Strange PDK Event

I've had my first Porsche for about 2 months: 2009 C2S PDK. Very happy with it. Today I stopped for gas and filled the tank. Got back in the car and started it, shifted into Drive, and noticed that the red indicator light on the dash said I was in R. I double-checked and was in fact in Drive. I put it back in P, the red light confirmed P, put it back into D, and the red light said R. So I pushed on the accelerator and the car didn't move. Put it in R and the car didn't move. Kept trying various things like this and the car would not move. So I shut it off, started it up again, and everything was fine. Any thoughts? Thanks very much.

Maybe you need to PDK firmware patch from Porsche? It fixes a number of glitches and behavior problems. Mine was upgraded when I had the SC option installed recently, but the dealer may do it for you under warranty.

Just a software glitch. Take it to the dealer for a PDK reflash should it occur again.

It could be a weak battery. How long was the car sitting for?

All of the above. It's software related for sure. In addition you just filled the tank. It's always important to consciously make certain you tighten the cap and hear the click. A loose gap cap typically results in a check engine light but other software related issues are also possible as well.

Thanks for your comments. Coincidentally I had a service appt scheduled for today. Dealer said there were no updates or patches due to firmware/software, and no faults stored in onboard computer. So for now I just hope it was an isolated hiccup. With regard to suggestions made here, the tank cap was definitely closed and clicked, and the battery is strong. Thanks.

Gremlin!

This is why pure mechanical components get such respect from me. No magical black box that fusses when cosmic rays hit it from the wrong angle at a certain temperature. If they released all the code behind it and let you modify and reflash the components yourself, I'd feel more comfortable. I have a lot of respect for the PDK/DSG - but for reliability, give me something purely mechanical. Maybe it'll wear out faster, but it will be predictable and reliable till then. [ Note: if I were buying a Boxster Spyder today I'd get the PDK ]

That kind of thinking goes completely counter to what is happening not only in the automotive industry, but in commercial aviation as well. All modern commercial jets are pretty much fly-by-wire with computer controlled hydraulics and are FAR more reliable than the mechanical components found in older airliners. There is no evidence whatsoever that a dual-clutch or torque converter automatic transmission is any less reliable than a manual. A system composed of purely mechanical components may be easier to repair should anything go wrong, but most solid state electronics are hyper-reliable and will last much longer than the device it's installed in.

That is part of it, that the repairs are much easier to diagnose and possibly repair, but also it's not just the reliability of the components that worries me - it's the programming behind them. I work in IT, I've seen the sort of code that is allowed to go out for public consumption. The big advantage of the more complex electronic components with respect to reliability and longevity is that they can prevent users from doing damaging / dumb things. A PDK transmission with 50k miles is probably a LOT more reliable than a manual with 50k miles by any of my girlfriends. I think the mechanical elements of the PDK are outstanding. With all the complex electronics, there are more things that can go wrong. Looking at numbers of incidents is never going to give us a perfect understanding of why things went wrong. I'll accept that the computer is more consistent and more reliable than the average person - and will be less likely to cause damage to the car. But I believe that the computer is more likely to fail than a human who knows what they're doing. The computer after all, is just doing what some collection of human programmers tell it to do, and there are going to be bugs in their programming.

Statistics will disagree with you. It's just a question of where in the process errors can occur. A computer is no more likely to fail than a human if it is programmed well. A human can just as easily fall asleep at the wheel or have a heart attack and die in the middle of a flight, or simply be distracted by a cell phone conversation. Most accidents and adverse events happen because of human error more than any other reason. If a computer algorithm is to be blamed for an accident, then one needs to look at the humans who programmed it. But if it's programmed correctly, a computer will perform a task much more consistently than any human ever will.

So, no perfect humans no perfect computers. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

Perfection has nothing to do with it. Nobody said humans or computers were perfect.

Statistics can tell us whatever we want them to tell us. Would just need to filter out all the events where human error was to blame from both PDK and Manual transmission issues... then filter out what we consider to be normal maintenance repairs... then make sure we included all issues that may not have required a repair, but which required a 'reboot' etc. etc. Humans are definitely the weak link in any system though If I abuse my manual transmission and break it, it's easy to accept personal fault for that. If my PDK suddenly goes into limp home mode or otherwise fails... well, it's Porsche's fault. Average results aren't that exciting to me because the average person doesn't know how their car works, and thus can't make the best decisions for taking care of it. [again, I would personally get a PDK in a new Spyder if I were picking it up today]

Nor did I. I merely stated the obvious. You must have misread my post.

Sorry about that. I incorrectly assumed you were posting something relevant to the discussion at hand. True. I guess the only question is how reliable a production PDK will be in the long term. We're only about 3 years past the introduction of the PDK into 911s and 987s whereas manuals have been around and been refined for how long, 50+ years?

It was. Don't assume any man made device will be problem free. A simple concept?

If it was so blatantly obvious and simple, then it contributed nothing to the thread and didn't really need to be said now, did it? We were talking about consistency and reliability, not whether humans or computers were perfect. So no, it wasn't. I realize you have some need to act pompous because you don't like me, and I suspect that's one of the reasons why you respond in the manner you do, but I'm not going to let you bait me into acting like you.

Most PDK issues have been resolved by computer flash. People/computers. Simple from a solution point of view. Complex from a manufacturers perspective. Baiting? I have no control over what you read into anything.

Sounds about right. In more than one long term review of a car I've come across the writer's account of the car acting up - a Jaguar comes to mind -- in various and odd and seemingly unrelated ways. Finally -- in the case of the Jaguar -- the driver pulls over the side of the road and shuts the engine off and counts to ten then restarts the engine and the symptoms are gone. Best to not worry too much about it but of course be a bit on your toes regarding how often this occurs (if it occurs again) and what if anything you can think of that maybe can help you reproduce the symptom. Is there some way you are shutting off the car -- perhaps leaving the PDK in gear? -- or does it always appear after a gas tank fill up, etc. The dealer is right, kind of...In some cases there is no update but because the symptoms you report do not match the qualifying symptoms the factory has listed that must be present before the dealer can apply a warranty covered DME or drivetrain (PDK) controller reflash (or something even more extensive). Sincerely, Rockster.

I had the exact same problem w/ my '09 C4S. First trip to dealer and their answer was...Nothing wrong, no errors etc. It happened again the very next morning...Back to dealer I went. My regular Service Writer was off the previous day. When I explained the problem he instantly said 'Yep, there's a software patch/upgrade that will take care of that'. 2 hours later and problem solved and no more 'Emergency Transmission Run' red lights since. Now, if we can just figure out why the ECU rejects the Softronic upload I will be all set!