2004 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S from North America - Comments

Nothing but a dead battery from winter storage.

Firstly, she's not mine. I'm reviewing for my friend's father who purchased the car out of the U.S. last year.

Porsche being my favorite car brand, I was jumping for joy whilst wearing a perma grin on my face when I first even found out that this car was coming. It would be the first Porsche that I would ever be given a chance to drive. So, here goes.

I'd like to start off by talking about the sound. My friend started it up in the garage. It started up instantly with a snarl followed promptly by a hollow bark. The sound filled the space, pummeling my ear drums from all angles. Needless to say, I was left feeling weak in the knees and emotionally unstable.

So, when I did get my chance to take her down the road (windy road) and back, I felt like I had won the lottery. The keys were tossed to me, and I got myself settled in my bucket seat and took a few moments to become accustomed to my new surroundings. This sports car truly is an easy to live with daily commuter. It starts with the impeccable all around visibility. This car has zero blind spots! It looks like something carved by angels, and sounds like Zeus. The instruments inside are all simple, and within reach. If I had to sum it up, I'd call it the Volkswagen of the high end sports cars. Not to give it a cheap impression, but rather one that is convenient and efficient. It even has incredible fuel economy, getting just the same as their old 2001 Toyota 4Runner. That's 13L/100km, don't know MPG.

Anyways, on to the drive. As you can probably guess, this thing can take corners like nobody's business. The clutch is so easy to work with, it was as though I was driving my '02 Jetta. Blipping the throttle into a lower gear for a quick burst of speed is an absolute high.

My friend's dad purchased this particular model with the intent of driving it all year around (winter as well because of 4 wheel drive). Fat chance. The thing gets pampered better than any small child I know, let alone driven in winter.

Lastly, the running costs are not so bad from what I've been hearing. It doesn't drink gas like a Corvette, and the annual service is hardly a topic of discussion. Being insured for only 4 months out of the year maximum, she's not a difficult vehicle to live with at all. One year of ownership and no problems. I hope it stays that way and that they enjoy their Porsche for years to come. If anything else happens mechanically, I will share for the benefit of others' knowledge and interest. As for me, I have been inspired.

Toyota 4 runners don't get good gas mileage at all, so if that's what you got in this car I pity you. The Corvette gets 28-30mpg on the highway and the new ones will smoke this car all day long.

Well, your corvette can smoke the Porsche all it wants. At the end of the day its still a chevy that needs big displacement to make any kind of power. On top of that, everybody and their dog own one. Corvettes are to sports cars what honda civic hatches are to commuter cars. They are everywhere. Who cares? They make fast Cobalts too. Porsche will still be the more desirable brand.

I've always had a liking for Corvettes. But I've always had a passion for Porsches. From what I've heard, Porsches are reliable enough to drive all year-long. In fact, I think it's reliable enough to be your Honda Civic. (Not undermining the car, just merely commenting on reliability).

Personally, I've never owned a Corvette or a Porsche. But I do know something about cars. Corvettes have truly large engines. The Z06 had a 5700CC V8. The new ones have 7000CC V8s...at 600HP. A Porsche has a 3600CC Boxer 6, and weighs as much as a feather. So how can you seriously believe that the Vette can do 28-30 MPG? The Porsche can do 7.69Km/L. That's modest and what you could expect of a 3600CC car. But 28-30MPG? That's 12.68Km/L. So you're telling me that it has the same MPG as my 05 Honda CRV? (K20A4 model) Fat chance.

I've had two American cars, one with a 3.0 V6 and a 4.0 In-line 6. Both averaged 4.5 Km/L. American cars are not that frugal. Or reliable. Porsches on the other hand, are both.

PS: doesn't matter if you can go 0-60 faster, what matters is how fast you can go around corners in a track. American sports cars can't go around corners. The only proper sports cars they make are Mustangs and Corvettes. But a Porsche will still out maneuver a Corvette any day.

Dude... The Z06 vette has a similar weight and gets better gas mileage than a 911. Both great cars.

I don't even know why a 'Vette is being mentioned in the same breath as a Carrera 4S. The former is a muscle car that is all about straight-line speed. GM has made improvements in handling (but not in the cheap-cheap-cheap interior), but it's still a muscle car for middlebrow motorheads in the end. The 4S is all about the driving experience. So it's a few ticks "slower" than the 'Vette (if you can call 0-60 in 4.6 seconds "slow"). It's a far better built and engineered sports car.

The corvette has actually never been a muscle car. Muscle cars are the two door (most of the time), big engined counterparts of their regular 4 door same chassied cars. The corvette has always been a sports car. Yes, the handling used to be lacking to say the least, but it has since become a formidable opponent to Porsche's 911 line up. In fact, it is a direct competitor of the 911. That said, yes the Porsche is the far better engineered car. You pay for that though.

To me the Porsche is the plain unidentifiable one everywhere. We have a Viper and a Corvette and they are track capable 0-60 in under 4 seconds, and they do not break.