Greenman

It’s difficult to know what fair value is at the mo’ , prices have been all over the place since Buttercup.  I’ve certainly seen non S models in the 25-29 range in the past (non CAT).   The above is a decently specced  S from a dealer. You would expect a base private sale to be starting mid 20s? 

If you are going to daily drive through the winter in Scotland then seriously consider some winter or all season tyres, I’m not sure what’s available in 981 sizes but the standard Pzero, PS4S or Bridgestone Eagle are pretty poor in snow/ice.

Have you driven any cars? Or driven in any?   There is a huge range of specs/options available and many people have a list of must haves, ultimately though most are nice to haves rather than essentials, though be aware even bluetooth phone prep was an option, obviously the better the spec the more the car is likely to cost. Familiarise yourself with the options so at least you don’t buy something and suddenly find…no SatNAV WTF!!

I’ve just replaced all mine with PS4S all around.  The Pirelli’s are far from shyate IMO,  I had PZero initially.    I will say that PS4S are miles better in cold wet conditions, the Pirelli’s really seem to lose a lot of their grip and compliance in cold temps and can become a bit hairy.  However in the warm and dry the Pirelli’s have plenty of grip and are a bit more direct/sporty than the PS4S,  so I wouldn’t dismiss the Pirelli’s if you are a fair weather user (which plenty are)

Given Porsche no longer inspects the car via the 200 point check for warranty renewal it surely makes no sense to pay full Porsche prices.  Worse that can happen is that a brake related warranty claim wouldn’t be honoured, but I don’t know of any likely brake issue that might be covered by warranty.  

This is interesting.   I had a windscreen repair on the van a couple of years ago, on renewal I asked if it need to declaring (have any details changed etc). The woman I was speaking to dismissed it in an almost offhand ‘what a stupid question’  attitude.   I have subsequently had my Boxster windscreen replaced but have just been asking for quotes for a new policy on a different car and put I had had no claims in past 5 years, I’ve always understood that  windscreens don’t count as there’s little the policyholder can do about them?

Other option

(train dog to just sit on front seat)

Doesn’t the Audi Q5 one fit the Macan?

https://www.travall.co.uk/audi/q5-8r-2016--/travall-divider-tdg1530d

Alternatively I’d be asking Guardsman for a price just for the divider.

From the pictures you can barely tell it’s gold,   very subtle.   I’m thinking of doing something similar with my wheels, but I’d probably go with a slightly more obvious gold, maybe Aurum or similar (Blue car).

Out of interest, if you don’t mind me asking, how much did you pay for your bumper respray? again I’m looking to do similar and would be useful having a price base. pM me if you don’t want to put on open forum.

On 11/14/2022 at 5:26 AM, RBD914 v2 said:

Also, I found the Spyder a bit "twitchy" when pressing on, a kind of darty feeling from the steering, almost like it was too responsive for a narrow, bumpy road, not a nice feeling

Congrats on the car Rob, looks great and we know they are fantastic cars so im sure it will prompt many grins. 
 

The twitchy comment is interesting, it’s something that has been levelled at the new GT3 (see Harry’s garage review for example), a fantastic car on the track but a bit too direct for bumpy b roads.   However the new GT4 and GT4 RS seem to have had a design aim of making them fun on road rather than fastest possible on track, so it’s slightly surprising that you found the Spyder twitchy. Did you ever have the alignment/setup checked? 

I have a disk lock similar to the above, however I use it on our transit van which seems much more likely to get taken than the Porsche.

I think that overall cost of ownership will be similar. GTS is likely to maintain its price advantage so ultimately if you can afford the extra and buy well you won’t lose much more than buying a cheaper S.

if you have better things to do with that extra £10-£15k then the S is still a brilliant car without that cherry on top.  

On 10/18/2022 at 1:31 PM, moospeed said:

the wheel which benefits from not being adorned with buttons to my eyes. 

I agree.

whilst I think the 718 wheel looks much better than the 981 buttoned option, to me the 981 sport design wheel has the perfect look and easily surpasses the 718.  
 

anyway, sorry for the off topic.   Great video Daz,  probably not something I would dare to do though🫣😥

9 hours ago, Davey P said:

Mine's got about 30K miles on the clock, which I guess is pretty low for a 2014 car.  I wouldn't want it to be a lot lower though, because that would probably mean the car has been sat unused for long periods, or has been mainly used for short journeys.  I make sure my car gets a decent drive at least a couple of times a week, to keep things like brakes etc freed up.

