Early impressions of my Tiptronic

First, let me introduce The Blueberry: And now I love these headlights (Special shout out to Rick Fisher/Fisher Motors for the post-purchase inspection and sorting and his patience answering all of my painfully dumb newbie questions) I've been waiting a long time to replace a 914 I owned for 20 years and lost in 2005 to an engine fire. I originally wanted to find an aircooled 911, but winced at the "collectors" pricing they all seem to have been hit with. I was one of those 996 snobs who was appalled by the 'fried egg' headlights and figured if I can't get an aircooled 911 I'll get as much newer Porsche as my ($50-60k) budget allowed. I few years ago I was able to drive a 2011 997.2 PDK for a day, 300+ miles through Nevada/Valley of Fire/Lake Mead roads, fell in love with the PDK, and that became the focus of my search (and savings) since then. As I finally put together enough to find a well sorted if higher miles (100k +/-) 997.2 with a little extra $ to spare, I could live with the potential scoring issue (assuming whatever I bought cleared a PPI scoping), but I couldn't shake the nerves over a potential PDK failure, especially considering the likely mileage I'd find in my budget, seeing as they don't seem reparable and would lead to a $20k+ replacement if anything went wrong. Years ago I had driven a '92 964 tiptronic and though it felt heavy and sluggish, so I wasn't keen on the tip, but I had started seeing threads here talking about the 'early build' 996s and people here saying the tiptronic is still a solid transmission, so that became an option. Then a few weeks ago I found what seemed like a good deal on a cab/tip early build, 77k miles, rebuilt engine 2k miles earlier, and I jumped. Took it straight to Fisher, everything scoped clean and just a handful of minor issues to sort, and he passed it to Auto Image in Barrington for detailing, paint correction, and a ceramic coating. All in I'm still out less than half of my total Porsche budget. So far this is a huge win, but now what about that tiptronic...? NW Illinois/SW Wisconsin, to anyone unfamiliar, is the Drift-less Zone. Some of the finest driving roads anywhere, every direction is winding and hilly roads and amazing scenery, and in the three days I've had the car I've gone exploring every day, and I have to say, the grin factor present in the instantaneous shift of the PDK wouldn't have been worth paying double and then worrying if I'll be sidelined for a year if anything goes wrong. The automatic is just fine for regular driving around town or the highway (took getting used to it starting in 2nd gear), but once on the serpentine roads that surround me here I'm loving the manual mode. Everything is 55pmh punctuated every quarter mile with "25mph" and "30 mph" curve signs. Took me no time at all to figure out when to hold and when to move about for the perfect rpm band, and the parts per second lost by not having a PDK became meaningless. It's not as if I'm doing timed runs pushing the envelope on the curves. I'm also impressed by how light and 'analog' this one feels compared to the 997.2 I've driven. Don't get me wrong, I loved the 997.2, but for a weekend bomb-about toy to toss around the drift-less zone, this is exceeding my expectations. Three days in and I have zero regrets over not dumping the entire budget on a PDK, and now I have that extra $ to cover the expected unexpecteds, and consider any potential off-season tasteful mods or interior tweaks (considering paint matching the seat backs and center column).

I am glad you are enjoying your new ride. It looks like you've got a very nice early car. The matching top is a really nice touch you don't see too often. I too love the early headlights and sought out an early car myself. Also, thanks for sharing your opinion of the tip. I have heard a lot of good things about the tip and PDK compared to other autos and I'd love to try them some day. I have personally never found an auto I was impressed with.

Years ago, when CART was still around, I enjoyed escaping driving from NJ/PA to Elkhart Lake to watch the Cart race and exploring those glorious roads in my friend's clapped-out 914. Those roads and the sound of that flat six bellowing out made driving to and around that area a wonderful treat; switchbacks, reduced radius curves, and varying degrees of elevation added to the experience. Over the last few years, watching Formula One and also driving a few PDK's I have changed my perspective....but not enough to get rid of my six-speed cab.......although there is this blown Targa at my Indie's that has a.........

I like your impressions and views. You will enjoy the Tip much more if you do the Mercedes Paddle Shifter Conversion and drive in manual mode 100%.. I agree the PDK is the "Ultimate Transmission", but you pay dearly for those thousandths of a second.. Congrats and good luck !! A couple of questions if I may : Since I'm a "failure analysis geek" on ICE engines, why the rebuild at 75k? What was the root cause? And also please expand on the "fried-egg headlight hate" , I never really understood why this was so prevalent , to me the Aero improvement overshadowed everything else about the headlights....

Quotes source post: 18343914

Took the words (paddle shifters) right out of my mouth!

Quotes source post: 18343914

Ooo... tell me more about this, please. Seller was a cart racer and had a full shop. Said there was an error code related to the cam shaft or chain guides (I might be misremembering this) so he split the case and replaced about $5k of parts while in there. Tons of photos of the process. He said it all looked clean in the cylinders, and it scoped clean and tolerances all checked out when I gave it to Rick for inspection. As to the headlights, I've been a huge fan of 911s since I once drove a '72 911S back in 1980 that just blew me away (guy was selling it for $12k) and a buddy had a '73 911E. As a kid I could only afford a 914 back then but vowed one day to get a 911. I was just too thrown when they started producing water-cooled 911s and started using the "odd" shaped headlights, so I never considered them and always hoped to find an '87-89 cab, but the prices just went insane. I still wasn't a big fan of the 996 headlights, but the amber on the early '99s has an appeal all its own. And now I love the look.

The Aluminum Mercedes AMG Paddle Shifters fit perfectly to the back of the 996 3 spoke steering wheel and look OEM.. You can even leave the buttons to have "one-handed" shifting when sipping a beverage or puffing a Cigar, then grab the paddles for two-handed action.. If Sally ever shifts gears without me commanding the shift, I immediately look down to see that I have bumped the shifter out of manual mode with my knee and immediately put it back in manual 100% of the time.. \Do a search in Google for "paddle shifters for 996 Rennlist" and you will find the part numbers and the "how to'' DIY instructions to do the conversion.. Cheers !!

I was going to do this but I manual swapped the car instead. Here is one writeup: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...-write-up.html The shift paddles needed are Mercedes parts. Get the AMG ones as they are metal, the others are plastic. I believe the Mercedes part#'s are: Mercedes Benz Paddle Shifters PN: [phone removed] or [phone removed]