Not ANOTHER 996 turbo thread ! ! thoughts after a blast.
Discussion
Beautiful Autumn afternoon, a Sunday (not my fav day for it, as there are usually a few too many "brain dead" conducting vehicles they are quite unfamiliar with around) but I fancied a minor hooly.
I think today has put my P&J into perspective & I wanted to write a counterpoint to those who say the car is too competent/dull/characterless etc. . . . . . . Horlocks !
The sole problems are, as I see them, A - we have speed-limits B - we share the road with other numpties & C - we don't have the opportunity to get the car anywhere near its limits without risking life/licence unless we track the beast.
A minor exercise of the right foot on an A (or even B ) road = 180Kmh very rapidly versus the limit of 90.
I have a licence from (and the car is registered in) another country, but there is only so much you can get away with. Autovia (Motorway ) limit 120, but the cars natural cruising speed is 160-180.
Although the car is capable of overtaking 6 or more cars at once on any decent stretch of road, there is always the residual fear, as you blast by at god knows how many Leptons , that (particularly on a Sunday) #4 may not have looked in his mirror enough (if at all) to appreciate the closing speed before joining you on the wrong side of the road.
I have also come to realise (having never taken the car on a track) that I am totally ignorant of where exactly the limit of the car is. I have managed to exceed speed limits/my own limits/ limit of visibility on purpose/inadvertently, but have no idea exactly of the cornering limit of the car. Braking I have exhausted (mainly due to crass misjudgement) & acceleration enjoyed to the limit, but I have not found a road with enough space to give me the confidence to push the thing to its limits. I have in the past made daily journeys that involved round-abouts / slip roads etc, where (traffic permitting) one could experiment. These days my commuting is by Boeing/train or Peugot 106 Diesel (to be abandoned at the airport,) so I don't have any favourite known corners that I can progressively approach the limit on , wet & dry. Anything less than suicidal seems to be within the cars capibilities, so consequently I am only using 75 ? 80 % of it at most.
I guess the same argument could be applied to any high performance car. . maybe I am just getting older (wiser ?
) or just doing less mileage than I used to, but I was quite confident in the past to push my old Ur quattro with trick suspension/lower profile boots to the edge & beyond. . or is it simply that I still believe 911 scare stories & am wary of being bitten by the beast. I suspect what is needed is a track session with a good instructor & big run-offs, there is one every year a few hrs from me at Paul Ricard , where I would have thought it would be impossible to go far enough off to hit anything, but there are a lot of others sharing the track with you.
Well, that is the end of my Sunday afternoon/evening ramblings. . I guess I just dissapointed myself today by realising that the roads/public / & worst of all ME. . . . are not up to it when it comes to getting the max from this oft misaligned beast.
Still love that foot planted feeling in 2/3/4 & 5th prior to running out of space/ideas but there is just so much more ability engineered into this machine that I am not tapping in to. I can (at last) understand why my Mark1 Golf GTI was probably more fun 30 years ago ( & less likely to kill me, well, at least the accident would be slower)
Happy hooning
I think today has put my P&J into perspective & I wanted to write a counterpoint to those who say the car is too competent/dull/characterless etc. . . . . . . Horlocks !
The sole problems are, as I see them, A - we have speed-limits B - we share the road with other numpties & C - we don't have the opportunity to get the car anywhere near its limits without risking life/licence unless we track the beast.
A minor exercise of the right foot on an A (or even B ) road = 180Kmh very rapidly versus the limit of 90.
I have a licence from (and the car is registered in) another country, but there is only so much you can get away with. Autovia (Motorway ) limit 120, but the cars natural cruising speed is 160-180.
Although the car is capable of overtaking 6 or more cars at once on any decent stretch of road, there is always the residual fear, as you blast by at god knows how many Leptons , that (particularly on a Sunday) #4 may not have looked in his mirror enough (if at all) to appreciate the closing speed before joining you on the wrong side of the road.
