Key considerations
- Available for under £80,000
- 3.0-litre flat-six petrol twin-turbo, rear- or all-wheel drive
- Immensely capable irrespective of model
- Modern new interior, some rattles and squeaks
- Very few mechanical issues
- A 911 for adults – but are you an adult?
Few cars are as eagerly awaited as new iterations of Porsche’s 911. A disinterested observer might wonder why that is, given the apparently insignificant differences between old and new models, but it’s the constancy of the design that makes the 911 so appealing for many. It’s a known quantity. It’s also known that Porsche rarely makes a misstep when moving any of its cars up to the next generation. The 911 is a great example of that process. Its transformation from a dead-on-its-feet corporate liability into a brilliantly engineered and immensely capable brand figurehead has been borderline miraculous.
So, in keeping with the steady progression of the 911, the visual differences between the 7th-generation 991 and the gen-eight 992 presented at the LA Auto Show at the end of 2018 were subtle rather than spectacular. The new car was slightly larger and stiffer than the 991, and it had all-aluminium bodywork for the first time. A shallow full-width taillight array replaced the old individual units. Up front the lines were sharper-edged and less curvy than the 991’s, a change mirrored in the cabin where more straight lines faced the driver than any 911 driver had faced before as the gradual homogenisation of all Porsche cabins edged further along its path.
Porsche didn’t alter the central placement or the analogue operation of the tacho, a seminal 911 feature, but while everyone was heaving a sigh of relief over that Porsche replaced most of the 991’s physical buttons with a new 10.9-inch touchscreen, reflecting the industry’s wider drive to greater efficiency through digitalisation. Well, that’s the plan anyway.
Under the 992’s skin, wider tracks and new suspension tuning combined with new staggered wheel sizes to enhance turn-in and sharpen up direction changes. Perhaps the most significant change for the 992, however – only visible if you stripped the car down – was the modification of the eight-speed PDK dual-clutch gearbox architecture to accommodate an electric motor and the provision of false bottoms in the body to create space for batteries. That future-proofed the 911 by making it hybrid-capable.
Today we’re going to focus on the 2019-on 3.0 twin-turbo 992s. The first two models to be launched at LA in November 2018 were the ‘performance’ 450hp two-wheel drive Carrera S and, as per the norm, an accompanying all-wheel drive 4S version. These were followed a couple of months later by equivalent Cabriolet versions. Those first S and 4S cars were all PDK autos.
So were the first base 385hp/332lb ft Carreras, which didn’t appear until the middle of 2019, again in either two- or all-wheel drive format. Nearly a year after that, in spring 2020, all-wheel drive Targa 4 models joined the range in S and non-S guise and Porsche’s new and improved seven-speed manual with switchable auto-blipping and a shorter throw became available to order as a no-cost option on European S-spec 911s. Less stringent testing for the US market meant that they had been on sale there from late 2019. You had to have the manual with the Sport Chrono package, which for £0 included dynamic engine mounts, an oval-tipped sports exhaust, dash-mounted stopwatch, launch control and an intermediate Sport setting for the Porsche Stability Management system. The manual also had to have Porsche Torque Vectoring which distributed power across the back axle through both braking on individual wheels and asymmetrical locking of one axle or the other via a mechanical limited-slip diff.
Manual Carrera Ss weighed 1,480kg, which was 45kg less than identically equipped PDK cars. They reached their 191mph top speed in sixth rather than the heavily overdriven seventh and took 0.7 seconds longer to hit 62mph from rest. Changes brought in from spring 2020 included an extended suite of autonomous driving aids adapted from those in the Cayenne and Panamera, a £1,700 ‘smart’ nose lift that would automatically activate according to location, and the arrival of the manual gearbox on non-S Carreras.
The driver-focused GTS version with extra power (480hp), lowered suspension, PASM, plus about £6k’s worth of other bits like Sport Chrono and the sports exhaust was meant to be launched in March 2021, but engineering and type approval issues knocked that back to the summer of that year. The GTS was, as always, quite a bit more expensive than lesser models but we’re not going to talk much about 911 base prices as there are so few, if any, base model 911s on the road. Lavishly optioned press cars gave you a more accurate glimpse into the reality of 911 pricing. Again, many versions of the GTS were available – manual or PDK, two- or four-wheel drive, coupe, convertible or Targa. The GTS was a sophisticated and suave offering that was a lot easier to drive on British roads than the arguably over-active 992 GT3. You could get a 25kg-saving lightweight pack for the GTS, with tilting but not reclining front carbon bucket seats, no seats in the back, and rear-wheel steering.
