I rented a Porsche Boxter S + Review

Joined
28 August 2003
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Well, I do have one thing to say that's a real set back, IT WAS AN AUTO STICK!

Damn! The people who invented auto stick should be hanged,

I didn't realize it was going to be an auto stick until after I started the paper work for the rent. The idea if an automatic sports car never crossed my mind, I was thinking what kind of an idiot would order a Porsche with an Auto stick! So I never thought to ask.

And when I drove the damn thing all my nightmares came true. Auto sticks are the worst thing you could ever do to a sports car, it totally annihilates anything far related to the word fun. And there is an extra bonus horrible setup that they call "Steptronic" I prefer to call it "stupidtronic" this gadget is supposedly capable of making an auto car behave like a manual. But take my word for it, it absolutely does not work. It takes forever to change gears and even when you stick to a gear it seems that the gearbox slips or something, in the end you never ever feel like you're in one gear, the gearbox insists on being all over the place, it so horrible that you never want to use that stupid option at all and you just stick to the normal less stupid full auto mode,

The rest of the car? Well here's what I have to say

Exhaust:
Horrible! It's very laud but unfortunately very ugly too, if you're thinking Ferrari F430 forget about it, now I know why people call the Porsche a jumped up VW beetle, that's exactly what runs in your head when you hear the sound of the engine tune. No wonder you never hear car videos playing the exhaust note of a Porsche like they do with Ferrari and Lamborghini. I drove though a tunnel and floored it a couple of times, it really is load, but not very good to listen to,

Interior:
It was a mix over here, some of the interior was really good and with good design and material quality. But other parts are so horrible, the center council between the two seats is made out of hard painted plastic and for the car I rented (2005) the paint was already removed, that made it look so cheap. But overall if you ignore this short coming I really loved the interior it wasn't bad at all except for the plastic center counsel. There was a stop watch at the center but no matter how many times I tried I could not get it to work.

Visibility:
It was a little bit on the cramped side, and the rear view mirror wasn’t very good, but I guess it's OK for a sports car. But when you fold down the roof, all things are great you can see everything, driving with the roof down is awesome.

Steering:
This is the best thing about this car. It was a little on the heavy side and a little tiresome for that, but I have to say that it's the best steering helm I have ever layed my hand on ever. It was really good and exact and felt like it was stuck to the ground. All cars should be like this.

Handling:
This is a mixed part of the car. The cars limits were so high up I never ever got to reach them. I never got to break the wheel adhesion so I have no idea how well it performs. It just grips and grips and grips, and to be honest I wasn't very much entertained. I was hoping for a little more excitement. I tried really hard to unsettle it but I couldn't. I could have tried harder but I was really afraid of getting caught or something. And this part is probably the most important part of my experience where I was thinking maybe a Mazda MX-5 is more fun than a Lamborghini because you will never ever find out how good a Lamborghini is on normal street so you will need a race track and what's all the idea of buying a fast road car if you only get to enjoy it on a track?



To sum it all up I think I have to say that it wasn't a very pleasant experience with the Porsche Boxter S, I don't know if it was the Auto stick that destroyed the experience or was it just being me not suitable as a person for a car of this caliber, or maybe it was just that I was not at the right place to find out how good it was, after all I was traveling in another country when I tried it out and I probably would have known some good streets to test it if I were here at home.


Please take it easy on the comments, I'm not a troll, but I just want to be honest of what I experienced without being sugarcoated and I very much appreciate any of your comments because now I'm loosing faith in sports cars. So please help in any comment you can give.
 
I totally agree!!! Automatic/tiptronic/steptronic whatever they call them.... They don't belong in a sports car!

Secondly, you don't really have any roads here in Dubai where you can test out the handling... The roads are all designed as freeways and even the roundabouts and on/off ramps... I can take them in my Honda Accord company car at 100-120 (km/h) without even so much as a squeal... Dubai is somewhere you can test out the top speed of a car with it's 8-10 lane straight freeways, but only when there is no traffic! Which these days is getting harder and harder!
 
You forgot to mention the excellent brakes! Or didn't you use them :wink:
 
The tiptronic is nice, it is just hard to drive correctly, when driven correctly, they can be amazing, I have had a lot of practice with the last 3 of my wifes cars being TIPs. I have to agree on the Boxster, as well as add the Cayman, which we wanted to buy...