Indeed, mine has averaged 5k a year which shows plenty of use and brakes, seals, air con, tyres etc etc will not have succumbed to issues related to lack of use…..however much as I’d like to believe my 35k miles model was worth as much as one with 7k miles, the market simply doesn’t agree and I expect a £10k price difference.

No 981s have CarPlay as far as I know.   As stated above if you want a very low mileage 981 you don’t have many options.  Can anyone point out a 981 with less than 10k miles at less than £40k?

3 hours ago, ATM said:

Mine after the DIY oil change. It stayed like this for a long long time without going down. Not checked it recently. 

How much did you put in?  The first time I did my own change I carefully measured what came out (was just under 8 litres). I added back in 7.5 litres and then topped up by 0.5 litres a couple of days later.   Initiall fill showed 2 Green segments.

I’ve done a couple of changes since this first one and don’t bother measuring now, I just add 7.5 litres, this usually shows 2 segments (once showed one segment). I top up a day or so later with 0.5-1.0 litres.   Always top up slowly though (0.5 litres max in one go) as it frequently takes a couple of journeys to get a consistent reading.

39 minutes ago, ½cwt said:

Good write up @ATM.  It did make me think of the 'Right to Repair' regulations, a version of the exisiting EU regs that Porsche may have to consider complying with by 1 July 2023, unless their position that a replacement exchange 'box adequately complies...

The UK Government has introduced new ecodesign and labelling requirements for specified electrical products sold in Great Britain. The Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information Regulations 2021 (SI 2021 No. 745), sometimes referred to as the “Right to Repair Regulations”, were made on 18 June 2021, accompanied by Explanatory Memorandum. Most of the provisions came into force on 1 July 2021. The Regulations aim to increase producer responsibility, reduce energy usage and electrical waste, and enable consumers to identify the most energy efficient products on the market. Following the UK leaving the EU, the UK chose to mirror requirements in equivalent EU regulations. The ‘right to repair’ provides ‘professional repairers’ with access to spare parts and technical information from July 2021, but manufacturers have a grace period of up to 2 years to make spare parts available.

Indeed. I can’t quite believe Porsche can get away with this stance, especially in the USA that tend to be more customer centric on issues like this. To replace a whole gearbox for sensor issues or leaks, for example, is just pure madness.   As stated previously this is the reason I run a warranty (PADM issues are more likely but affordable).

There’s some interesting info on this rennlist thread.

https://rennlist.com/forums/997-forum/1172826-guide-to-repairing-a-pdk-transmission.html

The difference between full and too low is around 1.7 litres on the 981 so each segment represents around 400ml. 
 

In theory having it a bit lower will allow the oil to warm up more quickly -> less wear, less fuel etc.   Given the semi dry sump arrangement you would be struggling to cause any starvation issues even with just one segment showing.   Having said all that, I tend to try to keep mine around the 3 or 4 level, mine does use some oil when driven hard so I don’t want to see it too low without noticing.

11 minutes ago, Menoporsche said:

My Qs would be, who repaired it and when. 
 

OPC 6 years ago, go ahead. 
Owners mate last month, run. 
In between, you judge. 

You can pretty much guarantee it won’t have been an OPC repair, the whole point of being written off as a cat S is that it’s not financially viable to repair.   These get picked up and repaired ‘on the cheap’, it doesn’t mean though they won’t have been done properly, just it will have been at £60-£80/hr rather than £180/hr.

47 minutes ago, Paul P said:

would always wonder if that squeak, rattle, knock was something more serious.

This could be quite a significant psychological point. Second hand cars a few years old are always likely to have the odd squeak or rattle, but in this case will it knock you confidence that there may be something more sinister?

Also, what sort of driving do you do?  If you do much spirited stuff or track days then are you confident that it can be taken to 8 or 9 tenths consistently?    Generally tootling and summer roof off leisurely outings, maybe?

