[Brett_Coon]

Re: The Worst Review of any Porsche I've read

...It's indisputably a downmarket move... that indisputably adds insult to injury... The car is indisputably heavier... Four-bangers are indisputably inferior... the car is indisputably less fuel-efficient... ...indisputably offensive.

https://c.marketingtechblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/you-keep-using-that-word.jpg

 

[Brett_Coon]

Re: The Worst Review of any Porsche I've read

In 2010 the US EPA did an extensive 184 page study of the production costs of various engine technologies by analyzing part by part various engines. One of the comparisons they made was the cost of production of a 6 cylinder 3.0L V6 naturally aspirated engine and a 4 cylinder 2.0L turbo both producing approximately 225 HP. They found that the 4 cylinder cost more to manufacture than the 6.

https://www3.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420r10010.pdf

Interesting. So I guess it makes sense the new 718s are a little bit more expensive.

 

[Brett_Coon]

Re: The Worst Review of any Porsche I've read

I have no idea why a NA engine's performance would suffer when it gets hot..

Really? Pretty sure you explained it yourself in this same post:

As air temperature increases, the density of the air, and the amount of oxygen it holds decreases.

This physical property holds for NA engines as well as turbos; the big difference is that without a turbo or blower, an NA engine can't do anything about it.



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[Brett_Coon]

Couldn't agree more.


If you are more focused on 'luxury' items or being connected to your phone rather than being connected to the road, why buy a sports car? Reminds me of people who buy pickup trucks not for their utility but as a fashion statement.


If all you want is a fast car, there are cheaper alternatives. The latest Corvette offers stellar performance, handling and a spine tingling engine sound, without Porsche’s snootiness or extortionist pricing.


If the hairs on the back of your neck don’t stand up when you hear the wail of a flat six, or if you don’t care that a sports car should sound like, um,... a sports car, then why not just by a Tesla? You can drive one insanely fast AND think you’re saving the planet at the same time.


Chows4us, I’ve never understood why people post questions / comments on Planet 9 about the nav system or the need to connect a phone so one can hear music on the car’s stereo. It’s a sports car. All the music you need to hear is 1 foot behind your head. Shut up and drive!


However, now that Porsche’s marketing department has decided to further distance the Box/Cay from the 911 by forcing the engineers to produce the hamster wheeled Super Beetle engine 718, and as a result, the Box/Cay now makes embarrassing sounds that should best be left in the privacy of one’s bathroom (click on the link below and listen in at around the 13 second mark to about 45 seconds in), I can understand why there’s a great interest in connectivity / stereo sound. 718 owners will need to do whatever they can do to distract themselves from that sound emanating from the 718’s rear end.

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssG-yLJHsDE
[/URL]

There are many of you who think people who complain about the emasculation of a great car with the installation of a turdo Subaru engine are whining and we should just get over it. I disagree. I think Porsche needs to hear the negative comments from magazine reviews and from potential customers. If you don’t think Porsche cares, thing again: enthusiasts spat venom when Porsche released the 991.1 GT3 without a manual transmission. Porsche listen to their customers and as a result, the latest GT4 and Spyder are manual only, and the 991.2 GT3 / RS will have the option of a manual or PDK.


Hard to say, however, what they could do for the 718, given ever increasing fuel economy and emissions standards. But I am sure the engineers are up for a challenge. Maybe Porsche should let the engineers focus on solutions for the enthusiast instead of appeasing the marketing morons.


My $0.02. FWIW. Your mileage may vary. See dealer for details. Etc.

This is ridiculous. If you want a really "pure" sports car experience, get an Ariel Atom or Caterham 7. If sound is your only thing, upgrade the stereo in your Accord and play engine sounds. Porsche makes sporty luxury cars that are designed to appeal to a fairly wide range of expensive tastes. Everyone has their own ranking of what specific things are most important to them, and this notion that only some combinations are worthy of Porsche ownership is silly. And elitist.

I find it particularly risible when six-a-holics dismiss the 718's performance advantage as being unimportant to a real sports car. Performance isn't everything, of course, but it's a pretty big part of the traditional definition of "sports car". Bigger than even cylinder count.




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[Brett_Coon]

"I find it particularly risible when six-a-holics dismiss the 718's performance advantage as being unimportant to a real sports car. Performance isn't everything, of course, but it's a pretty big part of the traditional definition of "sports car".

This is a straw man argument. I don't recall any poster dismissing the 718's performance advantage as being unimportant. What has been stated by me and many others is that we aren't about to trade-in our 6cyl 981 for a 4 cylinder 718 just because it is a couple of tenths of a second faster in a 0 - 60.

In this same thread, you previously said: The gain in HP and faster 0 - 60 are irrelevant to me. <snip> Moreover, since I won't be taking my car to any dragstrip nor engage in street racing, a coupe of tenths of a second means nothing to me.
So fine, maybe you said it was "irrelevant" and "means nothing to me", rather than it's "unimportant", but that's a pretty narrow distinction.

And Chow has said in this thread: Performance numbers, at a certain point, became meaningless. Why? How many 718 buyers will do club racing with their cars? No? Then what does it matter?
And even earlier in this thread, in reference to "1. In the low RPM ranges the 718 seemed to be waiting to accelerate. Just giving it a little gas made it jump and the acceleration is great.", Chow said: At least I would never buy a car based upon #1... (but other items from list) are, of course, more attuned to what a sports car is supposed to do.

I'm pretty confident this isn't an exhaustive list of such statements, (and I'm only listing them as examples, not to pick on specific posters, because there are many offenders), so I don't think my statement was a straw man at all.

Also, six-a-holics. Just wanted to say that again.

-Brett

 

[Brett_Coon]

But understand there is a much deeper meaning to this. In the late 50s into and through the mid-70s, significant changes in low end accelerations WERE meaningful. A sub 8 sec car was fast. A sub 7 sec car was very fast. So shaving off 0.2 sec meant something. Today, a Camry can run sub 7 sec.

Actually, a 0.2 sec improvement means a lot more now that cars are faster.

The deeper meaning is that many people here stubbornly refuse to acknowledge any advantages of the 718 vs 981, even something as measurable and fundamental to a sports car as acceleration and lap times.

It's fine and even reasonable to believe the acceleration, horsepower, low-end torque, and lap times aren't a significant enough change to offset the loss of six cylinders or addition of a turbo. I'm pretty undecided on that point myself. And I tend to agree the improvement isn't enough (by itself) to warrant selling a perfectly good 981 to upgrade. But arguing the improvements are "meaningless" is kind of silly.

I wonder what everyone did before GPS? Hmm.

Please. This complaint is so old its kids are driving (probably turbos). Next you'll scoff at people who want air conditioning, padded seats, or horseless carriages.

You need to get the data from the car makers. Data is needed. e.g. Baked turbo on the menu for more drivers | Motoring News | Honest John Turbos failing at double the rate.

According to the link, that data isn't from the car makers, either, but instead from a private warranty company. Is it more legit because it supports the "turbos are bad" narrative?

 

[Brett_Coon]

Not a good start. I'd expect the sales numbers at the end of the calendar year will tell the tale regarding what the buying public thinks about this model.

911 sales down round 10%.

On a positive note, CPO sales are up 9%--no connection right?

I don't think this year's Boxster/Cayman sales will tell us much of anything. It's a model transition year, so you have some unknowable mix of wait-and-see, limited 718 availability, and old model inventory reduction, plus there are the confounding factors of the competitive landscape (M2, F-Type, etc) that make this launch hard to meaningfully compare with prior roll outs. Next year will be the first full year of 718 availability, so we'll at least get clear 718 numbers. But even then, it will be hard to know if sales are more a function of the 718 itself or the overall economy and competitive landscape.

Unless there's a big 911 model change next year, it will be interesting to see how relative sales track between 718 and 911 in 2017. That comparison partly accounts for both the economy and the competitive market.

But I really think trying to glean much real information from this year's 718 numbers is an exercise in futility.