I would be pissed off if I had to spend more than a few hours in this car... Too darn loud and busy, and I want to see the one that dynos at 295hp.... BS...

Len
 
OLDE GUY said:
You forgot to mention the excellent brakes! Or didn't you use them :wink:

well, I'd rather comment on the brake feel rather than the braking itself. Because in terms of braking alone of course it's going to be good at that with its huge low profile tyres and its low mass, this isn't a surprise at all, but what I didn't like about it is the brake feel rather than braking ability. THe brakes felt normal, nothing of the super asuring feel I was hoping for. I even had a surprise insident where I needed to slam the brakes sudenly, I didn't feel that the brakes were all that great. Maibe Porsche brakes are praised for braking ability rather than braking feel, because over all I wasn't astonished by them at all.
 
AU_NSX said:
Dubai is somewhere you can test out the top speed of a car with it's 8-10 lane straight freeways, but only when there is no traffic! Which these days is getting harder and harder!

I was going something like 80 to 120 Km/h the whole time. I was afraid of radar speed detectors I keep hearing of in Dubai Highways and I wasn't interested in get a violation
 
cmhs75 said:
....THe brakes felt normal, nothing of the super asuring feel I was hoping for. I even had a surprise insident where I needed to slam the brakes sudenly, I didn't feel that the brakes were all that great.....
This review is incredible - literally :smile:
 
OLDE GUY said:
This review is incredible - literally :smile:

you don't have to take my words as absolute, it's my own personal opinion, I think I am entitled to have that aren't I?

if you have something to tell me which I didn't now about super cars then that will be great, that's why I posted this review, not for the review itself but for the comments of people who are more experienced with super cars and could teach me a thing or two that I must of missed.

I don't figure my self as being absolutely right; I might be wrong based on what I don't know. But based on what I do now, this is my honest opinion and I want say it even if it is contradictory to what everybody else says.

As for credibility, I still have the rent papers with me but I don't have a scanner and I'm not in the mood to go though all the hassle to prove it to you.
 
I think it's hard to compare when using a rental model. They are usually beat to crap by the previous drivers and they also usually have the most basic model with no upgrades at all. It makes a big difference in feel when driving a used rental trust me. A while back, I was looking at vehicles to buy and test drove a couple that I found out were previously rentals. I next drove a non rental and didn't think it was the same car. Night and day.
 
cmhs75 said:
....that's why I posted this review, not for the review itself but for the comments of people who are more experienced with super cars and could teach me a thing or two.....
Not to put too fine a point on it, your review (automatic transmission aside) is not consistent with 95% of the published reviews of the Boxster S such as this abbreviated one from Road & Track which includes a video:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=7&article_id=2489&page_number=11

Or from Car & Driver:

http://www.caranddriver.com/bestcars/10364/10best-cars-luxury-sports-car.html

Or Canadian Driver:

http://www.canadiandriver.com/testdrives/06boxster_s.htm
 
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jlindy said:
A while back, I was looking at vehicles to buy and test drove a couple that I found out were previously rentals. I next drove a non rental and didn't think it was the same car. Night and day.

yeah, I kind of figured that out too, especially regarding the brake performance
 
OLDE GUY said:
Not to put too fine a point on it, your review (automatic transmission aside) is not consistent with 95% of the published reviews of the Boxster S such as this abbreviated one from Road & Track which includes a video:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=7&article_id=2489&page_number=11

Or from Car & Driver:

http://www.caranddriver.com/bestcars/10364/10best-cars-luxury-sports-car.html

Or Canadian Driver:

http://www.canadiandriver.com/testdrives/06boxster_s.htm

I know that, I'm just trying to figure out why? I read car magazines a lot and I didn't pick the Boxter for nothing, I knew what I was looking for,

maybe it is the reason mentioned before regarding the car being a rental and all rental cars are somehow bad. Or maybe it's just me not understanding the idea of a sports car, I don't know,

BTW. I testdrove my friends Audi A6 and I loved it. It had a wierd gearbox which actually had absolutly no gears at all, it uses belts in stead. If you operate it in simulated manual mode, it really is nice. Now I want to test out an F1-Peddal shift to compare with other gear boxes and see if it's time to move on from manual gears.
 
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