2009 Porsche 911 Carrera
Porsche 911 gets shifty
Auto enthusiasts are some of the most passionate fans you’ll find anywhere. They’re vocal, smart and very, very opinionated. Check just about any auto forum on the Internet and you’ll see what we mean.
And it’s always fun seeing what they have to say about Porsche cars, especially its flagship 911. It’s a car that tends to have a lot of negativity thrown at it simply because it’s always so good, year in and year out - kind of like the New York Yankees in baseball.
After mostly tweaking its flagship 911 Carrera in recent years, 2009 sees some big changes come about, mostly to its core components, with the biggest and most intriguing change being the replacement of the nearly decade-old Tiptronic S transmission with the Porsche Doppelkupplung - or PDK - transmission. If you’re not interested in letting your left foot take part in the shifting process while driving, the PDK will do the work for you, and Porsche says it will actually shift faster than a skilled driver using a manual transmission. If you simply have to have control of shifts, you can still change gears using either the shifter, or steering wheel-mounted buttons - it’s unfortunate that the more typical paddles aren’t used because it simply doesn’t feel natural pressing buttons attached to the wheel.
Very simply put, the PDK is a conventional manual gearbox that uses two clutch packs - one for even-numbered gears and reverse, one for odd-numbered. When one clutch pack engages a gear, the other clutch pack simultaneously selects the next logical gear, depending on your speed, and if you’re accelerating or decelerating. Conventional shifts never occur - it’s a matter of one clutch engaging and the other disengaging, which takes only a few hundredths of a second. There’s no loss of power at any point, and it makes for extremely quick shifts that can nary be felt by the driver, unless the Carrera is put into Sport or Super Sport, which causes the engine RPM to rev higher.
We had a chance to test out a Carrera 4S coupe with the PDK and it actually managed to make us forget about how fun manually shifting is. Even in its non-sport mode, it’s astounding just how quick and smart the PDK is. It has seven gears in total and it’s obvious that Porsche hasn’t been able to ignore the focus on fuel-efficiency in today’s vehicles. The seventh gear in fact was only added for better fuel economy. The vehicle won’t even move into seventh when in its performance-minded Super Sport mode. Of course by no means will it win any EnerGuide awards, but this Porsche will know when the driver has no interest in testing its racing limits. When simply commuting to work or the gym, it will gear up quickly, and it’s not surprising to be going 55 km/h in sixth gear.
Watch what happens, though, when it’s time to have a little fun and drop the right pedal to the floor. Almost before your foot has applied any pressure, you’ll see the gear indicator behind the steering wheel drop from sixth to second - it’s really that fast. One of the greatest sounds in the automotive world will growl to life from behind the driver, and the 911 leaps forward. The PDK in the ‘S’ models is mated to a more powerful 3.8-litre six-cylinder engine. It doesn’t have the mind-boggling brute strength of, say, a Nissan GT-R, but if you aren’t happy with the 385 horsies the Carrera S provides and how it puts them to use, you may as well go straight to a Viper SRT-10.
But whereas an SRT-10 will take a Carrera 4S in a straight line, the Porsche as always will stick to the road like it’s nobody’s business. The engine sits at the rear of the vehicle, allowing its back wheels to stick to the pavement. Granted, the ‘4’ in this Carrera’s name means that it has all-wheel drive, but during typical driving situations, two-thirds of the torque will be directed to the rear wheels. At any given time, the torque can be split in any combination between the front and rear wheels, depending on the situation at hand.
And remember, this is all using the vehicle’s ‘regular’ settings. Setting it to Sport Mode tightens the suspension and causes the 911 to hold shifts longer, while Super Sport mode gives the driver access to the 911’s launch control. In this mode, Porsche claims a cardiac-arrest inducing 0-96 km/h time of 4.1 seconds. You’ll have to shell out an extra $1,800 for the Sport Chrono Package if you want launch control, though. Otherwise you’ll have to wait a whole 4.3 seconds to hit 96 km/h from a standstill with the PDK.
Changes inside this 2009 Carrera 4S are more subtle, but should be much appreciated by drivers nonetheless. The centre stack’s information screen is larger and now - finally! - has touchscreen capabilities. Easy-to-find music source outputs (iPod, auxiliary, USB) now reside within the small centre console as well. And for those sweltering summer days, customers can now choose to have cooled seats as well.
Porsche has upped the ante once again with its 2009 911 Carrera in just about every way. Few automakers try to take on this icon, and it still has no equal.
Summary:
Strong Points
Weak Points
- - performance
- - quality
- - safety
- - looks
- - lack of steering wheel 'paddles'
- - rear seats
Editors Rating:
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