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[Brett_Coon]

At the same time I don't know what to make of the Cayman sales. The 987 trailed off to literally nothing by March of 2013, then shot up to 394 units in April. It hit 594 in July and has been on a slow downward trend ever since. The transition to the 718 has had no discernible effect at all, even though the changes from 981->982 are arguably more drastic than the changes from 987->981 were.

Either people are buying the 718 Caymans at about the same rate, or 718 Cayman sales simply aren't showing up yet. Or there were a ton of leftover 981 Caymans that are still selling...?

The local (California) dealership I checked with this weekend has a couple 981 Caymans in stock, but doesn't expect to get any 718 Caymans for 30-60 days. So for that dealership, at least, slow Cayman sales cannot be blamed on unhappiness with the 718.

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[Brett_Coon]

Sound is an all time thing. It might not be the "only" thing its a very "important" thing. I never heard of an American kid growing up who, even if not interested in cars, hadn't scene this scene. Turn up the sound around 1:10. Listen to Steve McQueen accelerate and the rumble of the big V8. By todays standards, is probably accelerating slow, the shifting is slow, the car has lots of roll and the tires a bit skinny, but its classic and the sound rocks.

Interestingly, that famous movie sound is actually dubbed in from a GT40 race car. So I guess it's the BMW approach... Mustang Stars in Bullitt | HowStuffWorks

Coincidentally, I recently heard about this on an excellent podcast called 99% Invisible. Here's the episode, which is all about the importance of sound, including attempts to make the Mustang Bullitt edition car sound like the movie car: The Sizzle - 99% Invisible


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[Brett_Coon]

Re: Turbo's ain't what they used to be

They don't recommend the Panamera either. They haven't done road tests on the 718 models or the Panamera either. Looking at the list nothing is recommended that doesn't have a road test.

I think they also wait for long term reliability data on new models before recommending them.

So move along 718 skeptics, nothing to see here... [emoji1]


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[Brett_Coon]

Re: Turbo's ain't what they used to be

In all those years there is one activity that I have never undertaken: a 0 - 60 or a 1/4 mile timed run in a Porsche. Moreover, I expect very few Porsche owners do, so the question is why does Porsche make a big deal out of an activity that hardly any of its owners do.

Seriously? These are what are known as "benchmarks." The idea is to pick a standardized, easily reproduced activity that measures some aspect of the car you care about. The aspect measured by these two benchmarks is acceleration. While many of us will never engage in the exact activity used by the benchmark, the informed consumer can learn a lot from them, for example to make reasonable predictions about, say, 25-70 acceleration times, as might be encountered on a highway on ramp. And the auto industry as a whole has agreed on 0-60 and 1/4 mile times to be the standard acceleration benchmarks, which makes it easier to compare vehicles.

Similarly, lap times on popular tracks provide useful benchmarks of overall performance, and thus are useful even to buyers who will never drive that particular track.

Also, almost by definition, benchmarks are always imperfect since they rarely are a perfect match for any given person's usage.

Hope this clears things up.

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[Brett_Coon]

Re: Turbo's ain't what they used to be

Yes, 0 - 60 and 1/4 times are benchmarks important for the dragstrip. They are meaningless for road racing. No road race cars care much about a dragstrip time and sports car are meant for road racing.

If you view a sports car for its function. 1/4 miles times do give acceleration indications, but are far from the most important thing compared to track times.

OTH, Brett has a point. Of course there are benchmarks. They allow the paper racers to argue in bars on napkins. Bragging rights are important to some. This is was much more so in the past when those who burnt up 1/4 miles times would totally waste sports cars ... until the first turn and then they were in the weeds and that underpowered sports cars kept going and going and going.

Both points are valid.

I'm not sure you really are getting my point, which has nothing to do with bragging rights or paper racers. You and fast1 seem to be arguing that these benchmarks have no functional value to anyone but marketers, posers, and drag racers.

But that is wrong. They convey useful, if limited, real world information. If all you know about a car is that it has a 30s quarter mile time, you can be pretty confident it's not a sports car and it will have poor track times. And for cars as similar overall as the 981 and 718 in terms of size, weight, and handling, it's reasonable to expect that the car with the better 1/4 mile time will be faster on the track.

Besides, I'm sure that if the new 718s had worse 0-60 and quarter mile times, the resident sixaholics would be getting t-shirts printed to remind everyone.[emoji1] [emoji1]


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[Brett_Coon]

Re: Turbo's ain't what they used to be

I do believe benchmarks are important. But acceleration numbers not so much for sports cars. How many standing start accelerations done per race? Pits have speed limits.

Now say 30 to 130? Sure. How many G it pulls? Sure

Aargh! Even if you never do standing start acceleration, 0-60 and quarter mile times provide useful information. After all, only the first instant of either benchmark involves a standing start. After that they're just roll-on.

Again, benchmarks are imperfect, they rarely exactly match your actual usage, but they provide information for comparisons and for inferring performance on related tests.

 

[Brett_Coon]

Re: Turbo's ain't what they used to be

While many of us will never engage in the exact activity used by the benchmark, the informed consumer can learn a lot from them, for example to make reasonable predictions about, say, 25-70 acceleration times, as might be encountered on a highway on ramp

So do you actually believe that a 718S with PDK, sports chrono and launch control that runs the same 0-60 as a MT C7 Corvette will be competitive with a Corvette in a 25 - 70? If you have a friend with a Corvette, give it a try and see what happens. That's why I believe 0-60 can be misleading. I have no problem at all with 25 - 70 acceleration times since it's a metric which is instructive both on the street as well as on the track.

Huh? I tried really hard to clarify that 0-60 times and quarter mile times are imperfect proxies for the specific performance metrics each of us really care about. Notice I said that you can "make reasonable predictions" about things like 25-70 times; nowhere did I say anything about racing Corvettes, or intend to imply any such thing. And of course these stats, like any other benchmark, can be misleading. Just like the old saying goes, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. But used properly, benchmarks, like statistics, can be informative and useful.

Anyway, I think I've already spent too much time on this topic, so I'll leave it here.

 

[Brett_Coon]

The 912E had left over 914 2.0 engines when the 914 was discontinued. There were subtle differences from what was also used in the VW bus, from what I can remember. I know the distributor had a different rotor, for example.


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Ahh, the VW bus. I drove my parents' '69 bus throughout my high school years. Good times. Learned to drive a stick, learned the thrill of passing a 55mph car on a two lane road while going flat out at 55.1mph. Maybe that's why I'm fond of the sound of boxer 4 engines...

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[Brett_Coon]

The employee who suggested that a recorded sound be played in the cabin should be immediately released for poor judgement.

Why? Seriously, if sound is so important, and you really like engine sounds, what's wrong with giving you the sound you like? Let's assume for the sake of argument the sounds are well done and don't sound fake.

If you had to choose one, assuming everything else is identical including the driving experience, would you prefer an electric car that perfectly mimicked the cabin sound of a Porsche 6-cylinder boxer, or a 6-cylinder boxer-powered car that had perfect sound and vibration dampening so the cabin was silent?

How important is it that the sound be authentic?

I test rode an electric Harley, and although it sounded nothing like a gas engine, it did sound cool in its own way, and surprisingly loud. Apparently Harley spent a bunch of time worrying about the sound, and I'm pretty sure it included some sound-making hardware. But I'm not a Harley guy, nor a loud pipes guy, so it's not clear real Harley enthusiasts appreciated the sounds as much.

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[Brett_Coon]

How important to you is it that the ... ????

hamburger you ate is really a hamburger and not a soyburger?
jacket you wear is a real North Face or Canada Goose and not a Chinese knockoff?
pocketbook your wife has is a real Gucci and not a counterfeit that will fall apart quickly bought from a vendor in the street?
watch you wear is a real Piaget or Breitling vs a counterfeit?
etc. etc. etc.

Fake is fake. If your good with wearing counterfeits, imitations, knockoffs, then its your life, so be it. Others want the real thing and not a pale imitation of authenticity. A common counter to this argument is "well it looks the same". But the quality isn't there. Same thing. The quality will not be there.

If you reread my actual question, you'll see I wasn't talking about IP theft, cut-rate trademark-infringing counterfeits, or low-quality imitations, so most of your examples aren't comparable at all. In my hypothetical, the quality is there.

