[DontCallMeShirley]

I’m taking European Delivery of a Cayman next week. Let me know if there is anything you’d like me to ask while I’m there (in addition to the ever-popular topic of the break-in period).

 

[CaymanMatt]

Very timely question!

Yes, please ask them why the instrument panel lights are not enabled at all times when using the "Automatic Headlight" setting. BTW, this is a serious question hoping for a serious and well thought out answer. If the answer is something like "because we are preventing drivers from driving without their headlights due to them thinking that they are already on since the panel lights are on", that fails logically. Why? Because the dashboard lights are also on when only the parking lights are enabled! That would be an even worse issue in my eyes yet this does not prevent that.

With that said, maybe it's just that I'm not a lifetime Porsche owner steeped in its idiosyncrasies. I'm new to the company and my preconceptions color my expectations. I will apologize in advance for that if that is the case!

I love my GTS. It's an amazing car and I will be happy I have this car for a long time to come. I can't wait for the breakin period to be done so we can start driving it more the way it wants to be driven!

 

[Viffermike]

Very timely question!

Yes, please ask them why the instrument panel lights are not enabled at all times when using the "Automatic Headlight" setting. BTW, this is a serious question hoping for a serious and well thought out answer. If the answer is something like "because we are preventing drivers from driving without their headlights due to them thinking that they are already on since the panel lights are on", that fails logically. Why? Because the dashboard lights are also on when only the parking lights are enabled! That would be an even worse issue in my eyes yet this does not prevent that.

With that said, maybe it's just that I'm not a lifetime Porsche owner steeped in its idiosyncrasies. I'm new to the company and my preconceptions color my expectations. I will apologize in advance for that if that is the case!

I love my GTS. It's an amazing car and I will be happy I have this car for a long time to come. I can't wait for the breakin period to be done so we can start driving it more the way it wants to be driven!

I hope you've read my response here to your thread on this. It's not a Porsche thing. It's not even a European car thing. And it's not nearly the issue that it is with some other makes.

Trust me when I say that this was a much, much larger issue in the BMW 2 Series. It solved it by incorporating all-digital gauges for 2018.

It's worth asking. It's just not appropriate to pigeonhole this as a Porsche thing -- particularly when its parent company, VW AG, is essentially the market leader in OEM gauge design and innovation. It knows what it's doing. BMW, on the other hand ... it can't even get the gauges on its motorcycles right.

 

[greywing]

I am inclined to vote with CaymanMatt on this one. Full disclosure: I don't yet have my Cayman (hopefully soon) so no personal experience. It is a Porsche thing if the hood over the tach casts sufficient shade to render it unreadable under certain lighting conditions during daytime operations. The cure seems so innocuous as to be unworthy of argument. Turn on a couple of LED's. JMO.

 

[Viffermike]

I am inclined to vote with CaymanMatt on this one. Full disclosure: I don't yet have my Cayman (hopefully soon) so no personal experience. It is a Porsche thing if the hood over the tach casts sufficient shade to render it unreadable under certain lighting conditions during daytime operations. The cure seems so innocuous as to be unworthy of argument. Turn on a couple of LED's. JMO.

I'll be succinct so as to minimize the thread hijacking:

My primary point is that it's not a Porsche thing. It's industry-wide. So don't make the mistake of blaming Porsche for not doing something -- illuminating analog gauges during daytime, which I'll add has been status quo for decades before Lexus started the blackout-gauge-when-off trend -- that other manufacturers do for different reasons, and still other manufacturers don't do, too.

Really: If you absolutely have to see the tach during daytime in certain places (tunnels, overpasses, running the Monte Carlo circuit ( ::rolls eyes :: ), what have you -- your lights should be on anyway.

 

[Porsche2018]

Yes, I have a question ask them provide the actual hp ratings for all their models and all production numbers for all their cars. I don't think I'm being unreasonable. We expect a full report upon your return; it's like a Holy Grail type mission.

 

[Tailwagger]

Dash lights on or off, IMO, the gray face/matte white tach of the S is indefensible. Particularly as there is an inordinate amount of reflections off the covers. For over half a century, Porsche has placed the tach as the largest dial in the center of the gauge cluster as, agree or disagree, it has been viewed as the most valued and therefore used instrument. Perhaps they persist simply out of tradition, much as with the LeMans key... but if you're going to make it your centerpiece of the stack it has to at least be readable. Instrumentation has always been well thought out. I find this very unPorsche-like.

As for questions, I'd love to know under what circumstances the ebrake is auto-released on start. Seems like sometimes its automatically releases, others, I have to pull the lever.

 

[CaymanMatt]

Dash lights on or off, IMO, the gray face/matte white tach of the S is indefensible. Particularly as there is an inordinate amount of reflections off the covers. For over half a century, Porsche has placed the tach as the largest dial in the center of the gauge cluster as, agree or disagree, it has been viewed as the most valued and therefore used instrument. Perhaps they persist simply out of tradition, much as with the LeMans key... but if you're going to make it your centerpiece of the stack it has to at least be readable....

Well said and my opinion exactly!!

 

[OldJedi]

OK, I have a question for the Porsche Team. Is there a reason why Porsche does not use perforated Alcantara material in their GTS seats so that they can be ventilated like leather seats? There are several other car makers that use the perforated (holes) Alcantara material in their seat inserts so it does exist and is used to make ventilated seats. It would make driving in hot climates a little more livable. Thanks in advance for checking.

 

[RussellHodgson]

Dash lights on or off, IMO, the gray face/matte white tach of the S is indefensible. Particularly as there is an inordinate amount of reflections off the covers. For over half a century, Porsche has placed the tach as the largest dial in the center of the gauge cluster as, agree or disagree, it has been viewed as the most valued and therefore used instrument. Perhaps they persist simply out of tradition, much as with the LeMans key... but if you're going to make it your centerpiece of the stack it has to at least be readable. Instrumentation has always been well thought out. I find this very unPorsche-like.

I personally love the tach in the middle - it is the only thing you really need when driving the car. So it naturally takes center stage. As for the gray color - I've never had an issue with it. It stands out compared to the other two dials, and again it should. At night it fades to black and you just see the numbers and the needle.


So my 2 cents is I love it and hope they never change it. It is another way these cars are special compared to every other car out there that has two dials - speedo on the left and tach on the right.

 

[ZuffenHouseRules]

@DontCallMeShirley

Good luck presenting this list in Zuffenhausen! Well-intentioned as it is.....

 

[Tailwagger]

I personally love the tach in the middle - it is the only thing you really need when driving the car. So it naturally takes center stage. As for the gray color - I've never had an issue with it. It stands out compared to the other two dials, and again it should. At night it fades to black and you just see the numbers and the needle.


So my 2 cents is I love it and hope they never change it. It is another way these cars are special compared to every other car out there that has two dials - speedo on the left and tach on the right.

No ones argued against the tach being in the center. The point is that the rationale behind that positioning is ease of reading at a glance. Its oxymoronic to then, particularly as standard, paint the gauge in low contrasting colors which make it more difficult to read.

If you like the look and your eyes are young and sharp enough, fine. Mine aren't. I'd be the first to agree the gray looks cool. But as standard, in a performance car, I start at functionality over looking cool. Hopefully the difference, between a serious implementation and a poor mans facsimile is obvious...

Cayman Gray Cool:

GT-3 RS Gray Functional: