It sounds like the auto shutoff is manually activated....

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Ten day report (long)
Lawdevil & CURVN8R - Tuesday, 14 August, 2012, at 9:23:48 pm

I have now had the new 981 Boxster S (CURVN8R) for about ten days and thought I would report on some of my reactions at this point. I have about 500 miles on the odo – most of which are NC mountain miles. I have been trying to keep to the factory recommended break-in – but may have strayed a little on a couple of occasions.

First of all, this is an incredible car. I would not trade it even for a base 911. It seems more powerful than my 2008 987 – but I cannot fully evaluate that until I can really rev it out. It does have 20 more HP than my 987 (295 vs. 315). Also, the Sport Chrono Sport setting (remapping of PDK and accelerator – along with the PSE) makes it SEEM to be more powerful. I have not used the Sport Plus much since it aggressively remaps everything so that even moderate pedal revs the engine to near redline before upshifting. I will try that a little more after break-in. I think the additional power will be more evident at higher RPM – can’t wait to find out – but for mountain driving, the power is more than adequate.

The one thing I really agonized over in ordering this car was PDK or manual. I can honestly say that I really love the PDK. I have had a manual sports car for quite a few years and I still occasionally stab for the clutch – but I am breaking myself of that habit. The shifts are amazingly fast and surprisingly smooth. There is none of the “slush” found in traditional automatic transmissions. I find that I actually am a better driver with it since I use my concentration checking out my line and not worrying about the shift. Also, I am more often in the correct gear. With a manual, sometimes I would leave it in one gear rather than shifting knowing that I would soon need a higher gear and I would lose more with the shift than I would gain in the downshift. Now a downshift is accomplished with just flick of the paddle and the computer blips the engine to give a perfect engine speed matching downshift every time. It is even better with the PSE – an audible pop on upshifts and a perfect blip on the downshift. It feels like a racecar with a sequential transmission. Depending upon your mood (normal, sport or sport+), the transmission seems to do exactly what you want – even in full auto. In the normal setting, it moves to a high gear very rapidly – not particularly sporting but it does save gas and is OK for highway cruising; besides, even in auto, a down shift is available at any time with just a flick of the paddle.

So far I have not explored the PASM settings much – I seem to always be in sport. In that setting the suspension is firm with almost no lean in corners. Surprisingly, the suspension is not harsh in sport – even with the 20-inch wheels. Porsche has really done a fantastic job tuning the suspension.

The overall handling with PASM and the torque vectoring is incredible. Turn in is fast and accurate. Hitting an apex is easy (comparatively) and the steering is very responsive. I really do not see what the fuss about the electrically assisted steering is all about. There is still great road feel – although the steering wheel does not jump around in your hands on rough pavement quite a much – an improvement, I think. Also, on my 987, I sometimes experienced some rear axle hop on hard up-hill curves. One particular uphill decreasing radius curve near me with some negative camber always caused this. With the new car, none was present. This could also be due to some extent to the increased rigidity of the body.

A few non-performance comments: the Bose sound system is much improved over the 987. Also, I like that I now have Bluetooth, sat radio, and iPod connectivity. The Nav is much improved over the old Porsche version (I did not have that before) – although I cannot say it is any better than my Garmin – but I absolutely hate having power cables hanging all over my dash. It is also neat that I can transfer the Nav screen to the right binnacle. Speaking of that binnacle, it offers a lot of functionality – you can now monitor all sorts of things such as oil pressure, water temp, oil temp, volt meter, tire pressures and several others. Also, you can set such things as lighting levels and delays for light shut-off and locking sequences. There are many others that don’t come immediately to mind.

The auto “stop/start” function actually works pretty well. I just turned it on a couple of days ago for the first time. It is a little eerie at first when the engine stops at an intersection, but it restarts almost instantly as soon as you release the brake. In city driving, I think it would be a non-issue and maybe would save a little gas.

The interior is much improved and extremely well finished. It is almost identical to the 911 interior with the exception of the air conditioning ducts and the number of instrument binnacles. I splurged on the leather and love it. Whether it is worth the price is a personal decision. The 14-way seat fits me perfectly and gives very good support, I can see spending a lot of time in this seat on a long drive with no problem. I will find out soon when I head to Texas for Boxstoberfest. BTW, if you get PDK, make sure you get the sport steering wheel with the paddles.

Not much that I don’t like- other than the price. I do not like the silver color of the tachometer dial. I would much prefer a black background as before. Also, I have no idea why they retain that left hand analog speedometer. It is useless – and the area could easily be used for a permanent display of engine information.

Without getting into a “hue” discussion, I really like the Agate Grey paint with the Agate Grey interior. The Agate Grey leather looks much better in person than it does on the small swatch I saw at the dealership – and appears a good deal lighter. I was frankly a little tired of the black interiors that I have had for a lot of years.

Anyway, that is my conclusions after a short time with the car. I’ll let you know more in a couple of months after I have had time to explore its capabilities on a long trip and its power in the higher rpm ranges.