In October 2022 the Carrera T (for Touring) was launched. Based on the entry-level 2WD Carrera, the T came with the seven-speed manual gearbox as standard, stiffer springs and anti-roll bars at both ends, PASM, sports exhaust, thinner glass, reduced soundproofing and no rear seats. The specification resulted in a 35kg weight loss over the base PDK Carrera and a 10kg cut over the equivalent manual Carrera S. The T’s top speed was 182mph and its 0-62mph time was 4.5 seconds. Priced at just under £108,000, the hard-gripping T has been described by more than one reviewer as the sweet spot in the 992 range, although it wouldn’t be perfect for anyone who wanted a plush ride on British roads. What about the rest of the 992s though? Are they worth buying, or are you better off sticking with the 911 you know? Let’s take a look.
SPECIFICATION | PORSCHE 911 CARRERA (992, 2019-on)
Engine: 2,981cc flat-six twin-turbo petrol 24v
Transmission: 8-speed PDK auto, rear- or all-wheel drive (7-speed manual optional for Carrera S and T)
Power (hp): 385@6,500rpm (S 450@6,500rpm)
Torque (lb ft): 332@1,950-5,000rpm (S 391@2,300-5,000rpm)
0-62mph (secs): 4.5 (4.2 PDK) (S PDK 3.7)
Top speed (mph): 182 (S 191)
Weight (kg): 1,480
MPG (official combined): 31.4 (S 28.2)
CO2 (g/km): 206 (PDK), (man), (S 204)
Wheels (in): 8.5 x 19 (f), 11.5 x 20 (r)
Tyres: 235/40 (f), 295/40 (r) (S 245/35, 305/35)
On sale: 2019 - now
Price new: £82,795 (PDK), (S PDK £94,350)
Price now: from £80,000
Note for reference: car weight and power data is hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.
ENGINE & GEARBOX
The punch and traction from the turbocharged engine was prompt verging on instant in more powerful models like the GTS. The flat-six howl was present and correct too despite the legally mandated presence of a gas particulate filter as well as the usual cats and the noise-inhibiting nature of turbocharging. The official sports exhaust was definitely worth having, even though it was perhaps not really loud enough.
Driving the manual-gearbox 992 Carrera on a bendy road required more thought than the PDK (updated for this model) where whipping up and down the box was so easy it became an activity you did as much for fun as for function. The manual’s auto-blip feature added smoothness to your changes but the 911’s three pedals were also positioned perfectly for old-school heel and toeing. The operation of the round-knobbed seven-speed manual shift was as slick and satisfying as you’d expect from Porsche, and better than it had been on previous Porsche manuals, but you were reminded by the long gear ratios that the non-specialist 992 911s had become cars for grown-ups. Second gear took you up to approaching 80mph and third to well over 100mph, making you wonder what the point of some of the other gears might be. The advantage of such high gearing of course was easy cruising, the tach showing just 1,500rpm at 60mph in the overdriven 7th cog. Expecting any acceleration from that speed in that gear was a forlorn hope.
It’s essential to maintain good battery health on complex modern cars like this. Trickle chargers like Ctek (other brands are available) have been known to turn themselves off after five or six weeks’ connection to a 992. In addition some cars have thrown ‘reduced engine power’ warnings accompanied by a shuddering under mild acceleration and a ‘five cylinder misfire’ kind of sensation. Porsche’s active drivetrain mounts (PADM) can generate this type of issue when their seals start to leak and water gets at the electronics.
992 servicing is every two years or 20,000 miles. The cost of a two-year service at a Porsche dealer will be between £750 and £850, while the four-year one can be anything from £1,350 to £2,000 depending (it would appear) on the dealer’s location and on how busy they might be. Becoming a member of Porsche Club GB will secure discounts on these prices. Equivalent costs from independent specialists using the official Porsche PIWIS 4 diagnostic equipment will be nearer to £500 and £1,100 respectively. Much of an indie’s savings come from labour charges that are typically 30 per cent below those of OPCs.
