How do I drive a Porsche?!
 

might seem a silly post but,

this is my first rear wheel drive car, first sports car, first with engine that's not in the front and first with so much power!! I've never done track days,etc.

I am driving much faster along the twisty UK country roads than I ever used to.

No problems yet! but with the rain here just wondered if someone could do me a quick bullet point list of driving tips,

eg, when to apply the power; in a corner?, after the corner?
you driving pro's will know what I mean :)

Not a silly post, but actually a very valid question to ask. However, no amount of reading will substitute for real driving experience, and you do not want to push the limits on open public roads. My best advice is to find a local Porsche or sports car club that holds autocrosses and do a few of them. Get an experienced driver to ride with you and give you pointers, then ride with the driver in your car or his/her car and experience how they drive. Have fun!!

Well it is a curious post but here goes. Do you have PSM? If you do turn it on. I don't so here is what I suggest. Watch out for any wet, gravelly or icy surfaces. You want to get rid of the speed before you enter a turn. If you are new to this car just slow down a bit. The speed can go to you head so keep to the posted speed limits. It will be several thousand miles before you know the limits of the car and keep it in my mind if you have an accident it is expensive to fix.

On snow covered or icy roads the back end breaks away easily on acceleration. So gently on the accelerator. Dry roads are a blast and be prepared for other cars not seeing you as the P car sits low. Have an exit strategy! Enjoy the ride....:)

Which part of the UK are you in?

Bought mine last October. I still average about 17 mpg or less. :D

Let us know how that pans out :)

Joking.

When driving active, make sure you downshift and approach corners at safe speeds, turn steeringwheel in a firm and not a quick matter (unless you want butt-out-sideways action), and apply throttle going out of the corner.

Practice makes perfect. Good luck :cheers:

BTW: how not to drive (no rocks were injured during filming of these clips)

Kid crashes BMW M3 into rocks (2012) - YouTube

CRAZY Cliff Driving Crash | BMW M3 Drives Off Cliff - YouTube

I love the driver's reaction on the first vids !

What works for me on our tight, twisty roads in the dry is to decelerate and change down to your corner entry speed. Then apply a small amount of throttle to preserve the balance of the car through the corner and nailing the apex, then hold off until you can see the corner exit where it's obvious you can give it full throttle.
If you really want to know how to drive your car, sign up for one of the Porsche Experience days such as the ones at Silverstone. For £250(ish) you get to drive the latest Boxster, Cayman or 911 and you will have a blast. The instructors are amazing, really show you how to get to the cars limits (and beyond) in a safe environment.

Drive it like you stole it mate !

Just have fun!

See video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYVIdGJVuWI

...

on the brakes prior to starting the turn to shed speed and load the front tires (reduces understeer) turn in, then accelerate out of corner. you'll know understeer because the front tires will squeal as they scrub through the turn - you've come in too hot or tire pressures are way off. when and how hard you get on the gas through and out of the corner will be determined by surface conditions. gently at first until you get a feel for the limits of the car. too much too soon and you will oversteer (rear end kicks out); initial oversteer can be controlled by backing off the throttle, otherwise countersteer to get back in control.

silly games to be playing on public roads.

given your geography, I'd be careful on the wet roads if I were inexperienced in this car. I had several seasons of Autox under my belt, including an advanced EVO course in heavy, heavy rain where all we did was go balls out and after buying the Boxster I still managed to spin the car 180 degrees into oncoming traffic on a merely damp road. This car in anything but bone dry road can bite you easily and without notice. If the road is wet or damp take it easy. The other thing is that car is fragile underneath. You don't have to be going very fast to impact a curb or highway divider hard enough to cause total loss damage, I've seen pics of cars with wheels sheared right off the car and the speed was not all that fast and there was no other damage to the rest of the car. Still headed for the scrap heap though as the cost of repairs exceeded the value of merely buying another 10+ year old Boxster.

The other thing, driving for the track/autocross is one thing. Driving for the street may have some overlap but it might as well be a different thing altogether. I would gain dominance over the car on supervised setting with a professional instructor at your local Porsche Club track venue first. It's not that expensive relative to a racing school or programme. After one day you'll find something interesting will happen: you'll drive slower on the public road. Once you realize how easy is to lose a car, you'll be very unlikely to trust other drivers by allowing them to drive so close to you on the highway and twisty roads. You always need ample room to escape their miscalculations -- in one piece.

I echo what everyone has said about the value of track/autocross days and some intstruction. I also echo what has been said about being very careful in wet or slippery conditions - it is very easy to get into terminal oversteer! In those conditions it is extremely important to have your braking and downshifting done before you start to turn the car into the corner and then, wide in, take a late apex and apply power gradually only after the car has virtually completed the turn. All of this, of course, is assuming there is no standing water in the corner! If there is any real risk of that, don't assume any path through a corner at speed will be trouble-free.

Brad

You don't let your clutch slip.

And you obey temperature lights.

I've read so much about how Porsche have 'unique' handling, which is why I ask the question.

I certainly plan to do some Silverstone driving course. Been recommended some.

Does your local Porsche Club have autocross at the Silverstone or other tracks?

I think autocross is a tremendous learning format in that you are not really learning to drive smoothly, although that is important, instead the point is to learn what the braking and grip limits of the platform are. How much you toss the car before the next turn without it costing you time/exit speed -- the quickest way from A to B. For the real world, as far as crash avoidance is concernend, that is priceless. And good autocross drivers make for good track drivers which in turn make for the best road drivers.

That's probably refering to the old aircooled 911's with the engine in the rear. None of that applies to Boxsters which are mid-engine.
As for driving in the rain, TIREs is #1. Be sue you have proper tires with more than half the tread depth left & less than 4 years old.

Tom, the "unique" handling you've heard about with Porsches has to do with the 911 and most of the weight being on or behind the rear axle. 911s are tail happy and driving them aggressively through corners requires a lot of experienced driver control. Lift off the gas pedal in the middle of the turn and the back end will come around. The acceleration force of the tires on the pavement is what keeps the car from spinning.

To a lesser extent, this happens in the boxster as well, so I'm going to have to partially disagree with BYprodriver.

In our cars, unskilled drivers tend to drive them fast into corners and then get scared. The fear-based thought is to lift off the throttle and mash the brake pedal, but by the time your foot moves from gas to brakes the physics are all wrong (moves weight to the front) and the back end will move upward, not downward where you want it to prevent oversteer.

Tracking the Boxster with an instructor is an amazing eye-opener. You'll be in the middle of a corner and that feeling of control loss will hit you like a ton of bricks and your instructor will say, "PUT YOUR FOOT IN THE GAS AND KEEP IT THERE!" ... which is the polar opposite of what your mind is telling your foot to do. The idea here is that if you give the rear wheels more power, they'll grab the road and find resistance and actually compress the rear suspension and make the back end stickier than before.

All this to say, enjoy the car on public roads but save the "drive it like you stole it" for the track days and you'll be very happy you did this. I spin out once a weekend at the track (less and less, but I still do it) and have no damage to the car. However, if I spun out on public roads, I'd damage not just car(s) but myself and others too. I'm sure you're smart enough to know this last bit, but I'll add it for any village idiots reading this thread years from now :)

Byprodirver, while the 911 (especially early ones) are much more 'unique' in terms of handling than the mid-engined Boxster, nevertheless, for someone like the OP who I gather has only driven front-wheel drive cars in the past, the handling is still pretty 'unique'-i.e., a tendancy at the limit towards oversteer rather than understeer.

Brad

The 911 has the disadvantage of requiring you to learn how drive a sports car before you begin to learn a rear-engined car. A car like the 918,Cayman or Boxster, you just get in and you're fast straight away. Maybe one day Porsche will make grand touring sports car like the 997/991 but with the engine in the middle, or maybe one that's a little a shorter which would make rear wheel steering unecessary in my opinion. A mid-engine Carrera would be a great car because from the rear its the best looking Porsche. From the front it looks like a VW to me.

What I see for instruction is good, but I'd like to add one more thing ... most of us drive with summer tires. Sticky when dry and have good grip. Wet, is something else again. Mine work well, but I am aware of the difference when I drive in wet conditions. Older tires, winter tires, all season tires, etc. all can make a difference.

Just something to keep in mind as you get used to your car's capabilities.

Never the less, I believe the OP's trepidation is derived from assuming Boxsters handle similarly to classic Porsches. Generaly speaking if you can't drive a Boxster safely, you shouldn't have a drivers license.

Byprodriver, I agree - especially if you are not pushing the car towards its limits. However, once you approach or exceed the limits of stability, there is a substantial difference in how a Boxster and a front-wheel drive car will react. In a typical front-wheel drive car, if you go into a corner too hot the car will continue to understeer regardless of whether you let off on the gas, apply the brakes or even give it more gas. In a Boxster, after initial understeer on turn-in, there is a transition to oversteer that will be uncomfortable for the uninitiated. In those circumstances, applying the brakes will just about ensure that the rear end will come around (weight transfer forward and unloading of the rear tires). One has to understand that and moreover, automatically react by reversing the steering imput. Once you have 'caught' the rear end, you can even play with gradual throttle imput. Unsafe handling? Of course not. But different from a front-wheel drive car? Certainly.

Brad

Seat time is important, especially if you have training beforehand.

There is no shortage of books on the market that describe high performance driving techniques. Amazon has several on their website. I would avoid trail braking techniques until you have some time under your belt.

Driving schools offer great training. There's the Jim Russell school, among others, and there used to be a skid school at Brands Hatch. A corner would be soaked in water, and the goal of the trainee was to get through it without spinning. Great stuff for determining the limits of your car in the wet.

Like anything else, you will be more proficient and confident with proper study and training.

TO

If you get the chance, find a large, empty lot to learn about you car's limits. turn off PSM if you have it, and (assuming you've got sufficient runoff) try to get the car to lose control. You'll gain some appreciation for just how much grip these cars have, and also what it feels like to be on the edge.

Autocross would be a great learning idea too, as you'll probably manage to induce both under- and oversteer at some point.

This forum is great. Much good advice.

- Does it always rain? It is dry enough where I live that I simply just wait for a dry day. I learned to drive in snow and to me it simply amplifies many times what others have told you. I learned all the techniques that teach car control growing up on a farm with lots of snowy empty roads.
- I like life and respect others so we always obey the mailbox rule. These cars can stop very fast on dry. Learn how fast it can stop.
- +1 on the give yourself time. These cars are so sticky it will take a lot of time to learn the limits. Obviously the quickest way is to get instruction.
- You'll become very good at trusting the brakes on these cars. It has become second nature for me now to wait until the last second to brake, brake hard, and then make the turn.
- Learn at slower speeds, it is also very fun and high speeds just make all recovery that much more difficult.
- Have fun and know your limits.

I agree, the tires are key an make a big difference.

I drive summer performance tires Hankook V12's and while doing the Porsche Performance Driving school with them where they wet and soap the course I found out they actually have excellent grip wet as well.

The instructor was the first to comment on it as they were new to me and I had nothing to compare them against since it was the first Wet drive I ever did in the Boxster. (We were doing the accelerate to ~50-60mph then slam on the brakes at the braking cone and steer/acclerate around an obsticle on soapy wet pavement)

It was an eye opener and I learned a great avoidance manuever while keeping the car in control with some counter intuitive actions (Accelerate after the veer to keep the tail end planted)

To the OP, all season tires are piss poor in my opinion over ice patches. Thus if the Boxster has any chance of seeing freezing temps, dedicated winter tires are must have.
My concern is not so much snow, a mildly decent all season can handle that as long as its no more than fluff no deeper than an inch, but once you hit the first ice patch with the rears going into or out of a turn, all bets are off. An all season tire may handle the cold temps a bit better than a sticky summer tire but that's about it. The compound is nearly useless for ice and the tread is all wrong for snow. Unless you live in an area where weather goes from hot to ice and back to hot in a single season these tires are a safety hazard in this car.

DannyTheManny
 

Not had many issues with traction, but find that booting it from first into second into slightly greasy conditions coming out on to a curving road from roundabout can be excessively exciting! Loss of traction, rear and front drifting and had to back off to re-engage traction... Big jolt when traction re-engaged but no out of lane experiences fortunately. Best take care with one of these machines...

Yes Danny I was raised in the UK and now live in Canada. If I lived in the UK I would drive an Mx5 Miata or a Boxster for sure. Why? Most of everything else there is small.

Like most of the other posters say watch out for wet roads, ice patches and also gravel on roads.

I would get the Boxster most unsettled on wet roads, roads with puddles. Summer tires without much tread are a challenge. Don't drive on slick tires. This is a fun car.
No psm watch out. Even with psm watch out! I take it easy on corners especially snowy/ icy conditions. In summer with perfectly dry conditions I push it.

If you lose it on a corner and damage the car, it is expensive to fix. Take care!
G

This is so true for me. After a track/autocross session, I have no desire to push the limits on public roads.

I didn't work for me, but I really only play around in 2nd gear, and away from other people.

It's almost 4 years later! How have things gone for you Tomc88?

Well, he hasn't been here for 2.5 years, so you may not get a response. ;)