without getting crazy. Sport Plus is highly aggressive and in automatic shift mode it is probably only appropriate for track use or autocrossing since it tends to keep the RPMs above 4k all of the time in automatic mode. I do use Sport Plus in fully manual mode though fairly often, it is my preferred mode for sporty driving when not using automatic shifting.

Prior to this car, I had driven manual sports cars for most of my life. I have to say that the PDK is now my favorite way to go though... I can be aggressive when I want to but can relax and forget about it when traffic gets in the way or I just want to relax.

 

It's not a common problem or you'll read more about it here and on Rennlist. That said, my service advisor said PCNA keeps 40 PDK replacement units in a warehouse in Atlanta at any given time so it doesn't seem like something completely unheard of either.

After the failure I saw I don't think I would own a PDK car without a warranty. It takes a lot of work to destroy a manual transmission but these things are different animals with a lot of electronics involved that you have no control over. I'm in no mood to pay $13,000 because two electronic modules decide not to talk to each other anymore while the transmission itself is perfectly ok. Going by what I saw and heard from my dealer, that's probably what happened here.

 

I don't know if you are on the Rennlist forums, but for some reason there tends to be better chatter on questions like this over there. The 997 forum is at http://rennlist.com/forums/997-forum-113/

 

I had mine replaced at 14k miles due to a very minor leak. They weren't able to service it so the whole unit was replaced.
I also think this is very uncommon, but as mentioned above, I'm not sure I'd want to be driving this without a warranty.

 

My 2010 was getting Red Light "Transmission emergency run"

Took it in to dealer and they replaced transmission heat sensor under warranty.

Got a Panamera S Hybrid to drive around for a couple of days so was not too bad.

Defiantly need some kind of warranty or your hosed.

 

My 2009 C4S PDK has over 61000 miles and it is just as smooth as the day I bought it. It just had a PDK service/fluid change couple thousand miles ago. My C4S has been out of warranty since April 2013 and no plan to purchase warranty. I keep my cars for a long time and repair/maintenance is part of life.

John

 

So was mine just before it quit. Not trying to ruin your day but my PDK crash was described by one of the dealership techs as something like a circuit breaker that trips that can't be reset. You can baby the PDK with gentle driving and fluid changes and other treats but as we know, electronics don't care about those sort of things and that's what causes many of the PDK failures I'm told. A PDK replacement out of warranty on an -09 C4S approaches 25% of the value of the car.

 

You won't ruin my day because I don't live in constant fear of which part of my car is going to break. If it does break I will write that $13K for the repair than write $120K for a new car. I don't baby my car. My car is my DD. From sunny day to snow blizzards my C4S runs like a champ. I bet you never take your car out in a -10 degree day, snow packed road and let that baby drift. I considered my Porsche a very well built car and I will continue to enjoy it pass 100K miles. What ever the maintenance and repair comes along I will gladly pay for it.

John

 

I hate to rain on your parade, but I just divested myself of an '09 C4S with PDK in favor of a''13 991 with PDK. The issue was simply the PDK itself, which worked OK until I got into low speed start and stop traffic. The transmission was generally seamless until it decided to shift back into first at which point I would feel an noticeable clunk on downshift into first. I was unable to mitigate the sensation by changing into Sport or Sport Plus mode either, nor by preselecting first gear, as sometimes the electronics would not allow it until either the car was stopped, or until I took my foot off the gas to start rolling again.

So I had a chance to try out the 991 version of the PDK, and it is light years improved. I made the change without hesitation. I would test drive it in these conditions to see what you thought. Bottom line for me was that I would have been happy with the car with MT, but the PDK in the '09 was not quite ready for primetime.

Rusty

 

I have 0 complaints about my PDK. I have 36,000 miles on my 2009 and the PDK has been bullet proof. I was getting the "emergency Transmission run" once in a while; I changed the battery for a Walmart brand and problem solved!!!! Go for it!

 

It's not a matter of living in fear of what's going to break. It's a matter of whether you choose to pay for whatever breaks yourself or if you rather have someone else pay for it. I have yet to buy an extended warranty for a 997 that wasn't profitable. A simple water pump failure that took the serpentine belt with it paid for 80% of the last one I bought. Didn't take much to push that one into the plus column.

 

I love it when people use a car the way it should be used