CHASSIS
The 992 was noticeably larger than a 996 or a 993, but despite its wider front axle it didn’t feel any bigger to drive than the 991, a handy attribute in the UK. The 992’s better than expected wieldiness on B roads was helped by a confidence-inspiring electronic steering rack that provided accuracy on straights, loaded up nicely through corners and fed useful information back into your hands on any road. The new rack was sharp enough to relegate the £1,500 rear-wheel steer – a must-have option on many a sporting car – to the status of dispensable luxury. Sport Chrono at the same sort of money was worth having for the steering wheel mounted mode switch alone. You could option 10mm lower PASM sports suspension for under £700.
The new Wet mode that was added to the 992 detected water on the road and preconditioned the control systems accordingly. It had a usefully positive effect on the car’s manageability in snow. Night Vision Assist using a thermal imaging camera joined the 911’s kit roster for the first time.
Rear tyres (PZeros for choice) should wear at about twice the rate of the fronts. In average use you might get 11-12,000 miles out of the rears, but some drivers reckoned they got their rears down from 8mm new to 5mm in just 2,000 miles. A recall was issued in March 2021 to sort out suspension locknuts that didn’t allow sufficient tightening of the main fasteners.
BODYWORK
The 992’s high-bustle back-end styling didn’t suit the convertible as well as it did the coupe, but in a reversal of history the 992 Targa actually looked better for it. Stone chipping is always going to be an issue at the front end of fast road cars like the 911 so protective film of some kind is very much worth having. LED Matrix headlights were an expensive 992 option at £2k or so but in fact the standard lights were fine.
Over 8,000 992s were recalled in North America to rectify poorly adhered windscreens that could pop out on deployment of the front airbags. There was a separate recall for the airbags themselves. The centre section of the rear brake light failed on some cars. The £1,200 electric tilt-slide sunroof was a nice option (full pano roofs were also available) but they could develop rattles. Often as not it would be coming from the sunroof rail. Sometimes just pressing the right point with your finger would fix it.
Some rear spoilers have stuck in an intermediate position, identified as a motor warranty issue. Some bumper panel gaps have been complained about and some Cabriolet windows didn’t auto-close when the roof was shut. Plipping the bonnet open in cold weather didn’t always lift it the inch or so that you needed to get your fingers in under the lip.
INTERIOR
Cabin practicality has become excellent in the 911 over the years and the standard and finish of the materials has been first class for a long time but even with such a high bar in place the design and construction of the 992’s interior represented a solid leap over that of the 991.
Having said that rattles and squeaks are far from unknown, especially in colder climates before the car has had a chance to warm up. Some owners have torn their hair out trying to trace the source of an odd knocking noise from the passenger seat area, which turned out in most cases to be the leather seatback release strap knocking against the side of the seat. Others have had annoying squeaks from the rear seats, the door storage bins and the plastic trim pieces leading into the interior door release handles. Rattles could also come from hanging passenger seatbelts clonking against the rear door cards.
Even without squeaks and rattles the 992 is not the quietest car inside, with a fair bit of road noise that you don’t get in ‘lesser’ Porsches like the Macan. At least some of that has to be down to the absence of a big lump of metal at the front to block it. There again you might reasonably consider road noise to be an integral part of the 911 experience.
We’ve all bemoaned the brainlessness of button-free cars like the Mk 8 Golf GTI, and the 992 was no different in expecting you to control most aspects of the car’s functionality via an admittedly rather lovely 10.9-inch PCM centre screen that was a fair stretch away from the driver’s seat. It did have a five-button switch panel to give you fast access to important functions like damper settings, nose lift and the like but a case could still be made for a few more physical buttons to cut down the amount of screen stabbing.
Digital applications like Road Trip and Porsche 360+ were designed to help drivers plan special trips around Porsche-suggested hotels, restaurants and POIs along the route. Navigation was based on a mix of swarm data and Porsche Connect Plus. There have been some connectivity problems but that seems to be par for the course across the motor industry these days. InnoDrive could sometimes forget its speed setting and go on strike until the speed was reset.
Sports Seat Plus seats are almost universally considered to be very much better in terms of shoulder support and seat padding than the regular Sports Seat, er, seats. Some leather seats ‘puckered up’ but Porsche usually dismissed any warranty claims made on the reasonable grounds of leather being a natural material. Bose surround sound was a worthwhile 992 add-on at a couple of quid over £1,000. But some early Bose-equipped cars did have trouble with blowing speakers. These were revised on later cars.