The only one of your examples that is mostly in the spirit of the question is your hamburger/soy burger version, so let me try again using that analogy.

Let's imagine you are hungry and go to a diner for food, but due to EU regulations (!!) they only have two choices: (1) a soy burger that tastes like soy, and (2) a soy burger that tastes exactly like your favorite real beef hamburger.

Which of the following mostly closely describes your response?

1. Go with the soy-tasting soy burger, because gosh darnit, the best way to express unhappiness with a soy burger mandate is to be miserable when eating your soy burger.
2. Go with the delicious meat-flavored soy burger because hey, the main point is taste, so if you can have all the taste without the fat and calories, that's pretty awesome?
3. Leave hungry and take to the internet to demand that the heretic who ever suggested making soy taste good be immediately fired, because everyone knows without tasting that a soy burger can't really taste like a hamburger if no cows were used in the process.

Point is, sound is sound. If you like and want the sound of a 6-cylinder boxer, why does it matter whether the elaborate contraption making those sounds burns gas or runs off electricity? If I could get an electric sports car with a really convincing engine soundtrack, I suspect it would be pretty enjoyable. Especially if it had a dial that went all the way up to 11 cylinders...

-Brett

 

[Brett_Coon]

OK, throw out my counterfeit examples

The answer is the same. "I will know its fake and fake is fake"

Lets supposed you cheat on your HS math exam and get an "A". I will know its not a real "A". You might fool others, who think you are math genius but You will know you are not.

There are hundreds of posts in this forum about the "fake" BMW exhaust sounds piped in vs Porsche sounds being "real". This is not a new subject. So if you want fake sounds, that's your choice but do some research and you will read many, many posts about this subject.

Do you want the real thing, or an imitation? You, as the consumer, will decide.

Sigh. How you go from a soy burger to cheating on math is beyond me. And again you aren't actually addressing my post.

But it sounds like your answer to my question is 3. That's too bad, since according to your prior posts it won't be long before (1) and (2) are your only options. To be clear, I mean that your prior posts emphasize that all-electric is inevitable, and thus our choices will be "electric car sound" or "synthetic engine sound". I see no reason to automatically reject the latter, since in theory, if it's done well, it could be good. I'm not actually asking if it's equal to or better than "real" engine sounds. I was only objecting to the harsh reaction to learning that Porsche was even considering (synthetic engine sounds in an EV) as an option.

-Brett

 

[Brett_Coon]

Point is, sound is sound. If you like and want the sound of a 6-cylinder boxer, why does it matter whether the elaborate contraption making those sounds burns gas or runs off electricity? If I could get an electric sports car with a really convincing engine soundtrack, I suspect it would be pretty enjoyable. Especially if it had a dial that went all the way up to 11 cylinders...

OK so the contrived sound will make you happy, but I expect that you are in a tiny minority. In a sports car, the roar of a tire-roasting fastback on the brink is the stuff of which enthusiasts dream. Whether it started with the Mustang vs. Charger chase in Bullitt or Gene Hackman’s frantic weaving in The French Connection, that stuff follows you into adulthood. Sound is part of the appeal of motoring, and when it’s not entirely real or honest, something’s lost.
Some get it, others don't, and for those who don't, no analogy will help.

Really glad you brought up Bullitt, since it makes my point perfectly. As we discussed in the forums previously, the car sounds in that movie were "not entirely real or honest". But we all agree they were awesome nonetheless.

I rest my case.

-Brett

 

[Brett_Coon]

Let's say your Porsche starts making weird engine sounds. You get 10 factory trained Porsche mechanics to check it out: 9 say it's a big problem that needs to be fixed ASAP because your car isn't safe to drive, while one says it's probably bad but he can't be totally sure until he opens it up. Then you describe your problem on Planet-9, and get 50 replies of which 24 say you need to fix it immediately, 25 say it's normal for engines to make sounds, and one goes off on a weird rant about air cooling and big pharma.

So, do you shrug and conclude nobody really knows how engines work so you should wait and see what happens, or do you get it fixed because the people most qualified to know are at >90% consensus?

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