Well most would recommend against, but ultimately it’s a cost/value/risk call.   If you are going in with your eyes open and have an engineers report and ppi uncovering nothing unexpected then at lest you are in a position to make a sensible call.  Obviously anything saved now on purchase price will be lost on resale so ultimate  ownership cost is likely to be little cheaper than a straight car.   
 

Have you seen pictures of the damaged car? …..might put you off! 

3 hours ago, Menoporsche said:

Is anyone noting the part numbers of the failing mounts? The comparison photo above shows a failed part of .05 and a replacement part of .07.  Anyone know when was the change (discussion of 2013-14, 15 above) and whether newer mounts have failed?

And if the sensor works on resistance, would it help to put a meter across the terminals of a failed and new unit to see if there is a clear difference?

All random thoughts from my sofa…

When i had my second unit replaced i asked the tech if any of the replacement units had failed, he said that a design change had been made and he had not seen the replacements fail.  I don't know if this is genuine or it was just towing the company line.  

Even if the design was changed it doesn't mean there would be a change in resistance necessarily,  i suspect the electrical properties would need to be pretty close to allow the control electronics to work properly.

I don’t think it’s that common in the uk, certainly there’s plenty of examples in the USA and elsewhere, most frequently it seems in hot climates where the cars often get left in very hot sun. Doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue if you have your car under cover as far as I can tell?

37 minutes ago, Buzzfox said:

think you said earlier that you were on software version 4.76 to start

I did indeed say that, however I was mistaken, I was actually on 4.75, so was worthwhile doing the 4.76 update.  I remembered that when I did this back in 2019 that my version was ahead of the version shipped at that time by the eBay seller, he shipped 4.73. So back then I didn’t do the sw update.

I’ve got to say I’m unsure what step actually allows the map update disks to be used, I assume it’s the insertion of the usb drive which must do something, however given there is no visual acknowledgement or feedback when you do this it’s difficult to say.  But it was certainly possible to do the map updates without the sw update previously so I assume the same would apply now.

I think they encode the cars VIN and and some software key into the USB that allows the maps to load. They have to buy the sw key from Porsche, that’s why they can’t just ship these out at £20 or £30.  This would imply that the PCM software version can be updated just with the DVD and no sw key? Certainly looks like that to me.  

So I’ve updated my system to 4.76 software and 6.7.1 maps using the above shop….however I had a few issues…..

- package included disks and USB stick but no instructions. I emailed the shop and got a response back within 1/2 hr with basic instructions that pretty much mirrored the procedure as described by BrianJ above.

- The software disc ejected after about 10 mins (I assumed it has finished). I inserted USB stick but just got following screen.

It seemed to me as though it was still trying to do the software update, so I reinserted software disk and it did in fact continue with the software update (module and version number on above screen kept changing and progress bar increased.  When completed it said software successfully updated on the above screen but did not eject disk, I waited a few mins, no change, I ejected disk manually, PCM said “aborted software update”  but seemed to work ok.

I then inserted usb drive in the usb slot and waited, got message something like “can’t play file” but no other feedback (thinking it’s all gone belly up at this point),  waited a couple of mins, took out usb drive and rebooted PCM ( press info for 10 secs). pCM rebooted no messages.  Inserted map disk 1, initially said can’t play disk, but after a few seconds seemed to start reading it and came up with disk 1 of 5.   After that it proceeded as expected with each disk and seemed to complete successfully. I had the same issues as BrianJ in taking a while for maps to load and then being in the middle of some foreign country initially.

Ultimately it looks like everything has worked. I’m now on 4.76 and 6.7.1, though I haven’t managed to check any new roads as yet.  So be aware you don’t necessary get any nice prompts on progress and the software disk might in fact eject before it’s finished.

I’ve just been experimenting with mine a 2015.

I connected ctek under the bonnet. 
 

Openned door, inserted a CD and started playing it, no key in ignition, door ajar, PCM shut down after a little over 10 mins.

inserted key, turned ignition to second position,  started playing CD, door ajar PCM shut down after approx 30 mins.

inserted key, turned ignition to second position,  started playing CD, door ajar,  after 20 minutes turned key to position 1 (did not remove key), CD continued playing, turned key back to position 2. Repeated last operation another twice.  Well over an hour of continuous CD playback observed.

So…. When my disks arrive…hopefully in the day or two, I will try installing using power management as per the last paragraph above.