The rear view camera did not give you that great a view on the screen. The mini-trough around the PDK shift knob was a magnet for hard-to-extract rubbish and you couldn’t see the fuel gauge when your hands were on the wheel at 10 to 2. The flat control panel ahead of the shifter that controlled the HVAC and heated screens could develop some disconcerting lateral movement.
There was a recall on early cars to increase finger clearance between the electronic handbrake button and the central cubby unit, and a software update to sort out issues with the SOS system. One car we’ve seen was missing a piece of floor trim in its pedal box area, exposing some wiring. That’s not something you’d expect to see in a modern-day Porsche.
PH VERDICT
The 911 is unique. Since the demise of the non-electric Renault Twingo and Smart ForTwo at the end of the 2010s it’s been the only rear-engined car you can buy new in the UK. That makes it special.
Porsche’s relentless quest for driving perfection accomplishment and the widest possible sales appeal has smoothed off many of the edges that made the 911 so interestingly different. In that regard the 992 is the ultimate expression of 911 maturity. Maturity isn’t something that every Porsche aspirant, particularly the younger ones, will necessarily be looking for. They’re more likely to see cars like the naturally-aspirated Cayman GTS 4.0 as the 911 they missed out on by virtue of their age, or lack of it.
The eventual provision of a manual gearbox did restore some of the 911’s character but it is a fact that quite a few 991 owners took a look at the 992 and decided to stick with what they had, describing the new car as ‘not special enough’ to warrant the switch. That and the potential aggravation of dealing with the sometimes haughty UK Porsche dealer network.
For all-round easy living however the 992 with the PDK box won’t feel inferior to cars like the Cayman GTS on any level apart from raw visceral thrills. That’s been confirmed by the lack of bother Porsche has had selling 992s, even with a typical 18-month wait time for something like a GTS. At least some of the 992’s success will be down to serial owners’ fears of dropping out of the Porsche ‘club’ by not buying one, thereby potentially forfeiting their place in the pecking order for high-demand models.
Having been motivated to buy their 992s for whatever reason, enough buyers have now come out of them to create a healthy used market, with over 250 examples on PH Classifieds at the time of writing in March 2024. The number on sale has kept values steady, but there are no bargains. All the early and therefore less expensive cars will be PDK autos, the most affordable one on PH being this early 2019 two-wheel drive Carrera auto in Guards Red with beige leather and 23,000 miles at £77,480.
The cheapest manual 992 was this 4,000-mile 2021 Carrera S at £94,980, or you could jump up a couple of years with this 2023 6,000-mile Carrera manual for £98,990, but if you don’t want to stretch to that sort of money there are plenty of tempting PDK cars in the £80k-£90k range. Here’s another 2WD Carrera, a 2020 car in gunmetal grey with red leather, a pano roof and 16,000 miles on the clock at £79,500. A few hundred more (£79,980) puts you into this Gentian Blue/red leather convertible with 35,000 miles and another £600 or so on top of that would buy an S convertible, again in Gentian Blue and with the same 35k mileage. This black on black 2020 Carrera with 10,000 miles has an understated appeal at £80,989.
PH classifieds had a small handful of Carrera Ts to choose from, ranging in price from around £103k to £108k depending on mileage. This 3,000-mile ’23 example in Rubystar Neo was arguably the most interesting specimen at £102,950. At the big money end of the 992 rainbow we find this Targa 4S Heritage Design Edition from 2021 in paint-to-sample Brewster Green, a colour more than vaguely reminiscent of Porsche’s classic Oak Green. With 7,000 miles recorded it’s £147k. though you could save £3k by getting this 2,000-miler instead.
If the GTS is more to your liking this 2,000-mile manual Targa in yellow is cheaper still at £129,950, or for a tenner under £117k there’s this GTS coupe. If you can’t be bothered wading through all the 911 choices and just want a good driving car, simply look for the most basic 992 you can find, ideally in white or red. Not only are these straight unlettered Carreras the cheapest 911s, many consider them to be the purest 911s. They’re more than powerful enough for Britain, and remember this: although it’s a small ’t’ rather than a big one, at the end of the day you’re still buying a 911 turbo, the realisation of many a 20th century lad’s (or ladette’s) dream.
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