I have also come to realise (having never taken the car on a track) that I am totally ignorant of where exactly the limit of the car is. I have managed to exceed speed limits/my own limits/ limit of visibility on purpose/inadvertently, but have no idea exactly of the cornering limit of the car. Braking I have exhausted (mainly due to crass misjudgement) & acceleration enjoyed to the limit, but I have not found a road with enough space to give me the confidence to push the thing to its limits. I have in the past made daily journeys that involved round-abouts / slip roads etc, where (traffic permitting) one could experiment. These days my commuting is by Boeing/train or Peugot 106 Diesel (to be abandoned at the airport,) so I don't have any favourite known corners that I can progressively approach the limit on , wet & dry. Anything less than suicidal seems to be within the cars capibilities, so consequently I am only using 75 ? 80 % of it at most.
I guess the same argument could be applied to any high performance car. . maybe I am just getting older (wiser ?
) or just doing less mileage than I used to, but I was quite confident in the past to push my old Ur quattro with trick suspension/lower profile boots to the edge & beyond. . or is it simply that I still believe 911 scare stories & am wary of being bitten by the beast. I suspect what is needed is a track session with a good instructor & big run-offs, there is one every year a few hrs from me at Paul Ricard , where I would have thought it would be impossible to go far enough off to hit anything, but there are a lot of others sharing the track with you.Well, that is the end of my Sunday afternoon/evening ramblings. . I guess I just dissapointed myself today by realising that the roads/public / & worst of all ME. . . . are not up to it when it comes to getting the max from this oft misaligned beast.
Still love that foot planted feeling in 2/3/4 & 5th prior to running out of space/ideas but there is just so much more ability engineered into this machine that I am not tapping in to. I can (at last) understand why my Mark1 Golf GTI was probably more fun 30 years ago ( & less likely to kill me, well, at least the accident would be slower)
Happy hooning
Timely post for me, picked up my turbo on saturday, quite a tuned x50 car, so I had been a little anxious. Been getting a bit more confident today (sunday) so have got on boost a bit more, but then the rain turned torrential so just went slow getting used to the new Sachs performance clutch. My admiration for it is growing quickly though, it really is a fantastic machine. Going to be using it as a daily driver, even though that wasn't the original plan. Thankfully got the option to track it on my insurance through Pace Ward, I reckon I will need to do it to get any comprehension of it's limits.
The 996 Turbo is a sublime piece of equipment driven slow or near on 200 mph. (legally of course)
Thats the beauty of it it just does everything so well.
I don't honestly think there is a better car for the money (I'm not talking the 100k miles £21-22k cars here)
Get a sorted one (forget year buy on history/condition etc) and you're in for a treat.
Thats the beauty of it it just does everything so well.
I don't honestly think there is a better car for the money (I'm not talking the 100k miles £21-22k cars here)
Get a sorted one (forget year buy on history/condition etc) and you're in for a treat.
I owned one a few years back and there was a huge blizzard one sunday night in january. Cars were littered all over the M25 as they couldn't even make it up a small incline. The 996 turbo was easy to drive and control in those conditions, funnily enough it insisted on oversteering one way then the other or crabbing all the way up the hills but it was very easy to control. Coming off the motorway it simply wouldn't stop coming to the roundabout so I pressed the loud pedal instead and it performed a sublime sideways entry to the roundabout.
There's not much point taking it on a track unless you want to learn the meaning of understeer but as a road car it is very hard to find something better for the money, I miss it so much I'm going to buy another one.
There's not much point taking it on a track unless you want to learn the meaning of understeer but as a road car it is very hard to find something better for the money, I miss it so much I'm going to buy another one.
egbert said:
I owned one a few years back and there was a huge blizzard one sunday night in january. Cars were littered all over the M25 as they couldn't even make it up a small incline. The 996 turbo was easy to drive and control in those conditions, funnily enough it insisted on oversteering one way then the other or crabbing all the way up the hills but it was very easy to control. Coming off the motorway it simply wouldn't stop coming to the roundabout so I pressed the loud pedal instead and it performed a sublime sideways entry to the roundabout.
There's not much point taking it on a track unless you want to learn the meaning of understeer but as a road car it is very hard to find something better for the money, I miss it so much I'm going to buy another one.
I remember driving mine down the A1 once and you couldn't see the carriageway for snow, it just ploughed through no issues, amazing pieces of kitThere's not much point taking it on a track unless you want to learn the meaning of understeer but as a road car it is very hard to find something better for the money, I miss it so much I'm going to buy another one.
zero corrosion said:
I remember driving mine down the A1 once and you couldn't see the carriageway for snow, it just ploughed through no issues, amazing pieces of kit
"Plough" is the only issue I've had with mine in the snow. If you get a decent amount, the front splitter does a very good snow plough impression with the snow between the tyre tracks.Excellent cars though.
And hence the issue a few people find with these cars is the fact they are so capable, myself included. Mine was bought as a second car and as such didn't feel special enough to be honest. Yes it went like stink , could handle pretty much any weather thrown at it and so as such felt bland I'm afraid to say. Yes that turbo kick pumps the adrenaline every time, but for me that novelty wore off thankfully sooner than my licence points totted up ! As for me the buzz you get is at obscene speeds unfortunately.
I read all the reviews before hand, and obviously did not make a conscious decision to spend a load of cash on a car I was destined not to like. But it is only when you live with something that you find these things out.
As always it is each to their own I guess. This is not a critical post of the car, just an ex-owners opinion.
But in saying all of the above, if my circumstances changed in that I was in a position to run a 996 turbo as more of a daily proposition than a weekend car, would I have another one ? Probably yes. It is so good at what it does, it really is the supercar for the daily driver, and for the money there is nothing to touch it.
Only thing would be is that my eldest son would not accompany me. He has never been travel sick in his life before , but in the 996 it made him feel ill every time. Not down to my style of driving I must add
I read all the reviews before hand, and obviously did not make a conscious decision to spend a load of cash on a car I was destined not to like. But it is only when you live with something that you find these things out.
As always it is each to their own I guess. This is not a critical post of the car, just an ex-owners opinion.
But in saying all of the above, if my circumstances changed in that I was in a position to run a 996 turbo as more of a daily proposition than a weekend car, would I have another one ? Probably yes. It is so good at what it does, it really is the supercar for the daily driver, and for the money there is nothing to touch it.
Only thing would be is that my eldest son would not accompany me. He has never been travel sick in his life before , but in the 996 it made him feel ill every time. Not down to my style of driving I must add
I have to agree with the last two posts above.
I had my X50 for two years as a weekend car, but never quite gelled.
What I do remember however, was how good it was when it was actually driven with gusto.
Following other Porsches on a London meet, driving enthusiastically around some country roads brought the car into its element.
Alas for me, those chances never came around often enough to fully exploit the cars potential.
I had my X50 for two years as a weekend car, but never quite gelled.
What I do remember however, was how good it was when it was actually driven with gusto.
Following other Porsches on a London meet, driving enthusiastically around some country roads brought the car into its element.
Alas for me, those chances never came around often enough to fully exploit the cars potential.
Mines a daily driver so perfect for me. All year round capability, auto so no issues in traffic or car parks. Plenty of lanes and fast roads round my area so often get the pleasure of driving hard.
I have found that its better to get it to a fast yet comfortable speed and just maintain it round corners as when u give it more gas it goes from 80 to 110 in no time... U certainly dont thrash it!
Also agree that after time the thrills only come as daft speeds. 150 in the wet common and too easy, private roads of course
I have found that its better to get it to a fast yet comfortable speed and just maintain it round corners as when u give it more gas it goes from 80 to 110 in no time... U certainly dont thrash it!
Also agree that after time the thrills only come as daft speeds. 150 in the wet common and too easy, private roads of course
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